Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. 'Memory manipulation is inevitable': How rewriting memory in the lab might one day heal humans Professor and neuroscientist Steve Ramirez, shown working with brain samples, is exploring the science of memory manipulation. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . Scientists have found that memories are not static records but dynamic processes that change the brain's wiring each time they are recalled.

In the past 20 years, mice with glowing cables sprouting from their heads have become a staple of neuroscience. They reflect the rise of optogenetics, in which neurons are engineered to contain light-sensitive proteins called opsins, allowing pulses of light to turn them on or off. The method has powered thousands of basic experiments into the brain circuits that drive behavior and underlie disease. As this research tool matured, hopes arose for using it as a treatment, too. Compared with the electrical or magnetic brain stimulation approaches already in use, optogenetics offers a way to more precisely target and manipulate the exact cell types underlying brain disorders.

The brain goes through five distinct phases in life, with key turning points at ages nine, 32, 66 and 83, scientists have revealed. Around 4,000 people up to the age of 90 had scans to reveal the connections between their brain cells. Researchers at the University of Cambridge showed that the brain stays in the adolescent phase until our early thirties when we peak. They say the results could help us understand why the risk of mental health disorders and dementia varies through life. The brain is constantly changing in response to new knowledge and experience - but the research shows this is not one smooth pattern from birth to death.

Whether or not we grow new brain cells as adults has been the subject of an ongoing and often contentious debate. Now, evidence suggests that we can. This could help answer one of neuroscience's most controversial questions and has sparked some speculation that the process could be exploited to treat conditions like depression and Alzheimer's disease. New neurons form via a process called neurogenesis in children, as well as in adult mice and macaques. This involves stem cells repeatedly giving rise to so-called progenitor cells that proliferate to form immature neurons that later become fully developed. Prior studies on human adults have identified stem cells and immature neurons in the hippocampus.

Humanity is on the verge of being replaced by a race of superhuman hybrids with powers only dreamt about in movies. Herbert Sim, a millionaire tech investor and futurist in London, has begun pouring his wealth into the study of transhumanism - the enhancement of humans through science and technology. At that point, Sim claims that the human race will essentially be obsolete as these real life'X-Men' make it impossible for regular people to match their abilities. The brainwaves are projected onto a computer which then reads and turns them into actions. Sim said it's one of the first steps in'upgrading' humanity, allowing this new race of mutants to live longer and defeat diseases.

Researchers have found a soft and squidgy water-rich gel is not only able to play the video game Pong, but gets better at it over time. The findings come almost two years after brain cells in a dish were taught how to play the 1970s classic, a result the researchers involved said showed "something that resembles intelligence". The team behind the latest study said that while they were inspired by that work, they were not claiming their hydrogel was sentient. "We are claiming that it has memory, and through that memory it can improve in performance by gaining experience," said Dr Vincent Strong, the first author of the research, from the University of Reading. Strong said the work could offer a simpler way to develop algorithms for neural networks – models that underpin AI systems including Chat GPT – noting that at present they are based on how biological structures work.

In a story ripped from the opening scenes of a sci-fi horror movie, scientists have bridged a critical gap between the biological and electronic. The study, published in Nature Electronics (summarized in Nature), details a "hybrid biocomputer" combining lab-grown human brain tissue with conventional circuits and AI. Dubbed Brainoware, the system learned to identify voices with 78 percent accuracy. It could one day lead to silicon microchips fused with neurons. Brainoware combines brain organoids -- stem-cell-derived clusters of human cells morphed into neuron-filled "mini-brains" -- with conventional electronic circuits.

Scientists have unveiled a hybrid computer made of electronics and human brain-like tissues called'Brainoware.' It's part of a growing field called biological computing. The new technology features a brain'organoid' made of human stem cells which sit atop a circuit board that feeds the organoid information and reads its responses. This biological-electronic hybrid was able to identify people's by voice and make predictions about a complex math problem. The researchers claim the discovery represents a significant step toward hybrid computers, which merge man and machine to perform complex computing problems using a fraction of the power needed by conventional computers.

Scientists have developed tiny robots using human cells that could one day patrol our bodies, searching for and healing diseased cells and tissue. So-called'anthrobots,' assembled from human cells can repair damage to brain cells in a dish, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Advanced Science. Scientists at Tufts University in Massachusetts developed the SIZE robots to heal diseases, but foresee the technology repairing cell and tissue damage from conditions such as Alzheimer's. These bots - whose name means'human robots' - were made from human airway cells. To build the anthrobots, scientists started with samples of the cells that line human lungs.

You can 3D-print nearly anything: rockets, mouse ovaries, and for some reason, lamps made of orange peels. Now, scientists at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have printed living neural networks composed of rat brain cells that seem to mature and communicate like real brains do. Researchers want to create mini-brains partly because they could someday offer a viable alternative to animal testing in drug trials and studies of basic brain function. At the start of 2023, the US Congress passed an annual spending bill pushing scientists to reduce their use of animals in federally funded research, following the signing of the US Food and Drug Administration's Modernization Act 2.0, which allowed high-tech alternatives in drug safety trials. Rather than testing new drugs on thousands of animals, pharmaceutical companies could apply them to 3D-printed mini-brains--in theory.