NEWRON Vol V, Issue XV
Natan Davidovics
Hopkins Neuroengineering web site: http://neuroengineering.bme.jhu.edu
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Enjoy,
Natan Davidovics
NEWRON Publishing Corporation
A team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students has created a system that pairs an EEG headset with a 3-D theatrical flying harness, allowing users to “fly” by controlling their thoughts. The “Infinity Simulator” will make its debut with an art installation in which participants rise into the air – and trigger light, sound, and video effects – by calming their thoughts.
“Instead of you sitting and controlling gaming content, it’s a whole system that can control live elements — so you can control 3-D rigging, sound, lights, and video, it’s a system for creating hybrids of theater, installation, game, and ride.”
This Is a Blood-Powered Heart Turbine
The implantable device would function like a mini hydroelectric generator that uses your blood instead of water. As long as your heart is beating, the turbine will generate an endless supply of power. Eventually, this technology could replace battery-powered pacemakers which have a limited life span.
Scientists Afflict Computers with Schizophrenia to Better Understand the Human Brain
The researchers used a virtual computer model, or “neural network,” to simulate the excessive release of dopamine in the brain. They found that the network recalled memories in a distinctly schizophrenic-like fashion.
The hypothesis is that dopamine encodes the importance-the salience-of experience. When there’s too much dopamine, it leads to exaggerated salience, and the brain ends up learning from things that it shouldn’t be learning from.
The results bolster a hypothesis known in schizophrenia circles as the hyperlearning hypothesis, which posits that people suffering from schizophrenia have brains that lose the ability to forget or ignore as much as they normally would. Without forgetting, they lose the ability to extract what’s meaningful out of the immensity of stimuli the brain encounters. They start making connections that aren’t real, or drowning in a sea of so many connections they lose the ability to stitch together any kind of coherent story.