amygdala
The neuroscientist who wants us to be nicer to psychopaths
Abigail Marsh has found that many psychopaths don't want to be cruel and uncaring, and argues that they deserve support to help them get there Think of a psychopath and you probably picture someone dangerous, someone whose ruthless self-interest leads to great harm for others and considerable success for themselves. Perhaps unsurprisingly, while only around 1 per cent of people in the general population have psychopathy, roughly 1 in 5 men in prison show signs of it, and research has also found a link between corporate leadership and psychopathic traits . But just as it is painful to know a psychopath, it isn't necessarily fun to be one either. Abigail Marsh, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Georgetown University in Washington DC, studies those with psychopathic traits who largely lead ordinary lives among us. She has uncovered something surprising: many don't want to be psychopathic at all. Researchers are still honing the precise definition, but psychopathy is characterised by callousness, a lack of empathy, glib social charm and impulsivity.
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What happens to your body during a panic attack?
What happens to your body during a panic attack? 'Just breathe' is more than just a nice saying. Up to one third of people experience at least one panic attack in their lifetimes. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. It happens all at once--your heartbeat becomes a jackhammer, your body closes in on you like a corset.
Is fear contagious?
Fear isn't just personal--it spreads through sight, smell, and even subconsciously. Horror movies may be scarier in a crowded movie theater. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. We've all felt it: heart racing, palms sweating, stomach clenching--the iron grip of fear. Whether it's the sudden threat of an out-of-control vehicle or the nervous wait before a job interview, we all have felt fear's sudden grip.
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When neural implant meets multimodal LLM: A dual-loop system for neuromodulation and naturalistic neuralbehavioral research
Wang, Edward Hong, Wen, Cynthia Xin
We propose a novel dual-loop system that synergistically combines responsive neurostimulation (RNS) implants with artificial intelligence-driven wearable devices for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and enabling naturalistic brain research. In PTSD Therapy Mode, an implanted closed-loop neural device monitors amygdala activity and provides on-demand stimulation upon detecting pathological theta oscillations, while an ensemble of wearables (smart glasses, smartwatches, smartphones) uses multimodal large language model (LLM) analysis of sensory data to detect environmental or physiological PTSD triggers and deliver timely audiovisual interventions. Logged events from both the neural and wearable loops are analyzed to personalize trigger detection and progressively transition patients to non-invasive interventions. In Neuroscience Research Mode, the same platform is adapted for real-world brain activity capture. Wearable-LLM systems recognize naturalistic events (social interactions, emotional situations, compulsive behaviors, decision making) and signal implanted RNS devices (via wireless triggers) to record synchronized intracranial data during these moments. This approach builds on recent advances in mobile intracranial EEG recording and closed-loop neuromodulation in humans (BRAIN Initiative, 2023) (Mobbs et al., 2021). We discuss how our interdisciplinary system could revolutionize PTSD therapy and cognitive neuroscience by enabling 24/7 monitoring, context-aware intervention, and rich data collection outside traditional labs. The vision is a future where AI-enhanced devices continuously collaborate with the human brain, offering therapeutic support and deep insights into neural function, with the resulting real-world context rich neural data, in turn, accelerating the development of more biologically-grounded and human-centric AI.
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Psychiatry/Psychology (1.00)
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Neurology (1.00)
Deep Learning-based Classification of Dementia using Image Representation of Subcortical Signals
Ranjan, Shivani, Tripathi, Ayush, Shende, Harshal, Badal, Robin, Kumar, Amit, Yadav, Pramod, Joshi, Deepak, Kumar, Lalan
Dementia is a neurological syndrome marked by cognitive decline. Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are the common forms of dementia, each with distinct progression patterns. EEG, a non-invasive tool for recording brain activity, has shown potential in distinguishing AD from FTD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Previous studies have utilized various EEG features, such as subband power and connectivity patterns to differentiate these conditions. However, artifacts in EEG signals can obscure crucial information, necessitating advanced signal processing techniques. This study aims to develop a deep learning-based classification system for dementia by analyzing scout time-series signals from deep brain regions, specifically the hippocampus, amygdala, and thalamus. The study utilizes scout time series extracted via the standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) technique. The time series is converted to image representations using continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and fed as input to deep learning models. Two high-density EEG datasets are utilized to check for the efficacy of the proposed method: the online BrainLat dataset (comprising AD, FTD, and healthy controls (HC)) and the in-house IITD-AIIA dataset (including subjects with AD, MCI, and HC). Different classification strategies and classifier combinations have been utilized for the accurate mapping of classes on both datasets. The best results were achieved by using a product of probabilities from classifiers for left and right subcortical regions in conjunction with the DenseNet model architecture. It yields accuracies of 94.17$\%$ and 77.72$\%$ on the BrainLat and IITD-AIIA datasets, respectively. This highlights the potential of this approach for early and accurate differentiation of neurodegenerative disorders.
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- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Neurology > Dementia (1.00)
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Neurology > Alzheimer's Disease (1.00)
Artificial neural networks model face processing in autism
Many of us easily recognize emotions expressed in others' faces. A smile may mean happiness, while a frown may indicate anger. Autistic people often have a more difficult time with this task. But new research, published June 15 in The Journal of Neuroscience, sheds light on the inner workings of the brain to suggest an answer. And it does so using a tool that opens new pathways to modeling the computation in our heads: artificial intelligence.
Brain and Emotion
The question must have fascinated everyone? A very simple question -- how and why does Emotions come from? The question can be looked from various aspect s-- there is a perspective of psychology, we can look through the prism of cognitive science and can also try to find our answer through our "limited" knowledge of our Brain. Human brain is a very complex organ. It controls and coordinates everything from the movement of your lips to your heart rate.
Scientists Watch a Memory Form in a Living Brain
Imagine that while you are enjoying your morning bowl of Cheerios, a spider drops from the ceiling and plops into the milk. Years later, you still can't get near a bowl of cereal without feeling overcome with disgust. Researchers have now directly observed what happens inside a brain learning that kind of emotionally charged response. In a new study published in January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team at the University of Southern California was able to visualize memories forming in the brains of laboratory fish, imaging them under the microscope as they bloomed in beautiful fluorescent greens. From earlier work, they had expected the brain to encode the memory by slightly tweaking its neural architecture. Instead, the researchers were surprised to find a major overhaul in the connections.
Steven Soderbergh's "Kimi" Is a Tech Thriller That Packs a Potent Outrage
Steven Soderbergh, who has become admirably prolific in the age of streaming, is a director of paradox. He positions himself as a classical professional who can take on any subject and personalize it with his own style and range of obsessions. But, regardless of his manifest skills and pleasures, the quality of his work fluctuates widely, depending on his connection to the subject matter. Of all current Hollywood filmmakers, Soderbergh is the most physical, the one who comes the closest to the painterly ideal of touching the image. He has long been doing his own camera work (under the pseudonym of Peter Andrews) and also his own editing (as Mary Ann Bernard), and the way that he engages with his subject evokes a bodily music, something like dance--a cinematic swing.
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Scientists have captured the brain making memories for the first time
A team of USC researchers has filmed the live brains of zebrafish to show how the brain processes and stores memories in a ground-breaking study which could offer hope for new PTSD treatments. With the help of a tailor made microscope, researchers were able to record how brain cells of the fish - which are transparent when young - 'lit up like Times Square on New Year's Eve' during the experiment. The study, which mapped the changes in the brain, made the surprising find that making memories appears to create new synapses - connections between neurons -or made them disappear entirely. The widely accepted theory that learning and memories strengthen synapses was not apparent. 'For the last 40 years the common wisdom was that you learn by changing the strength of the synapses but that's not what we found in this case,' co-author, director of the Informatics Division at the USC Information Sciences Institute and computer scientist Prof. Carl Kesselman said in a press release.
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Psychiatry/Psychology (1.00)
- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Neurology (0.94)