At the Alcor facility in Arizona, more than 150 disembodied heads reportedly lie in cryogenic chambers, preserved in hopes that future medical advances can bring these brains back to life in new bodies. Given that scientists still cannot revive a cryogenically preserved brain, why do patients bother with cryonics at all? Why couldn’t these heads … Read more
An Australian startup is building what could become one of the world’s first “biological data centers” — augmenting silicon computing chips with those seeded with living human neurons. Cortical Labs, the company behind the effort, has opened its first facility in Melbourne, Australia, and is planning a larger site in Singapore. Instead of racks filled … Read more
Going to space is harsh on the human body, and as a new study from our research team finds, the brain shifts upward and backward and deforms inside the skull after spaceflight. The extent of these changes was greater for those who spent longer in space. As NASA plans longer space missions, and space travel … Read more
In the Hollywood blockbuster “Inception” (2010), a dedicated team of “dream extractors” is hired to alter a CEO’s decision-making by manipulating his dreams. In the movie, this feat involves a private jet and liters of sedative gas — but a new study suggests they could have achieved a similar effect with only some steel-drum jingles … Read more
Scientists have identified a “dial” in the human brain that ramps up when we explore a new area — and the finding could help us understand why getting lost is often an early symptom of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Imagine you’re walking a well-worn route home, but you accidentally take a wrong turn. It … Read more
You may assume that children have nightmares about monsters under the bed, while adults dream about stressful events like deadlines. But is there any scientific evidence showing that dreams change as we age? Although there are plausible mechanisms for how aging could cause dreams to change over time, very little research has explored the topic. … Read more
Both Salvador Dalí and Thomas Edison are said to have used dreams to stoke their creative process. To spark new ideas, the men would let themselves drift off to sleep for just a few moments, and then wake up and note the dreamlike visions they had on the brink of unconsciousness. But you may have … Read more
Half-forgotten memories can be resurrected using “mental time travel,” a new study suggests. The research, published Monday (July 28) in the journal PNAS, showed that a person can rejuvenate their fading memories by recalling the emotions and thoughts they had when they first stored that memory. In fact, the researchers found that the refurbished memories … Read more
Memories of places “drift” across the brain as they are carried by different sets of neurons over time, a new study in mice suggests. Historically, neuroscientists thought that memories of locations and features of our immediate environment were encoded by specific “place cells.” These place cells, located in a key memory center called the hippocampus, … Read more
You can use up all the storage on your phone or max out your computer’s drive, but can you use up all the memory space in your brain? Despite how you might feel before an exam or after a sleepless night before a work deadline, neuroscientists say that for a typical, healthy brain, memory capacity … Read more
