This image could be hung in a gallery, but it started life as a tiny chunk of a woman’s brain. In 2014, a woman undergoing surgery for epilepsy had a tiny chunk of her cerebral cortex removed. This cubic millimeter of tissue has allowed Harvard and Google researchers to produce the most detailed wiring diagram … Read more
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, almost all of us have at least trace amounts of methylmercury—the form of mercury we tend to encounter most—in our bodies due to its sheer prevalence in the environment. However, most of the time these levels are too low to result in any health problems. While some of … Read more
There’s a lot to like about brain-computer interfaces, those sci-fi-sounding devices that jack into your skull and turn neural signals into software commands. Experimental BCIs help paralyzed people communicate, use the internet, and move prosthetic limbs. In recent years, the devices have even gone wireless. If mind-reading computers become part of everyday life, we’ll need … Read more
The company’s study included 74 participants with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s who received either the Cognito stimulation or a sham device that acted as a placebo. Subjects were asked to use the headset for an hour every day for six months. Compared with the placebo group, those who got the Cognito stimulation showed a 77 … Read more
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Whenever you’re actively performing a task—say, lifting weights at the gym or taking a hard exam—the parts of your brain required to carry it out become “active” when neurons step up their electrical activity. But is your brain active even when you’re zoning out on … Read more
Some Neuralink rivals, such as Precision Neuroscience, are developing implants that sit on top of the brain, or in the case of Synchron, a stentlike device thatâs inserted into a blood vessel and sits against the brain. These devices aim to allow paralyzed people to communicate using digital devices by reading electrical patterns generated from … Read more
Elon Musk said on the social media platform X on Monday that the first human patient has received a brain implant developed by his company Neuralink. After years of delays, Neuralink started recruiting patients for a clinical trial in the fall after receiving approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and a hospital ethics … Read more
In September, Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink announced the much-anticipated news that it would start recruiting volunteers for a clinical trial to test its device. Known as a brain-computer interface, or BCI, it collects electrical activity from neurons and interprets those signals into commands to control an external device. While Musk has said he ultimately … Read more
“This is pretty remarkable,” says Rachel Davis, an associate professor of psychiatry and neurosurgery at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who researches DBS but was not involved in the new study. Pearson’s seizures were occurring in a part of the brain called the insula, so her neurosurgeon, Ahmed Raslan, thought he could target … Read more
McKee, who is also the director of neuropathology for Veterans Affairs Boston, began studying the brains of former NFL players 15 years ago. She couldn’t believe what she saw: big lesions in the crevices of the brain, dotted with abnormal protein clusters. A huge Packers fan, McKee has watched a lot of football games. But, … Read more