On neurons, lifelong learning, meditation, humility, “empty brain calories” and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 12 fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and open questions–and the beau­ti­ful image above. #1. “With this image I want to illus­trate the large advances made in imag­ing meth­ods over the past cen­tu­ry, allow­ing mod­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists to look at neu­rons in ways that Cajal could have only dreamed of.” –…

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Neuralink: Thumbs up or down so far?

Elon Musk’s Neu­ralink is neu­ro­science the­ater (MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review): Rock-climb with­out fear. Play a sym­pho­ny in your head. See radar with super­hu­man vision. Dis­cov­er the nature of con­scious­ness. Cure blind­ness, paral­y­sis, deaf­ness, and men­tal ill­ness. Those are just a few of the appli­ca­tions that Elon Musk and employ­ees at his four-year-old neu­ro­science com­pa­ny Neu­ralink believe…

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Q&A with Rick Hanson on Neurodharma, brain science, personal practice and well-being

Psy­chol­o­gist and neu­ro­science expert Rick Han­son stud­ies the men­tal resources that pro­mote resilience, from calm and grat­i­tude to con­fi­dence and courage. Accord­ing to Han­son, the coro­n­avirus cri­sis is expos­ing some of our psy­cho­log­i­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, and remind­ing us how impor­tant it is to nur­ture our social and emo­tion­al strengths. In his new book, Neu­rod­har­ma, Han­son writes about how we can…

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