hearITfirst

The above contraption, aside from looking really uncomfortable, is the latest advance in electroactive polymer artificial muscle technology. Using soft acrylic or silicon layered with carbon grease, EPAMs contract like muscle tissue when current is applied — making ‘em just the ticket for use in UC Davis’s Eyelid Sling. Billed as the “first-wave use of artificial muscle in any biological system,” the device is currently letting cadavers (and, eventually paralyzed humans) blink — an improvement over current solutions for the non-blinking, which include either transplanting a leg muscle into the face or suturing a small gold weight into the eyelid. Look for the technology to become available for patients within the next five years.

Source: http://archfaci.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/12/1/30?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Tollefson&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT

When we believe two events are connected — such as drinking caffeine and getting a burst of energy — we tend to compress time, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

“People sometimes feel the effect of product consumption almost instantaneously — within an unrealistically short time after consumption,” writes author David Faro (London Business School). “Such placebo-like effects are typically attributed to conditioning, wishful thinking, or expectations about product efficacy. The present research shows such effects can also occur because, under some conditions, people are prone to underestimate the time-to-onset of products they have used in the past.”

In one of the author’s experiments, participants first listened to music and later took part in a creativity task. Half of the participants were then told the music they had listened to earlier enhanced creativity; the rest were not given that information. “When asked to recollect the amount of time that elapsed between listening to music and the creativity task, the first group thought that the time was significantly shorter,” Faro writes. “Hence, even though both groups had (on average) the same experience with the music and with the creativity task, believing that the two things were related made participants connect them more closely in time.”

In a second experiment, participants first chewed a stick of gum and then took part in an attention-related task. Later in the study they were told that chewing gum increases attention. In that case, participants who considered only the gum as a cause for increased attention gave shorter estimates of time-to-onset than other participants who also considered another contributing cause: practice with the task. On a later occasion, the participants said they experienced the gum’s effect earlier and they were less interested in trying a competing product.

“These experiments show that our recollections of how long products took to have an effect on us when we have used them in the past are intertwined with our beliefs in their causal role,” the author concludes.

Journal Reference:

David Faro. Changing the Future by Reshaping the Past: The Influence of Causal Beliefs on Estimates of Time-to-Onset. Journal of Consumer Research, In print August 2010/online Jan 2010

About two thirds of individuals experience at least one déjà vu in their lifetime, and the reporting of déjà vu experiences have gone up over the last few years, suggesting cultural acceptance of this phenomenon (Brown, 2004). Déjà vu experiences typically decrease with age, increase with higher education and income, happen more to people who travel, can recall their dreams, and have liberal political and social beliefs.

The phenomenon of déjà vu may arise biologically as same sensory information travels using several different neuronal pathways to higher information processing centers. If there is even a slight delay of information from one of these neuronal pathways, then it becomes possible for déjà vu experience to take place. This is because even a slight delay of information would lead to brain interpreting one piece of information as being independent of the other, even though originally these different pieces of information were part of the same sensory experience. This slight delay of information in neuronal pathways can result in déjà vu experiences.

The phenomenon of divided perception where someone’s attention is subjectively split in two parts can also lead to déjà vu experience. Inattentional blindness, for e.g., where people miss seeing something that is in front of them, can lead to divided attention (Mack, 2003).

If you enter someone’s home for the first time and look at the staircase while your attention is distracted by being in conversation with someone else, your brain may have processed some sensory information about the staircase but due to lack of attention, you are not yet aware of it. But when your conversation is over and you look at the staircase again, you might get a feeling of seeing this staircase before, which you did, but are simply unaware of it because your attention before was somewhere else.

Déjà vu can also be evoked when there are only few elements in the present situation that are familiar, but people generalize this feeling of familiarity to the whole situation rather than just those one or two elements. For e.g., the lamp in your friend’s new apartment may be the same one that used to be at your grandmother’s house, and the painting is the same one that was in your aunt’s home; but since you are unable to remember these details, you generalize the feeling of familiarity to the whole apartment and get a déjà vu experience.

Reference:

Brown, A.S. (2004). The déjà vu illusion. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 13, 256-259.

Mack, A. (2003). Inattentional blindness: Looking without seeing. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 5, 180-184.

The first direct capture of a spectrum of light from a planet outside the solar system has been obtained, in what is a landmark discovery in the search for extraterrestrial life, say astronomers.

The light was snared from a giant planet that orbits a bright young star called HR 8799 about 130 light years from Earth, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) says in a press release.

HR 8799 has a mass about one and a half times that of the sun and hosts a planetary system “that resembles a scaled-up model of our own solar system,” according to the ESO.

The target was the middle of three planets - initially spotted in 2008 - that are between seven and 10 times the mass of Jupiter.

“The spectrum of a planet is like a fingerprint. It provides key information about the chemical elements in the planet’s atmosphere,” says Markus Janson, who led a team who uncovered the spectrum, which appears in the Astrophysical Journal.

“With this information, we can better understand how the planet formed and, in the future, we might even be able to find tell-tale signs of the presence of life.”

According to ESO, the result “represents a milestone in the search for life elsewhere in the Universe.”

Sifting out data

Until now, astronomers have been able to get only an indirect light sample from an exoplanet, or planetary bodies found beyond our solar system.

They do this by measuring the spectrum of a star twice - while an orbiting exoplanet passes in front of it, and again while the planet is directly behind it.

The planet’s spectrum is then calculated by subtracting one light sample from another.

But the method can only be used if the orientation of the exoplanet’s orbit is exactly right, and only a tiny fraction of exoplanetary systems fall into this category.

HR 8799 is thousands of times brighter than its orbiting planet, which means that sifting out the spectrum was a technical exploit.

“It’s like trying to see what a candle is made of, by observing it from a distance of two kilometres when it’s next to a blindingly bright 300-watt lamp,” says Janson.

They used an infrared detector on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, located in Paranal, Chile.

A total of 424 exoplanets have now been spotted since the first, 51 Pegasi b, unofficially called Bellerophon, was detected in 1995, according to the website the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/01/14/2792081.htm?site=science&topic=latest

A new study suggests that the inner sense of our cardiovascular state, our “interoceptive awareness” of the heart pounding, relies on two independent pathways, contrary to what had been asserted by prominent researchers.

The University of Iowa study was published online this week in the journal Nature Neuroscience by researchers in the department of neurology in the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and the graduate programs in neuroscience and psychology.

The researchers found that, in addition to a pathway involving the insular cortex of the brain — the target of most recent research on interoception — an additional pathway contributing to feeling your own heartbeat exists. The second pathway goes from fibers in the skin to most likely the somatosensory cortex, a part of the brain involved in mapping the outside of the body and the sense of posture.

The UI team also confirmed the widely held belief by researchers that the insula and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) regions of the brain are important, but not necessary, for a person to feel his or her own heartbeat. The insula helps with such higher-order functions as self-awareness, while the ACC is believed to regulate heart rate.

“What’s shown in this study is there are probably two pathways that can participate in the conscious representation of these sensations,” said David Rudrauf, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurology and radiology and director of the laboratory of brain imaging and cognitive neuroscience. Rudrauf is lead author of the study along with Sahib Khalsa, M.D., Ph.D., who received medical and doctoral degrees from the UI and is currently working on his psychiatry residency at UCLA.

Daniel Tranel, Ph.D., a professor of neurology and psychology and director of the postdoctoral residency program in clinical neuropsychology, and Justin Feinstein, a graduate student in clinical neuropsychology, are co-authors on the study, titled “The pathways of interoceptive awareness.”

The UI researchers studied an extremely rare neurological patient named “Roger” who has virtually complete bilateral insula and ACC damage, but who has the bilateral primary somatosensory cortex intact. They also studied 11 healthy age-matched male comparison participants.

Roger has been studied in the UI laboratory for 15 years. His brain damage occurred in 1980 following an episode of herpes simplex encephalitis. With Roger, Rudrauf and his colleagues wanted to see if the regions of the brain he’s missing are really necessary to feel your own heartbeat.

The researchers injected the participants with a synthetic form of adrenaline to get their hearts to shoot up about 25 beats a minute. They then had the participants turn a dial to track their moment-to-moment experience of the intensity of their heartbeat sensations.

As it turned out, Roger felt his own heartbeat just like the healthy comparison participants in a dose-response fashion.

“It was a delayed reaction, but he was still feeling it,” Feinstein said.

This development suggested that the insula and ACC were not necessary, strictly speaking, for interoceptive awareness of heartbeat sensations.

The researchers suspected that Roger was feeling his heartbeat because his brain was using a different pathway, relying on the impact of the heartbeat on the chest wall and pulsations in blood vessels stretching the skin. So they applied a topical lidocaine anesthetic to the location on the skin where participants reported feeling the maximal heartbeat sensation.

They then repeated the injection procedure to increase each participant’s heart rate. Roger again demonstrated heart rate increases identical to the healthy comparison participants. However, under anesthetic, he reported that he no longer felt his heartbeat. Conversely, the healthy comparison participants’ ability to feel their heartbeats was unaffected by the anesthetic.

“There are two pathways. One conveys the heartbeat signal from the surface of the chest wall and blood vessels pulsating under the skin, to the somatosensory cortex, so whenever you feel your heart pounding it’s stimulating that pathway,” Feinstein said. “Roger is able to feel his heart beating because that area of his brain — the somatosensory cortex — is still there. When you get rid of that sensation by anesthetizing the skin, you need areas such as the insular cortex in order to feel the heart pulsing from deep within. That’s what is missing in Roger and that’s where the healthy person is able to feel it.”

As emphasized by Rudrauf, interoceptive awareness, including the awareness of our cardiovascular states, is key in emotion, feeling and the sense of self. The pathways revealed by this study could be involved in everything from the pounding of the heart during a state of panic to the feeling of a “broken heart” during a state of grief.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091102172041.htm

Currently opening up HM’s brain as we speak!: http://neurosciences.ucsd.edu/

In 1953 an anonymous patient by the name of HM underwent one of the most drastic and educational surgeries that neuroscientists and psychologists had ever seen. One doctor Scoville removed a section of HM’s brain no larger than a fist, but encompassing “the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the entorhinal and perirhinal cortices.” (Schaffhausen).

Due to this loss, especially of the hippocampus as research would suggest, HM lost the ability to form new memories, because he lacks the ability to consolidate the new information he is taking in. HM suffered, and suffers still from retrograde and anterograde amnesia. However, despite HM’s lack of declarative memory and long-term memory consolidation, HM is still retains his long-term memory, short-term memory, and procedural memory consolidation. It is his lack of long-term memory consolidation, however, that seems to hinder the development of a new life. Even in 2004, researchers noted that HM thought Eisenhower was still president and that he still looked the way he used to look (a full head of dark brown hair) in the 1950s. (Koenigshofer). So why is it that HM can remember how to tie his shoes, how to play a modern computer game, and even remember that Eisenhower was the president in 1953? This phenomena gave researchers a fantastic look into the workings of the human mind, the areas of the brain associated with memory, and those areas functions. At this point, although the brain and memory remain an area of mystery to researchers and psychologists, there are different forms of memory and those different forms are regulated and run by different parts of the brain.

Today, the most prominent model for memory is the Atkinson-Shiffren model. This model involves a multi level memory storage system containing sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Sensory memory deals with the retention of sensory information such as auditory and visual stimulus after the stimulus has ceased. Sensory memory is very short in duration; however, it allows us to recall very vivid and detailed images, tastes, smells, feelings (touch), and sounds. Yet, since the capacity of the sensory memory is so small these memories are very quite fleeting. After several seconds these sensory memories are generally lost. It is interesting to note, however, that we are able to recall some of the sensory information from years ago, this is due to the encoding (transfer of information) of sensory information from the sensory memory to the next form of memory, the short-term memory. If they are worth keeping, such as the sights from your trip to Venice, Italy, some sensory information may also be encoded into a more lasting long-term memory. George Sperling, who did experiments on iconic or sensory memory in the 1960s, noted that iconic memory (sensory memory) was a sort of buffer allowing sensory information more time to be recorded into a more permanent categorical manner (Sperling). However, it is also important to note that our brains do filter out a great deal of sensory information, and for it to even make it into the sensory memory we have to actually give the stimuli “attention.” This is the process by which we “decide” what information we will take note of, and what information we will put aside and disregard. It is also interesting to notice that it is the responsibility of the sensory memory to identify stimulus information enabling us to construct meaning (Romero and Kemp 241-255).

The second form of memory, and one with a longer retention duration is short-term memory. This form of memory is also called the working memory due to the fact that the short-term memory is where we pull information from when we use it. However, short-term memory has quite a small capacity and can only hold around 7-9 chunks of information of varying sizes. (Koenishofer). Retention time is around 30 seconds, so if information isn’t processed into long-term memory, it is lost. Learned information from our years and years of schooling is actually stored in the long-term memory, but used in the short-term memory state.

Generally though rehearsal methods, short-term information is transferred into the long-term memory. Romero and Kemp note that it is the long-term memory that “makes learning and intelligence possible” (241-255). The long-term memory has a seemingly infinite capacity, and due to this capacity we’re able to call upon various pieces of information when we need it, even information from our childhoods. The long-term memory also has a set of subsystems, one of which was previously discussed in the section on HM. More specifically, declarative and procedural memory are part of the long-term memory subsystem. Due to HM’s case (losing declarative memory consolidation but retaining procedural memory consolidation) it seems that these two subsets are also a result of different parts of the brain. Other subsets included in the long-term memory system are implicit and explicit memory, semantic and episodic memory. However, it is the declarative and procedural memory subsets that will be discussed in HM’s case.

Again, after HM’s surgery he was still able to remember events before the surgery. Additionally, he retained normal functioning of his short-term memory. He additionally was able to learn new skills such as playing an instrument or a computer game and he was able to retain that information. What he wasn’t able to do, was learn new information. He wasn’t able to recall newly learned facts, events, and the like. He wasn’t able to consolidate information from the short-term memory into the long-term memory. This distinguishes short-term from long-term memory, and gives support to the fact that the hippocampus isn’t involved in short-term memory function.

The hippocampus, one of the areas removed by the Scoville surgery in 1953 is believed to be responsible for memory recognition, and the storage of factual and intentional information into long-term memory (Memory, Learning, and Intelligence). The latter being the declarative memory aforementioned. Additionally the amygdala, another part of the brain that was removed in the HM case, is responsible for emotional memory, memory of fear, and memory consolidation. Conversely, the Basal Ganglia and Cerebellum are responsible for the creation and storage of implicit memory (skills, habbits, and simple classical conditioned responses). The posterior pariental cortex is responsible for the storage capacity of short-term memory. The prefrontal cortex, for the working memory or short-term memory. (Memory, Learning, and Intelligence). These physiological discoveries made in part by HM’s surgery help us to explain what happened to HM’s memory system as well.

Since both the hippocampus and amygdale were removed, it serves to explain why exactly he no longer has the ability to make new memories or consolidate information into long-term memory. However, this would raise the question as to why HM can recall old memories, after all the hippocampus is gone and is responsible for the functions needed for long-term memory. Some research has hinted at the fact that the role of the hippocampus in the long-term retention of memory is reduced as time passes. While many functions of the memory are still a mystery, this suggestion would explain why HM can recall how he looked in 1953 and who was president, but not be able to create new memories of what he did the night before. It seems that the HM case proves that the hippocampus is responsible for the formation of long-term memories, but not the retrieval of them.

To further explain HM’s case of procedural memory we look to the Basal Ganglia and Cerebellum. These two area remained in-tact in HM’s brain and thus explain why he could record these procedures in his memory, even if he had no recollection of ever doing it before. Additionally, the prefrontal cortex, another part of the brain left in-tact after surgery, provides the functioning necessary to keep the short-term or working memory in-tact.

Although HM’s surgical procedure seemed to freeze him in the 1950s, it is important to note that the seizures (the reason for the surgery) did cease with the procedure. Additionally, the research side effect of the surgery is the increased amount of information researchers and psychologists have been able to draw from both the surgery and further follow-up studies on HM. While it was a tragedy for so many memory processes to be hindered with the removal of parts of his brain, HM’s case has changed the way researchers and psychologists see memory and memory research.

Sources:

Koenigshofer, Kenneth. “LECTURE: Introduction to Memory .” University of Maryland University. Web Tycho, Maryland. 2004.

“Memory, Learning, and Intelligence.” University of MarylandUniversityCollege Web Tycho. .

Romero, Anna, and Steven Kemp. Psychology Demystified. New York City: McGraw Hill, 2007.

Schaffhausen, Joanna. “The Day His World Stood Still.” Brain Connection. 2007. Scientific Learning. 15 May 2007 .

Sperling, G. “A model for visual memory tasks”. Human Factors, 5, 19-31. (1963).

A defendant’s fMRI brain scan has been used in court for what is believed to be the first time.

Brain scan evidence that the defense claimed shows the defendant’s brain was psychopathic was allowed into the sentencing portion of a murder trial in Chicago, Science reported Monday. Brian Dugan, who had been convicted of the rape and murder of a 10-year-old, was sentenced to death, despite the fMRI scans.

“I don’t know of any other cases where fMRI was used in that context,” Stanford professor Hank Greely told Science.

While the possibility of using fMRI data in a variety of contexts, particularly lie detection, has bounced around the margins of the legal system for years, there are almost no documented cases of its actual use. In the 2005 case Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court allowed brain scans to be entered as evidence received at least one amicus brief based in part on brain scans showing that adolescent brains work differently than adult brains. But it’s not clear that the Court used that evidence in making its decision.

According to Greely, “the Court didn’t rely on, or even mention, that evidence in support of its conclusion.”

In any case, that’s a far cry, though, from using fMRI to establish the truth of testimony or that specific structures within an individual defendant’s brain are legally relevant.

It’s difficult to tell whether the Dugan case will be a watershed moment in the use of brain scan evidence in court, or if the evidence impacted the decision in this case.

“The penalty phase of a capital case … is a special situation where the law bends over backwards to allow the convicted man to introduce just about any mitigating evidence,” Greely noted.

Earlier this year, Wired.com reported on another attempt to use fMRI evidence in which Greely’s MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project was involved. In that case, fMRI evidence was entered into a juvenile sexual abuse case in San Diego, but was withdrawn without being admitted.

The debate over whether or not to use fMRI evidence has several dimensions. The first is whether reliable evidence can be obtained. On that score, fMRI appears to perform well. In a very small number of studies, researchers have identified lying in study subjects with accuracy ranging from 76 percent to over 90 percent. The real doubts begin to surface about whether the data will be good outside the laboratory in real settings.

“When you build a model based on people in the laboratory, it may or may not be that applicable to someone who has practiced their lie over and over, or someone who has been accused of something,” Elizabeth Phelps, a neuroscientist at New York University told Wired.com in March. “I don’t think that we have any standard of evidence that this data is going to be reliable in the way that the courts should be admitting.”

Even if the data isn’t perfect, some law theorists say it might be on par with traditional lie detection carried out by human beings, if not better.

“It’s not clear whether or not a somewhat reliable but foolproof fMRI machine is any worse than having a jury look at a witness,” Brooklyn Law School’s Edward Cheng said. “It’s always important to think about what the baseline is. If you want the status quo, fine, but in this case, the status quo might not be all that good.”

Others like Greely argue that until studies are conducted under realistic settings, the technology should stay out of the courtroom.

One thing seems clear: If brain scan data has even a remote change of helping a defendant’s case, defense lawyers will keep to try to enter the evidence into court.

Sources: http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=neuroethics_pubs , http://www.wired.com/politics/law/commentary/circuitcourt/2006/03/70411?currentPage=all

Source: http://www.ecouterre.com/6805/color-changing-temp-sensitive-textiles-flu-masks/samrt-swine-flu-mask-5/