Summary: Dive into this week’s hottest neuroscience discoveries from Neuroscience News.
Discover how our survival affects visual perception, delve into the role of interoception in self-awareness, and see how an antihistamine offers hope for myelin repair in multiple sclerosis. Explore the role of artificial intelligence in transforming silent speech into text and learn how psychedelics unlock new windows of learning in the brain.
source: Neuroscience News
Welcome to Neuroscience News’ five most fascinating articles of the week!
These are the stories that captured the imagination of our readers over the past seven days.
#5: The Adaptive Eye: Survival dictates our visual perception
Our view of the world is not always accurate, but it is often the most useful for our survival.
Experiments involving changing context and rewards in visual tasks show that our visual perception – all the way down to the level of the retina – adapts to maximize personal benefits.
This evidence suggests that cognitive biases can influence not only our decision-making but also our basic perception, contributing to our understanding of human biases and helping to fine-tune AI perception algorithms.
#4: Interoception: A Gateway to the Neuroscience of Self-Awareness
Interoception, our innate ability to sense internal bodily states, plays a critical role in our conscious experiences and has become a focal point of neuroscientific research.
This article presents key insights into interoception and how this ‘sixth sense’ shapes our emotions, decisions and even our self-identity.
We are also investigating how faulty interoception contributes to various mental health conditions such as depression and eating disorders, opening doors to more effective treatment methods and improved well-being.
#3: Antihistamines hold hope for myelin repair in multiple sclerosis
A recent study has identified an over-the-counter antihistamine, clemastine, as a promising brain repair agent in multiple sclerosis (MS).
Thanks to a new MRI scanning technique, scientists can observe and measure the effects of clemastine on myelin levels in the brain.
This study provides the first-ever evidence of brain repair in a chronic neurological condition by MRI, setting the benchmark for future research into myelin repair therapy.
#2: From thought to text: AI converts silent speech into written words
A cutting-edge AI system, the Semantic Decoder, is able to convert brain activity into continuous text. This revolutionary system could be a game-changer for people who can’t speak due to conditions like stroke.
Using non-invasive fMRI scan data, it transforms thoughts into text without the need for surgical implants. While not perfect, this AI system successfully captures the essence of a person’s thoughts about 50% of the time.
#1: Psychedelics unlock learning windows in the brain
Researchers have discovered a unique characteristic of psychedelic drugs: their potential to reactivate “critical periods” in the brain when it is most sensitive to learning signals from the environment.
Usually associated with the development of skills such as language learning, psychedelics can reopen these periods for varying lengths of time.
This discovery may have therapeutic applications for conditions such as stroke and deafness, while revealing new molecular mechanisms affected by psychedelics.
Thanks for reading, and be sure to stop by daily for your latest breaking news in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence.
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Author: Neuroscience News Releases
source: Neuroscience News
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