NEWRON Volume VI, Issue I
NEWRON Admin
NeuroEngineering Weekly Review of News
After a hiatus, NEWRON is back! The core of NEWRON remains the same; each week you can expect a short summary of three recent, compelling neuroengineering research articles or papers with the link provided for further exploration.
In addition, the goal of this reboot is to implement new ideas to improve the NEWRON newsletter and actively foster a NEWRON community. The first two of these new ideas are the promotion of the great neuroengineering work conducted by NEWRON subscribers and the maintenance of a helpful list of upcoming conferences or events.
Giving a talk or presenting a poster at a conference? Publishing a paper? Doing something else NEWRON subscribers might be interested in? Send the information of the conference/journal/etc in addition to an abstract or summary to newro...@gmail.com and be included in the next NEWRON Issue. Down the road there will be a member-accessible database of abstracts/summaries of work produced by the NEWRON community.
If you are attending a conference but not giving a presentation or if you know of a public event that would be of interest (like a TED Talk), still send the information to keep the Upcoming Events segment up-to-date.
That's all the updates for now, start sending in those abstracts!
Enjoy,
Mike Batista
NEWRON Editor and Manager
Reviews
This is your brain on 'Sesame Street'
In a new study, Jessica Cantlon, a cognitive scientist at the University of Rochester and her colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at brains of children during a normal educational activity—watching Sesame Street—to get a better of picture of how the brain changes as it develops reading and math skills. “It is not currently possible to measure the real-world thought process that a child has while observing an actual school session. However, if it could be done, children’s neural processes would presumably be predictive of what they know,” the authors write in the study, published in the journalPLoS Biology.
Read more:
PLOS Biology Link:
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001462
A new type of nerve cell found in the brain
Scientists at Karolinska Institutet, in collaboration with colleagues in Germany and the Netherlands, have identified a previously unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. The nerve cells regulate cardiovascular functions such as heart rhythm and blood pressure. It is hoped that the discovery, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, will be significant in the long term in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in humans.
Read more:
http://www.expertsvar.se/4.fe857aa117caa42683800010.html?prid=19423
Paralyzed woman moves prosthetic arm with her brain
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh led by neurobiologist Andrew Schwartz say the prosthetic arm is the most advanced mind-controlled prosthetic ever built. The robotic limb – called Hector – was used to restore some motor control to a woman suffering from a degenerative neuromuscular disease that has left her paralyzed below the neck. The motorized right arm, with its five-fingered and fully-jointed hand, allows the woman to pick up and hold objects, and to feed herself. The arm movement is driven solely by electrical impulses from the woman's brain.
Read more:
http://www.voanews.com/content/paralyzed-woman-moves-prosthetic-arm-with-her-brain/1569664.html