On brain folding and fitting 86 billion neurons inside our 1400 cc crania

The human brain has been called the most com­plex object in the known uni­verse. And with good rea­son: It has around 86 bil­lion neu­rons and sev­er­al hun­dred thou­sand miles of axon fibers con­nect­ing them. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the process of brain fold­ing that results in the brain’s char­ac­ter­is­tic bumps and grooves is also high­ly com­plex. Despite decades of…

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FDA-approved, Cybin-sponsored clinicial trial to measure ketamine’s impact on the brain via Kernel Flow neuroimaging helmet

Kernel’s Brain-Imag­ing Hel­met Approved For Clin­i­cal Tri­al On Patients Using Ket­a­mine (Forbes): The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion has approved a clin­i­cal tri­al using a neu­roimag­ing hel­met made by Los Ange­les-based Ker­nel to track what hap­pens in the brain when a human takes a psy­che­del­ic dose of ketamine.

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Study: Depression affects visual perception … making it more accurate

Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion (press release by Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki): Researchers spe­cialised in psy­chi­a­try and psy­chol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki inves­ti­gat­ed the effects of depres­sion on visu­al per­cep­tion. The study con­firmed that the pro­cess­ing of visu­al infor­ma­tion is altered in depressed peo­ple, a phe­nom­e­non most like­ly linked with the pro­cess­ing of infor­ma­tion in the…

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Large study to study impact on early brain development of financial assistance to low-income mothers

___ Does grow­ing up poor harm brain devel­op­ment? (The Econ­o­mist): “Plen­ty of evi­dence sug­gests that grow­ing up poor, liv­ing through these kinds of scrapes, has a detri­men­tal impact on child devel­op­ment. Chil­dren from rich fam­i­lies tend to have bet­ter lan­guage and mem­o­ry skills than those from poor fam­i­lies. More afflu­ent chil­dren usu­al­ly per­form bet­ter in…

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Understanding the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”

From Macro to Micro: A Visu­al Guide to the Brain (IEEE Spec­trum) In the human brain, high­­er-lev­­el infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing occurs in the neo­cor­tex, neur­al tis­sue that forms the out­er lay­er of the cere­bral cor­tex. In its intri­cate folds, brain cells work togeth­er to inter­pret sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion and to form thoughts and plans. The neo­cor­tex is…

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