Collaborate Disseminate
Stress monitoring has always been a tricky business. As it turns out, there is a somewhat reliable way of monitoring stress by measuring how much cortisol, the so-called “stress hormone,” the human body produces. With that in mind, bioengineering researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas decided to make …read more
Philosophers have long mused about the concept of a “brain in a jar”, but thus far, it’s remained the preserve of science fiction rather than reality. However, after reading some scientific papers, [Justin] wanted to attempt the feat himself, so set out to grow some human neurons on an electrode …read more
Continue reading Growing Human Neurons Hooked Up To Electrodes
Eyes are windows into the soul, the old saying goes. They are also pathways into the mind, as much of our brain is involved in processing visual input. This dedication to vision is partly why much of AI research is likewise focused on machine vision. But do artificial neural networks …read more
Continue reading Artificial Neural Networks Help Hack Biological Counterparts
Most posts here are electrical or mechanical, with a few scattered hacks from other fields. Those who also keep up with advances in biomedical research may have noticed certain areas are starting to parallel the electronics we know. [Dr. Rajib Shubert] is in one such field, and picked up on the commonality as well. He thought it’d be interesting to bridge the two worlds by explaining his research using analogies familiar to the Hackaday audience. (Video also embedded below.)
He laid the foundation with a little background, establishing that we’ve been able to see individual static neurons for a while …read more
Continue reading Reverse-Engineering Brains, One Neuron At A Time
By giving bees visual math quizzes, scientists discovered that these insects know a null set when they see one. Continue reading Honey Bees Are the First Insect Known to Grasp the Concept of Zero
When it comes to building a neural network to simulate complex behavior, Arduino isn’t exactly the first platform that springs to mind. But when your goal is to model the behavior of an organism with only a handful of neurons, the constraints presented by an Arduino start to make sense.
It may be the most important non-segmented worm you’ve never heard of, but Caenorhabditis elegans, mercifully abbreviated C. elegans, is an important model organism for neurobiology, having had its entire nervous system mapped in 2012. [Nathan Griffith] used this “connectome” to simulate a subset of the diminutive nematode’s …read more
Continue reading Nematoduino: A Roundworm Neural Model on an Arduino
It tells us something important about cancer. Continue reading Cell Death Might Be Reversible, and Scientists Are Trying to Find Out Why
Neuroscientists isolate the neural circuitry behind ‘anti-hunger.’ Continue reading The Neurons That Would Starve You
There is a cancer for every other thing in the human body, but why not the heart? Continue reading Why Heart Cancer Isn’t a Thing
New research uncovers a mechanism behind the success of transcranial direct current stimulation. Continue reading Taking on Depression via Electrodes and the Brain’s Secret Calcium Signals