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New 3D brain map 50 times more detailed than previous maps
A better understanding of the brain may help us better understand thought, behavior and neurological disorders. An improved tool to facilitate this—a new 3D map of the human brain—has recently been released. It’s hoped the map might reveal novel insights into brain function and perhaps help find cures for related diseases.
The new 3D map, called BigBrain, was developed by researchers from Germany and Canada and is 50 times more detailed than previous brain maps. In the past, atlases of the brain were limited by MRI resolution which was about one millimeter. But BigBrain has a resolution of under 20 microns, or thinner than a human hair.
As you might expect, it was no simple matter getting that kind of resolution.
“First, the brain was scanned using a magnetic resonance scanner then imbedded into paraffin and then cut with a microtome for large sections into more than 7,400 sections,”Katrin Amunts of the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in Jülich, Germany told Sciencemag.org. After sectioning the brain, researchers began the time and labor intensive process of section imaging, cell body staining, digital removal of anomalies and the precise reconstruction of the brain sections to create a final 3D image.
The finished brain atlas will serve as a detailed reference and provide scientists their closest look at brain structures associated with processes such as disease, cognition and emotion. It is also hoped that BigBrain will help integrate the increasing molecular and genetic data being generated.
Though BigBrain was built from one person—a deceased 65-year-old woman—the team hopes to generate more models in the future to better represent brain-to-brain structural variability.
BigBrain is part of the European Human Brain Project. The Human Brain Project was funded earlier in 2013, receiving a staggering one billion Euros over 10 years from the European Commission. This collaborative project involves 80 institutions, seeks to map the connections of the human brain, and eventually simulate an entire brain digitally.
More recently, the Obama administration launched the BRAIN Initiative—or Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies and also commonly referred to as the Brain Activity Map Project—to chart the activity of each of the 100 billion neurons in the human brain. This initiative, based upon the Human Genome Project, has secured funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and DARPA ($110 million) and private research institutes including the Allen Institute for Brain Science, HHMI, the Salk Institute and the Kavli Foundation ($122 million) so far.
Although BigBrain does not reveal gene expression differences or brain connectivity as in the other major ongoing projects, it is a technological advance that can be immediately used by researchers everywhere while the other well-funded projects are progressing. Furthermore, it may eventually be used together with the other projects for more realistic brain modeling and simulation.
The large amounts of money invested in these new research approaches for the brain are very encouraging and promise much in terms of advancing treatments for brain diseases—a critical area made even more important in light of our aging population and increasing rates of associated diseases.
Source: http://singularityhub.com/2013/07/17/new-3d-brain-map-50-times-more-detailed-than-previous-maps/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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