Collaborate Disseminate
When an obese person really needs to lose weight, gastric bypass surgery is sometimes performed – but it’s quite an invasive procedure. An experimental new implant, however, may produce similar results with much less fuss.Continue ReadingCategory: Medi… Continue reading Externally powered implant designed to treat obesity
New research out of Stanford University suggests erasing memories associated with opioid addiction could eliminate the triggers that lead to drug cravings and relapse into addiction. A fascinating animal study has demonstrated that by blocking a specif… Continue reading Erasing drug reward memories points to new approach for addiction
Some animals, like mice and birds, are able to bring their body temperature and metabolism way down to conserve energy, going into a sleep-like state called torpor. Now researchers have identified the brain cells that trigger this state, showing they c… Continue reading Scientists induce “suspended animation” state in mice and rats
What drives pain and how it might be prevented in humans are complex questions demanding complex answers, but scientists at Duke University have come across a rather simple one, comparatively speaking. The researchers have discovered that a small regio… Continue reading Single off-switch found to dampen multiple pain centers in the brain
What drives pain and how it might be prevented in humans are complex questions demanding complex answers, but scientists at Duke University have come across a rather simple one, comparatively speaking. The researchers have discovered that a small regio… Continue reading Single off-switch found to dampen multiple pain centers in the brain
Some bacteria are known to inject toxins into host cells using a syringe-like appendage. Past research has found that we might be able to hijack that as a new drug delivery system, and now scientists from the Max Planck Institute have developed a way t… Continue reading Bacterial attack system hijacked and controlled with light
The human brain is still a far more powerful computer than anything it itself has created so far. It’s no wonder then that engineers have recently focused on trying to emulate the structure of the brain with artificial synapses. Now, a team o… Continue reading Brain-mimicking chip uses different-colored light to learn and forget
When auditory cells are modified to receive light, do you see sound, or hear light? To some trained gerbils at University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany under the care of [Tobias Moser], the question is moot. The gerbils were instructed to move to a different part of their cage when administrators played a sound, and when cochlear lights were activated on their modified cells, the gerbils obeyed their conditioning and went where they were supposed to go.
In the linked article, there is software which allows you to simulate what it is like to hear through a cochlear implant, or you …read more
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
A group of researchers used optogenetics and brain implants to make mice ignore sex and food. Continue reading Watch a Human Mind-Control a Cyborg Mouse