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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Welcome to the Ultimate Neuroscience Lab: Your Smartphone

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time six sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try resources plus a fun illu­sion. #1. Top 10 Men­tal Health Inno­va­tions to Watch: Spe­cial SciAm/ WEF report Hop­ing you enjoy the great series over at Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can and espe­cial­ly #7, titled Wel­come to the Ulti­mate Neu­ro­science Lab: Your Smartphone,…

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Five thoughts to think about when thinking about the speed of thought

As inquis­i­tive beings, we are con­stant­ly ques­tion­ing and quan­ti­fy­ing the speed of var­i­ous things. With a fair degree of accu­ra­cy, sci­en­tists have quan­ti­fied the speed of light, the speed of sound, the speed at which the earth revolves around the sun, the speed at which hum­ming­birds beat their wings, the aver­age speed of con­ti­nen­tal drift…. These…

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Growing backlash against the FDA approval of unproven Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm, by Biogen

ICER Issues State­ment on the FDA’s Approval of Adu­canum­ab for Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (Insti­tute for Clin­i­cal and Eco­nom­ic Review): The Insti­tute for Clin­i­cal and Eco­nom­ic Review (ICER) believes that the FDA, in approv­ing adu­canum­ab (Aduhelm™, Bio­gen) for the treat­ment of Alzheimer’s dis­ease, has failed in its respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect patients and fam­i­lies from unproven treat­ments with…

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