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Scientists crack a piece of the neural code for learning and memory!
Zador's team trained rats to associate specific tones with a reward. Changes in the tone signaled the animal to look for a reward either on the left or right side of a training box.The team later deciphered the neural code with which the animals encoded memories of these decisions. Even after the animals had died, the scientists could "read the minds of these rats." Credit: Image courtesy of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: researchers slice a brain into thin little sections and, just by measuring the properties of specific neurons, they can determine what an organism learned before it died. In fact, this sort of mind reading has become a reality. In work published in Nature, researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) describe how postmortem brain slices can be "read" to determine how a rat was trained to behave in response to specific sounds. The work provides one of the first examples of how specific changes in the activity of individual neurons encode particular acts of learning and memory in the brain.
"Neuroscientists have previously identified brain areas involved in learning something," says CSHL Professor Anthony Zador, who led the team of researchers on this current work. "But we wanted to drill down further and identify how changes at specific connections encode a particular behavioral response."
To do this, the team focused on how rats translate sound cues into behavior. The researchers trained rats to associate a specific tone with a reward. Changes in the tone -- like the difference between a tuba and a flute -- signaled the animal to look for the reward either on the left or right side of a training box.
In previous work, the team discovered that activity in a specific population of neurons was crucial for animals to perform the task. This neuronal population transmitted information from one auditory brain region (the auditory cortex) to another (the auditory striatum).
In the current work, the team measured the strength of the connections between these two populations of neurons, as animals learned the task. "We found that there was a gradient in activity across the auditory striatum that corresponded to whether the animal was trained to go left or right for their reward." explains Zador.
Based upon this information, the team reasoned that they might be able to use postmortem brain slices to "predict" (obviously, in retrospect) how these or other rats had been trained. As Zador describes, "We were amazed that in all cases, our predictions -- left or right -- were correct. We had deciphered a tiny piece of the neural code with which the animal encoded these memories. In essence, we could read the minds of these rats."
"For decades scientists have been trying to map memories in the brain," said James Gnadt, Ph.D., a program director at the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). "This study shows that scientists can precisely pinpoint the synapses where certain memories are expressed."
According to Zador, the results are likely to be broadly applicable to other senses and parts of the brain. "We are excited to apply this method to more complex forms of learning, and to other sensory systems, like vision."
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
- Qiaojie Xiong, Petr Znamenskiy, and Anthony Zador. Selective corticostriatal plasticity during acquisition of an auditory discrimination task. Nature, March 2015 DOI: 10.1038/nature14225
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150302123115.htm
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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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