Case 1:  A consultant geriatrician, while working as house officer, treated a patient with chest pain and severe pulmonary oedema in the middle of night. She made an entry in the notes, demonstrating successful initial memory acquisition. She does not remember going to bed that night. On the ward round on the following morning the patient was pointed out to her but she had no recollection of seeing the patient or writing the note.

Case 2: A senior house officer, now a consultant neurologist, went to bed in the early hours after a busy shift. She was woken soon afterwards to manage a patient with cardiac arrest. The resuscitation was complex and included an intracardiac adrenaline injection. She documented events in the medical notes immediately, demonstrating successful initial memory acquisition. She returned to bed. She was told on the morning ward round that the patient was well and had his breakfast following the cardiac arrest. She was startled by this information, as she had no recollection of the previous night's events.

Case 3: A consultant microbiologist who was working on a night shift as a house officer clerked in a patient at 11:00 pm and continued to work thereafter throughout the night. On the morning ward round when the patient was pointed out to her she had no recollection of seeing or managing him.

Case 4: A paediatrician reported memory loss for a complex decision made and instructions given over the phone. While working as a registrar he went to bed in the early hours of morning when on call. He was woken by a call about a complex patient. He went to the ward soon afterwards to find out that the trolley was laid out for Swan Ganz catheterisation. Although he was assured that he had done so, he did not remember giving instructions to prepare the trolley.

While the resulting memory gaps can reasonably be described as resulting from a ‘transient amnesic state', the evidence from the medical notes suggest that this phenomenon reflects a novel form of accelerated long-term forgetting (Elliott, Isaac, & Muhlert, 2014), whereby a memory for events is acquired normally but then decays more rapidly than usual.

90% loss of electrical current between skin and scalp -György Buzsáki #CNS2016

— CNS News (@CogNeuroNews) April 5, 2016

90% charge loss skin-skull using TES. Need 5 mA to affect spiking, FDA approved 2mA, Buzsáki first hand 4mA hard to tolerate. #CNS2016

— Renee M. Symonds (@DatabaseDragons) April 5, 2016

We recorded TES-generated field potentials in human cadavers and anesthetized rats. Stimulation was applied by placing Ag/AgCl EEG electrodes over the external surface of the skull.  ... We also measured the shunting effect of the skin during transcutaneous stimulation. In addition to our earlier results, we found that the skin dramatically reduced the generated intracranial electric fields, and alters its geometry.

“Using a transgenic mouse expressing G-CaMP7 in astrocytes and a subpopulation of excitatory neurons, we find that tDCS induces large-amplitude astrocytic Ca²⁺ surges across the entire cortex with no obvious changes in the local field potential. Moreover, sensory evoked cortical responses are enhanced after tDCS. These enhancements are dependent on the alpha-1 adrenergic receptor and are not observed in IP₃R2 (inositol trisphosphate receptor type 2) knockout mice, in which astrocytic Ca²⁺ surges are absent. Together, we propose that tDCS changes the metaplasticity of the cortex through astrocytic Ca²⁺/IP₃ signalling.”  (Monai et al., 2016)

These techniques [TMS and tCS] have collectively become known as “non-invasive brain stimulation.” We argue that this term is inappropriate and perhaps oxymoronic, as it obscures both the possibility of side-effects from the stimulation, and the longer-term effects (both adverse and desirable) that may result from brain stimulation. 

Our systematic review does not support the idea that tDCS has a reliable neurophysiological effect beyond MEP amplitude modulation... This work raises questions concerning the mechanistic foundations and general efficacy of this device – the implications of which extend to the steadily increasing tDCS psychological literature.

...We are concerned about the validity of the conclusions for various reasons. Since this paper reviews a whole field of research and comes to debatable assumptions, it is especially important that basic quality requirements are fulfilled, which is unfortunately not the case.

First, this review suffers from numerous conceptual flaws and misunderstandings. Second, the work contains relevant design problems, several errors and many incompletely or incorrectly cited data.
. . .

In summary, as shown by the examples given above, this review suffers from important flaws with regard to citing and interpreting available literature, non-transparent, and in many cases erroneous data aggregation, citation of study specifics, and discussion of the results.

...but what is reported appear to me not so “new” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Miranda+PC+2006). Of course, if the findings obtained by Buzsáki are confirmed, you may think that tDCS has an effect nearly homeopathic on the brain. Certainly, these type of research is the most needed: systematic studies of animal and human models, comparable in terms of the amount of current that stimulates the brain. Luckily, they are coming out, or, well, we know they exist and we are waiting to read them, as for Buzsáki.  [read more]

...many in the field already accepted that the 1 or 2 milliamps the methods use don't directly trigger firing. It can make neurons more likely to fire or form new connections, he and others believe. Unlike techniques that rely on magnetic fields or higher current to actively trigger neurons ... tDCS and tACS likely subtly alter ongoing brain activity, Bikson says. Using cadavers to test these methods is a “complicated choice” because dead tissue conducts electricity differently from living tissue, he adds.

...has found that applying 2 milliamps of current to a person’s scalp for just 30 minutes can double the speed at which they learn a game in which players must detect a concealed “threat”... Several labs have replicated those results, he says, adding that the idea that 10% or less of the current gets through to the brain is not new, and doesn’t necessarily mean the methods are ineffective. “If it works, you know 10% is enough,” Clark says.

"The real question: Is the current which does reach the brain sufficient to perform this ‘extremely weak coupling’ in neural systems?" This is exactly what we investigated. Since we failed to entrain neuronal activity (local fields) repeatedly in the living human brain with the commonly used current intensities, whereas we were very successful in rodents using stimulation electrodes directly on the bone, we looked for answers. The cadaver is the next best possible thing to a living human brain if one wants to know how the currents are distributed inside the brain. We found that most current is lost by the shunting effect of the extracranial tissue. As a result, the voltage gradients that we measured in the brain were way below the values we found in rodents needed to affect population neuronal oscillations. The weak electric fields were just too weak. Of course, there is the principle of stochastic resonance and thus some super weak effect can have some effects occasionally - we cannot and do not want to deny it, but cannot prove it either, therefore cannot rely on it as an explanation for the reported behavioral effects of TES.

Thync tried to replicate some basic tDCS findings on cognition but could not do so. Dr Tyler now believes that tDCS may not directly stimulate the brain at all but instead modulates cranial nerves in the skull...

“In the NFL group, baseline neuropsychological assessments showed 92% of players had decreased general cognitive proficiency, 86% had decreased information processing speed, 83% had memory loss, 83% had attentional deficits, and 85% had executive function impairment.”

The Truth?

The Scans

“All NFL players were male, while 56% of the control group were women.”

. . .
Retired players who are diagnosed with Level 1 Neurocognitive Impairment (i.e., moderate cognitive impairment) are eligible to receive further medical testing and/or treatment (including counseling and pharmaceuticals) for that condition during the ten-year term of the BAP or within five years from diagnosis, whichever is later.

Monetary awards are available for the diagnosis of ALS, Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, Level 2 Neurocognitive Impairment (i.e., moderate Dementia), Level 1.5 Neurocognitive Impairment (i.e., early Dementia) or Death with CTE (the “Qualifying Diagnoses”). A Qualifying Diagnosis may occur at any time until the end of the 65-year term of the Monetary Award Fund.

Aphantasia: How It Feels To Be Blind In Your Mind

I just learned something about you and it is blowing my goddamned mind.
. . .

Here it is: You can visualize things in your mind.

If I tell you to imagine a beach, you can picture the golden sand and turquoise waves. If I ask for a red triangle, your mind gets to drawing. And mom’s face? Of course.
. . .

I don’t. I have never visualized anything in my entire life. I can’t “see” my father’s face or a bouncing blue ball, my childhood bedroom or the run I went on ten minutes ago. I thought “counting sheep” was a metaphor. I’m 30 years old and I never knew a human could do any of this. And it is blowing my goddamned mind.

To my astonishment, I found that the great majority of the men of science to whom I first applied, protested that mental imagery was unknown to them, and they looked on me as fanciful and fantastic in supposing that the words 'mental imagery' really expressed what I believed everybody supposed them to mean. They had no more notion of its true nature than a colour-blind man who has not discerned his defect has of the nature of colour. They had a mental deficiency of which they were unaware, and naturally enough supposed that those who were normally endowed, were romancing.

Quick poll (please RT!): Can you draw up an image in your mind's eye...?

— Kevin Mitchell (@WiringTheBrain) May 3, 2016

Mental images poll. Is 'mental image' a misnomer? Pls RT, this stuff is weird. (CC: @WiringTheBrain; @blakeross).

— Ed Berry (@ed_berry) May 3, 2016

My own conclusion is, that an over-readiness to perceive clear mental pictures is antagonistic to the acquirement of habits of highly generalised and abstract thought, and that if the faculty of producing them was ever possessed by men who think hard, it is very apt to be lost by disuse. The highest minds are probably those in which it is not lost, but subordinated, and is ready for use on suitable occasions. 

PERCEIVED PAIN — For each scenario, we measured perceived pain with two measures. First, participants rated the pain of each protagonist using a scale from 1 (No pain at all) to 5 (Worst possible pain). Second, participants rated on three items how much each protagonist felt hurt, wounded, and pained on scales ranging from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Extremely). We averaged items to create perceived hurt feeling measures across physical and social pain scenarios... Within each scenario type, both perceived pain ratings correlated highly... Therefore, we standardized and averaged these measures into indices of perceived physical and social pain.

PERSONAL DISTRESS — Participants also rated their personal distress when reading each scenario. On a scale from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Extremely), participants rated the extent to which they felt uncomfortable, pained, bothered, unpleasant, distress, as well as wanted to cringe while imagining the feelings of each scenario protagonist. We averaged items to create separate personal distress measures for physical and social pain scenarios...

Participants read the same eight physical and social pain empathy scenarios as in Experiment 1. After reading each scenario, participants rated perceived pain of the protagonist, using a scale from -4 (Worst possible pain) to +4 (Most possible pleasure). We reverse-coded participants’ ratings, so higher ratings indicated higher empathy for pain.

Something odd about some of the datapoints... In Table 1, the mean for "perceived pain" for placebo is equal to the mean for acetaminophen * -1 (e.g. 0.22 vs -0.22, 0.19 vs. -0.19). The same is true in Table 4, two different values (e.g. 0.06 vs. -0.06, 0.04 vs -0.04).

Under Hypnosis or Past Life Regression, A Physician's Wife Starts Speaking Swedish

. . .  In sessions conducted from 1955 to 1956, when Tania was under hypnosis, a personality emerged who spoke Swedish, a language that neither Tania nor Ken knew. As such, this represents a case of xenoglossy, where an individual can speak a language that has not been learned through normal means.

Tania was born in Philadelphia and as such, English was her native language. Her parents, who were Jewish, were born in Odessa, Russia. No one in the family had ever been to Scandinavia and they knew no one who could speak Swedish.

He had superficially learned French at school, used it in his 20's due to a fling with a French girl but he has not spoken it for about 30 years. In his professional life he used English as his second language. Before brain damage he never manifested a particular attachment to French culture or French cuisine. His accent is not due to dysarthria and he speaks polished and correct Italian, his mother tongue. However, he now states that French is his preferred language refusing to speak in Italian spontaneously.
. . .

JC's French is maladroit and full of inaccuracies, yet he speaks it in a fast pace with exaggerated intonation using a movie-like prosody and posing as a typical caricature of a French man. His French vocabulary is reduced and he commits several grammatical errors but he does not speak grammelot or gibberish and never inserts Italian terms in his French sentences. He uses French to communicate with everybody who is prepared to listen; he speaks French with his bewildered Italian relatives, with his hospital inmates, with the consultants; he spoke French even in front of the befuddled Committee deciding on his pension scheme. He claims that he cannot but speak in French, he believes that he is thinking in French and he longs to watch French movies (which he never watched before), buys French food, reads French magazines and seldom French books, but he writes only in Italian. He shows no irritation if people do not understand him when he speaks in French.

However, he presents with some delusions of grandeur, sleep disturbances and has some compulsive behaviours: he buys unnecessarily large quantities of objects (e.g., needing two hangers he bought 70) and he makes tons of bread to his wife's chagrin. He also shows unjustified euphoria (which he labels joie de vivre): for example in the morning he opens the windows and shouts bonjour stating that it is a wonderful day. He manifests signs of social disinhibition, for example proposing to organise a singing tour for his daughter's teenage friend or offering French lessons to his neighbours. These symptoms are indicative of secondary mania (Santos, Caeiro, Ferro, & Figueira, 2011) and were drug-resistant.

What’s crazy about the pain of a broken heart is that your body perceives it as physical pain.

In research published in 2010, scientists found that acetaminophen can reduce physical and neural responses associated with the pain of social rejection, whether in romantic relationships, friendships or otherwise.

So if you’re hurting from heartache, try popping some Tylenol.

• Sociocultural–manly and stoic machismo
• Psychological– greater negative affect and catastrophizing in women
• Experiential– women may have more experience with clinical pain, which affects current pain perception
• Opioid receptors– and especially their interactions with gonadal hormones
• Other potential biological factors– a long list

Because men are comparatively likely to curb their emotional pain, it is possible that men who take a physical pain reliever will display a disinhibition effect. That is, when men take a physical pain reliever, their cognitive response may act to blunt or inhibit their tendency to suppress their emotional pain. The cognitive processes underlying such a disinhibition effect are akin to [a] reverse placebo effect.

1. Subjects told they were receiving ibuprofen and received ibuprofen (positive expectancy).
2. Subjects told they were receiving ibuprofen but received placebo (positive expectancy).
3. Subjects told they were receiving placebo but received ibuprofen (negative expectancy).
4. Subjects told they were receiving placebo and received placebo (negative expectancy).

So does that mean we should all start popping ibuprofen whenever our feelings are hurt? Absolutely not, says Vangelisti.“In time, we may see psychiatrists prescribing painkillers for social pain—judiciously, I hope—but right now there are too many unanswered questions that our study has raised for this to be considered a viable treatment.”

[Our] findings demonstrate that separate representations underlie pain and rejection despite common fMRI activity at the gross anatomical level. Rather than co-opting pain circuitry, rejection involves distinct affective representations in humans.

"It's possible that taking physical pain relievers provides men with more cognitive resources to express the pain they feel," said Vangelisti. "There's some evidence that, for men, the part of the brain that enables them to regulate their emotions is linked to the part of the brain that processes physical and social pain. If that's the case, taking a physical pain reliever may affect men's ability to hide or suppress their social pain." 

• Intranasal oxytocin administration – assumptions about mechanism of action
• Ridiculously large numbers of variables – ripe for p-hacking
• Small n candidate gene studies – not replicable
• Studies of candidate gene × environment interactions – also not replicable
• Epigenetics – now nearly a woo word (The Trouble with Epigenetics, Part 1 and Part 2)
• Sex differences – studies often overly essentialist (although in this case, for good reason)

"Participants with greater methylation of the OXT gene were less accurate in describing the emotional states of the people they saw in pictures," [first author Brian W. Haas] said. "That's a typical characteristic associated with autism, for example."

Silencing a gene promotes human sociability https://t.co/cUKaATnAnv"magical" omics problem strikes again @PNASNewspic.twitter.com/yXRxJCxRzg

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 20, 2016

First, the authors should be congratulated for posting the data for the paper on Open Science Framework (OSF). It’s great to see this dataset online considering the hype surrounding oxytocin...

Here’s a few other things I liked about this paper (or a list of things that oxytocin papers often don’t do): i) Effect sizes and confidence intervals are reported, ii) the alpha for the main outcome was adjusted for multiple tests, and iii) the placebo spray was a “true” placebo that contained all the same ingredients as the oxytocin spray, except the actual oxytocin (i.e, not just saline spray). It’s much easier to taste the difference between oxytocin and saline so this is an important point.

The authors included an “exploratory analysis” (their words in the intro and a section of the results) of three oxytocin pathway polymorphisms (rs53576, rs6449182, and rs3796863). There are about 10–15 candidate oxytocin pathway SNPs the could be analysed so it’s not clear why these three were chosen rather than others. Sure, rs53576 has been studied a lot, but so have many other oxytocin pathway SNPs (especially rs2254298).

...it appears that there was a main effect of condition on both spirituality scales. However, a close read of table 1 reveals that this was after correcting for religious affiliation. Now this is reasonable when you consider that someone who’s an atheist is likely to report that spiritually is “not at all” important in my life. In fact, the data bears this out as the average spiritual rating (which can range from 0 to 7) for the atheist/agnostic group was 1.97 during the experimental visit and 1.88 a week later, whereas the average rating for the religiously affiliated group was 4.8 during the first visit and 4.9 during the second visit (I was able to calculate this from their posted dataset — isn’t open data great!).

It’s plausible for someone who identifies as agnostic or atheist to report “not at all” on both occasions — and many did. In fact, when you look at the agnostics/atheist group alone, there’s a statistically significant increase in spirituality after oxytocin compared to placebo both during the lab visit and 1 week later... However, there was no significant difference when assessing the religiously affiliated group.

@sarcastic_f the apostles were just brimming with oxytocin @edyong209@WiringTheBrain@sTeamTraen@CoyneoftheRealm

— My Cousin Amygdala (@CousinAmygdala) June 20, 2016

The data presented here are part of a larger study testing additional hypotheses not related to the present ones. For the larger study and to test a larger model, based on power calculation, a sample of 240 participants was targeted with a breakdown female-male of 125-115... Data collection ... stopped at 239 but despite recruitment effort, the sample is skewed toward females. This report focuses only on the 83 males who took part in the study... Growing evidence suggests that the effects of oxytocin are different for males and females (Feng et al., 2015) and most of the current evidence on intranasal oxytocin’s psychological effects, which support the current hypotheses, come from studies with exclusively male samples. A separate analysis of female participants, controlling for a series of additional variables related to natural variations in oxytocin is ongoing.

Despite widespread reports that intranasal application of oxytocin has a variety of behavioral effects, very little of the huge amounts applied intranasally appears to reach the cerebrospinal fluid. However, peripheral concentrations are increased to supraphysiologic levels, with likely effects on diverse targets including the gastrointestinal tract, heart, and reproductive tract. The wish to believe in the effectiveness of intranasal oxytocin appears to be widespread and needs to be guarded against with scepticism and rigor. Preregistering trials, declaring primary and secondary outcomes in advance, specifying the statistical methods to be applied, and making all data openly available should minimize problems of publication bias and questionable post hoc analyses. Effects of intranasal oxytocin also need proper dose-response studies, and such studies need to include control subjects for peripheral effects, by administering oxytocin peripherally and by blocking peripheral actions with antagonists. Reports in the literature of oxytocin measurements include many that have been made with discredited methodology. Claims that peripheral measurements of oxytocin reflect central release are questionable at best.

...Our conclusion is that intranasal OT studies are generally underpowered and that there is a high probability that most of the published intranasal OT findings do not represent true effects. Thus, the remarkable reports that intranasal OT influences a large number of human social behaviors should be viewed with healthy skepticism...

1. Van Cappellen P, Way BM, Isgett SF, Fredrickson BL. Effects of Oxytocin Administration on Spirituality and Emotional Responses to Meditation. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2016 Jun 17. PMID: 27317929.
 
2. Haas BW, Filkowski MM, Cochran RN, Denison L, Ishak A, Nishitani S, Smith AK. Epigenetic modification of OXT and human sociability. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2016 Jun 20. PMID: 27325757.
 
3. Simons RL, Lei MK, Beach SR, Cutrona CE, Philibert RA. Methylation of the oxytocin receptor gene mediates the effect of adversity on negative schemas and depression. Dev Psychopathol. 2016 Jun 20:1-12. PMID: 27323309.
 
4. Gao S, Becker B, Luo L, Geng Y, Zhao W, Yin Y, Hu J, Gao Z, Gong Q, Hurlemann R, Yao D, Kendrick KM. Oxytocin, the peptide that bonds the sexes also divides them. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2016 Jun 20. PMID: 27325780.

Sending text messages on a smartphone can change the rhythm of brain waves, according to a new study published in Epilepsy & Behavior.
. . .

Dr. Tatum, professor of neurology and director of the epilepsy monitoring unit and epilepsy center at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida found a unique 'texting rhythm' in approximately 1 in 5 patients who were using their smartphone to text message while having their brain waves monitored.

• That the signal represents brain activity, rather than a biological artifact (e.g., eye movements) or an electromagnetically-induced artifact produced by the smartphone
• That the 'texting rhythm' has never been seen before, given the lack of systematic studies
• That it occurs in people without epilepsy
• That it has any direct relation to how we think

The TR was highly specific to this text messaging (p < 0.0001). A similar waveform during baseline activation with motor, speech/language, and cognitive tasks performed independently was absent in all patients and was not observed during auditory–verbal smartphone communication (p < 0.0001).

Neuroscientists just found that texting alters your brainwaves, but they can’t explain why

Does using a smartphone fundamentally alter the way that your brain works? ...a group of researchers at the Mayo Clinic recently discovered that text messaging elicits a change in the regular rhythm of brain waves, completely different than the waveforms created by any other activity.

“The big deal with discovering this ‘texting rhythm’ is that the number of new brain waves that are identified on EEG are extremely rare at this point in time,” Dr. William Tatum, the lead author of the study, tells Digital Trends.

Dr. Tatum says that the new brain waves were discovered by accident when analyzing the day-to-day cortical rhythms of people suffering from epilepsy. This discovery triggered an investigation into the neurological effects of smartphone use, which ultimately grew to include nearly 130 participants over a period of 16 months. Only around one in five participants demonstrated the “texting rhythm,” although it didn’t appear to conform to any single gender, ethnicity or age group. Nor is it known exactly what aspect of texting prompts the effect: since text messaging includes a variety of different skills, such as finger dexterity, formulating succinct communications and more.

“The question we’re trying to answer right now is whether this is a destructive process or an active process,” Dr. Tatum says. “We think it’s probably an active process through an entrainment of normal cortical rhythms. What’s strange is that it appears to be a destructive frequency that’s more typically identified in people that have a slowing of their brain waves.”

I retired aged 65 – I am known for being very pro-retirement. Older scientists should advise, if asked, by the next generation, which they trained. They should refrain from occupying leadership positions or directing implementation – the time for that is past.

“I hope that you are at least partly convinced that it is not impossible to build a brain. We can do it within 10 years, and if we do succeed, we will send to TED, in 10 years, a hologram to talk to you”.

I note one mistake that could easily have been checked. Makes me wonder about the accuracy of this scurrilous blog. I did not resign from the HBP. I remain a task leader in the Medical Informatics Platform.  

Henry Markram dethroned, @HumanBrainProj under new leadership, with obscure goals. Story of hubris & empty promises https://t.co/CIGXtzxIqL

— Leonid Schneider (@schneiderleonid) July 15, 2016

https://t.co/4FqQbP53c9 I didn't resign from HBP. I lead a task. How many other errors in this scurrilous piece? @prsjf@HumanBrainProj

— Richard Frackowiak (@prsjf) July 15, 2016

An expression of concern on
Human and Environmental Dangers Posed by Ongoing Global Tropospheric Aerosolized Particulates for Weather Modification
by Herndon, J.M. (2016). Front. Public Health 4:139. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2016.00139

With this notice, Frontiers states its awareness of several complaints and serious allegations surrounding the article “Human and Environmental Dangers Posed by Ongoing Global Tropospheric Aerosolized Particulates for Weather Modification” published on 30 June 2016. Our Chief Editors, Joav Merrick and Anwar Huq, will direct an investigation in full accordance with our complaints procedures. The situation will be updated as soon as the investigation is complete.

Based on information discovered after publication and reported to Frontiers in July 2016, the article was examined, revealing that the complaints were valid and that the article does not meet the standards of editorial and scientific soundness for Frontiers in Public Health. The retraction of the article was approved by the Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Public Health and the Specialty Chief Editor of Environmental Health. The author considers the retraction to be unwarranted and therefore does not agree to the statement. 

Brain is the most complex organ in the human body & serves as the center of the nervous system. Brain is the amazing organ as we go deeper we realize the miracles of the GOD. If all information of all books in the world is loaded into the brain, human brain will never be full. Do you know, we are using at the most 4% to 5% of potential of our brain?. Potential of human brain is beyond our imagination. Full potential is a result of proper education (mental development). Think what will happen if we use whole brain?

Mid-brain activation is a method to stimulate and balance the left and right brains. Mid brain Activation allows the middle brain act as a control panel for left and right hemispheres. This activates both parts of the brain and enhances the capacity and ability to learn.

Mid brain manages functions of left and right brain. Mid brain is the ‘bridge’ between left and right hemispheres. [No, that would be the corpus callosum.] Once the mid brain gets activated, information will exchange more efficiently in between both hemispheres which leads to more efficient in learning and absorbing information.Mid brain activation allows the brain to function as a whole, rather than only utilizing one part of the brain.

One type of brain function belongs to left brain which operates at Beta wave frequency (14Hz to 30Hz cycles/sec). This is the brain we are most familiar with, having developed this brain in traditional academy settings. ... The right brain works at Alpha wave frequency (8 to 13 hertz cycles per second). This is the frequency of the brain associated with a relaxed alert state of mind such as in meditation, just before getting out of bed or while listening to music. It is not the type of brain activity which determines whether something is right or left brain oriented, but rather the brain wave that is operating at the time (Alpha or Beta).

In order to awaken this part of the brain, it is necessary to stimulate a hormonal discharge by sending a special vibration. For this scientific alpha-theta level music are played where apparently only children can receive these waves effectively. In general, theta and alpha waves belong to babies and children. Since these waves belong to the subconscious mind babies and children feel easier to learn something or receive and follow somebody else’s words.  

During the mid-brain activation, a child learns how to enter the condition of meditative trans in order to be able to ”see” with eyes closed (Blind-folded).
. . .

Blindfold activation ... is a form of extra sensory perception.Our activated mid-brain’s brain-wave may detect objects nearby & appears in our mind as a form of visualization.Science have proven that even animals are able to perform such ability when moving around or looking for food.e.g.Bats.In human beings , in Blind-fold activation intuition play an important role.

Children will be given an opportunity to do activities of ALPHA & THEATA level vigorously throughout the workshop.Conventional school emphasize predominantly on BETA waves & neglect the importance of ALPHA & THEATA wave learning environment which are for more conducive.

TauRx Alzheimer's Drug LMTX Fails in Large Study Although Some Benefit Seen

Wednesday, 27 Jul 2016 | 11:23 AM ET

TauRx Pharmaceuticals' experimental Alzheimer's drug LMTX failed to improve cognitive and functional skills in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease, a large, late-stage study showed.

But in a perplexing twist, the drug did show a significant benefit in about 15 percent of patients in the trial who were not taking other standard Alzheimer's drugs, according to the findings released on Wednesday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Toronto.

lol this RCT actually had a negative result. Fascinating to compare UK vs US media coverage. https://t.co/z4hfC3DSB8https://t.co/Jgk8wsleci

— ben goldacre (@bengoldacre) July 27, 2016

TauRx Therapeutics Ltd today announced Phase 3 clinical trial results that show treatment with LMTX®, the company's novel tau aggregation inhibitor, had a marked beneficial effect on key measures of Alzheimer's disease in patients with mild or moderate forms of the disease.

While the TRx-237-015 study in 891 subjects failed to meet its co-primary endpoints, clinically meaningful and statistically significant reductions in the rate of disease progression were observed across three key measures in patients who were treated with LMTX® as their only Alzheimer's disease medication. These three key measures comprised a cognitive assessment (ADAS-Cog), a functional assessment (ADCS-ADL) and an assessment of the level of brain atrophy (lateral ventricular volume, LVV, as measured by MRI). An abstract of the results will be presented during an open session at the 2016 Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) in Toronto, Canada this afternoon by Dr. Serge Gauthier, CM, MD.

Gaultier et al., AAIC 2016

LMTM (TRx-0237) is a novel stabilized reduced form of the methylthioninium moiety with potential for efficacy in treatment of Alzheimer's disease. ... It acts as a selective tau aggregation inhibitor in vitro and in transgenic mouse models  The present 15-month double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (NCT01689246) was performed in patients with probable AD, MMSE score in the range 14-26, Clinical Dementia Rating 1-2 and age < 90 years. Patients were randomized 3:3:4 to receive oral LMTM at doses of 150 or 250 mg/day or placebo (containing 8 mg/day, to maintain blinding) respectively. Primary efficacy outcomes were change from baseline on cognitive (ADAS-Cog) and functional (ADCS-ADL) scores. Three-monthly assessment included magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a disease modifying outcome. Other secondary outcomes included ADCS-CGIC and MMSE. Results: A total of 891 patients were randomized, of whom 62% were female. Approved AD treatments were being taken in 85%. The mean age was 70.6 (SD 9.0) years and baseline MMSE score was 18.7 (SD 3.4). ... The study efficacy and safety outcomes will be reported. The outcomes of this phase 3 trial will highlight the potential therapeutic value of tau aggregation inhibitor therapy in AD. A second phase 3 trial of LMTM for AD will be completed and reported later in 2016.

Here's our latest study on mediumship: "Prediction of Mortality Based on Facial Characteristics". Available here: https://t.co/jVMHmF07Dj

— Dean Radin (@DeanRadin) May 21, 2016

“Participants were asked to press a button if they thought the person in a photo was living or deceased. Overall mean accuracy on this task was 53.8%, where 50% was expected by chance (p < 0.004, two-tail). Statistically significant accuracy was independently obtained in 5 of the 12 participants.”

People can sense #Mortality after brief look at facial photo, & show related brain activity https://t.co/bukFvVUQ1fpic.twitter.com/fE2u6Zaf8E

— Frontiers (@FrontiersIn) May 25, 2016

We do not rule out the hypothesis that subjects might have had access to information in ways that are not currently understood by modern physics and could potentially go beyond classical information delivered by facial features.

...neuroimaging studies of psychotherapy that have absolutely no control conditions are of limited usefulness. We don't know what sort of changes would have happened over an equivalent amount of time with no intervention. More importantly, we don't know whether the specific therapy under consideration is better than another form of psychotherapy, or better than going bowling once a week.

In this and our previous study, subjects frequently mentioned informally that PSFH results in a separation of the traumatic memory and associated feelings: while the memory remains intact, it no longer associates with traumatic feelings.

• the number of subjects was small (n=14) 
• recruitment was largely done at churches, which might affect generalizability
• individual minister effects could not be ruled out
• there was no control population receiving an alternative therapy
• only subjects who completed the study were included, which may have skewed the results
• life events such as changing employment status, marriage stability, family, health, and economic changes were not assessed
• possible confounding effects between the role of PSFH and intercessory prayer for the participants by others [NOTE: some of us may discount this as a confounder]
• cannot rule out an effect of being exposed to the task in the MRI twice
• demand characteristics — participants answered worse at the beginning and better at the end to fulfill researcher’s expectations 
• outcomes were rated by non-blinded observers

Sitting on a chair, eyes closed, Lucier’s brainwaves were recorded from his scalp, amplified and channelled to numerous loudspeakers scattered around the room. As the amplified alpha rhythm was below the human audible range, the loudspeakers were put ‘right up against’ various percussion instruments, which were then activated by means of vibration. While Lucier attempted to refrain from mental activity, percussion sounds slowly started to fill the room, which were suddenly disrupted when he opened his eyes, engaged in mental exercise, or when his attention was drawn towards sounds from the audience (Kahn, 2013).

By the end of the century, advances in EEG and sound technology ultimately gave rise to brain–computer music interfaces (BCMIs), a multidisciplinary achievement that has enhanced expressive abilities of both patients and artists (Miranda, 2014).

Creating a neural lace is the thing that really matters for humanity to achieve symbiosis with machines

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2016

Neural Lace

The concept was first thought up by Iain M. Banks in his Culture novels. In these novels, a neural lace is a mesh-like device that would be implanted in a person directly through the bloodstream, controlling the release of certain neurons using the power of thought.

Musk’s version of the neural lace doesn’t work exactly like that. Musk’s lace seems to be a mesh that would allow such AI to work symbiotically with the human brain. Signals will be picked up and transmitted wirelessly, but without any interference of natural neurological processes. Essentially, making it a digital brain upgrade. Imagine writing and sending texts just using your thoughts.

Scientists Just Invented the Neural Lace

A group of chemists and engineers who work with nanotechnology published a paper ... about an ultra-fine mesh that can merge into the brain to create what appears to be a seamless interface between machine and biological circuitry. Called “mesh electronics,” the device is so thin and supple that it can be injected with a needle — they’ve already tested it on mice, who survived the implantation and are thriving. The researchers describe their device as “syringe-injectable electronics,” and say it has a number of uses, including monitoring brain activity, delivering treatment for degenerative disorders like Parkinson’s, and even enhancing brain capabilities.

Missed all the critic-bashing. Trying to settle on Methodological Terrorist, Methodological Fetishist, or Self-Appointed Destructive Critic

— The Neurocritic (@neurocritic) September 23, 2016

I hereby appoint you to the position of Destructive Critic. https://t.co/ScExgmBmTq

— Max Coltheart (@maxcoltheart) September 24, 2016