Rats' electric souls
Posted on: February 28, 2013 - 7:23pm
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Rats' electric souls
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/scientists-link-two-rats-brains-a-continent-apart-20130301-2f9yi.html
extract:
Creating a "superbrain" of connected minds, scientists have enabled a rat to help a fellow rodent while the animals were a continent apart but connected through brain electrodes.
With electrodes imbedded in its cortex, a rat in a research institute in Natal, Brazil sent signals via the internet to a counterpart at a university lab in Durham, North Carolina, US, helping the second animal to get a reward.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/28/brains-rats-connected-share-information
quote:
"I'm in two minds about this."
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Issued by University of Leicester Press Office on 22 February 2013
Small groups of brain cells store concepts for memory formation– from Luke Skywalker to your grandmother
Concepts in our lives may be stored in a group of corresponding neurons for creating and recalling memories, according to research involving University of Leicester neuroscientist
Concepts in our minds – from Luke Skywalker to our grandmother - are represented by their own distinct group of neurons, according to new research involving a University of Leicester neuroscientist.
Recent experiments during brain surgeries have shown that small groups of brain cells are responsible for encoding memories of specific people or objects.
These neurons may also represent different variations of one thing – from the name of a person to their appearance from many different viewpoints.
The researchers believe that single concepts may be held in as little as thousands of neurons or less – a tiny fraction of the billion or so neurons contained in the medial temporal lobe, which is a memory related structure within the brain.
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2013/february/small-groups-of-brain-cells-store-concepts-for-memory-formation201...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck