Despite earlier this month announcing its considering a sale of ADHD offerings, Shire has launched its latest Adderall formulation in the U.S. The company on Monday started selling Mydayis at a price of $271 per month before rebates and discounts, hoping to achieve $500 million in annual sales.

Shire had been marketing its new medication on a limited basis, but nowthe rollout has begun in earnest. It includes a copay offer for commercially insured patients, according to a release. In an interview, Shires head of global communications for ophthalmics and neuroscience, Clotilde Houz, said the launch provides the ADHD community a new treatment option.

We know that not all patients respond to medications in the same way, Houz said. We really want to support physicians and patients who might want different treatment options.

Mydayis won approval back in June based on 16 clinical trials incorporating more than 1,600 participants. The once-daily medication helped patients scores on a validated attention test, with effects starting within 2 to 4 hours and lasting up to 16 hours, according to the drugmaker. Mydayis is approved for ADHD patients 13 and older.

RELATED: Can Shire's new Mydayis, its latest Adderall iteration, really nab $500M in sales?

Weve been working since the FDA approval to properly train our salesforce and make sure that they have all of the information needed to talk to the physicians, Houz said, without disclosing how many representatives are supporting the launch.

She added that the 16-hour effect for Mydayis may be a benefit physicians seek out for treating their patients.

Sales expectations are mixed on the new drug, with the companys own thoughts coming in ahead of Wall Streets. At the time of approval, consensus analyst projections were for $288 million in sales by 2020, significantly short of Shires aspirations of $500 million for that year.

Shire priced its drug competitively and in consideration of the innovation and value it delivers, according to a company statement. Payer negotiations are ongoing, Houz said, adding that the company looks forward to sharing more news on that in the future.

To reach its $500 million sales ambition for 2020, Shire has said itll lean on its leadership position and experience in ADHD. Since the FDA approval for Mydayis, however, the Irish drugmaker has disclosed it may be looking to get out of neuroscience altogether.

RELATED: Shire hints at ADHD spinoff, but could someone step in and buy the neuro franchise?

In its second-quarter earnings announcement, the drugmaker disclosed its assessing strategic options for the group, potentially including an independent public listing. During the quarter, Vyvanse sales stayed flat versus the prior year at $518 million, while Adderall XR slipped 30% to $71 million.

Mydayis FDA approval followed a green light at the agency for Neos Therapeutics Cotempla, an extended-release ADHD drug that melts in the mouth. More than 10 million adults have ADHD in the U.S., according to Shire.

The company will continue its disease awareness campaign, but because Mydayis is a class 2 stimulant, Shire needs to await FDA guidance for DTC advertising, Houz said.

The rest is here:
Shire launches new ADHD drug Mydayis as it weighs a neuroscience exit - FiercePharma

Undefeated boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. (L) of the U.S. and UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor of Ireland face off during their official weigh-in at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on August 25, 2017. Photo by Steve Marcus/Reuters

In Las Vegas, on August 26, the unbeaten American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr and the immensely popular Irishman Conor McGregor will face off in a boxing ring, where only striking with hands while standing is allowed. It would be just another boxing match, albeit a huge one, except that McGregor is not even a boxer. Instead, he holds the lightweight and welterweight titles in mixed martial arts (MMA), an emerging combat sport where striking and grappling with both hands and legs is allowed, both while standing and on the ground.

It is an unprecedented match-up and some people believe that McGregor, with his speed, athleticism and youth (he is 11 years younger than Mayweather) has a shot at doing something that 49 professional boxers before him have not been able to accomplish. But scientific evidence from the neuroscience of expertise, an emerging field investigating the brain functioning of experts, warns against betting on an MMA fighter even one as skilled as McGregor upsetting a boxer in a boxing match.

The neuroscience of expertise

The performances of experts often leave us speechless, wondering how it is humanly possible to pull off such feats. This is particularly the case in sports. Consider the serve in tennis. Once the ball is in the air, the brain needs time to process the balls trajectory and prepare an appropriate course of action, but by the time the body actually executes the required movements in response to these mental processes, the racket will do no more than slice the air, as the ball will have already passed by.

This is the paradox of fast reaction sports such as tennis or boxing: it is only when the ball or the punch is in the air that we can tell with certainty what is going to happen, but by then it is far too late to react in time, even for the quickest humans. The expert brain adapts to this problem by reading the intention of the opponent. The positioning and movements of feet, knees, shoulders and the serving hand in tennis give away clues about the direction and power of a tennis serve.

Similarly, the positioning of feet, hips and shoulders provide enough information for the boxing brain to anticipate a punch well in advance. This anticipation power of experts is the reason why the very best practitioners can look like characters from The Matrix, giving the impression of having all the time in the world in an environment where split-second responses decide who wins and who loses.

Being fast and having good reflexes in general is certainly helpful in rapidly changing environments like sports. But no speed in this world will be enough if the brain hasnt experienced and stored tens of thousands of movement patterns, which can then be reactivated and used for reading the situation at hand.

Muhammad Ali vs Jim Brown

This is illustrated by another unofficial cross-discipline event that occurred 50 years ago between the legendary Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown, National Football League (NFL) legend. Jim Brown was a force of nature. He was incredibly quick, immensely powerful, and his extraordinary coordination and reflexes made him one of the greatest NFL players. In the mid 1960s, aged 30, Jim Brown was bored with the NFL and was pondering other ways of making a living. One of them was boxing, a sport where his immense quickness and sheer power would seem to be especially useful.

He persuaded his manager to organise a meeting with Muhammad Ali, at that time at the peak of his powers, who happened to be in London, where Jim Brown was shooting a film at that time. They met in Hyde Park, where Ali used to work out while preparing for the next bout. Ali tried to persuade Brown to give up on his dream of being a boxer. Brown maintained that he was as quick and as powerful as Ali, if not more so, and if boxing suited Ali, it should suit him too.

A sparring session ensued, where Ali asked Brown to hit him as hard as possible. The problem was that Ali was never to be found at the spot where he had been standing a moment earlier. According to the legendary promoter Bob Arum, after about 30 seconds of swinging and missing by Brown, Ali pulled off one of his lightning quick one-two combinations and stopped Brown momentarily in his tracks. At that moment, Brown, visibly winded, clocked the situation and simply said: OK, I get the point.

Dont expect McGregor to be so totally embarrassed, as Brown was. After all, MMA includes aspects of boxing and McGregor has had experience with the sport, unlike Brown. Still, that experience is limited because boxing is just a part of the MMA skill set (not to mention embedded in a context where one needs to employ leg strikes and takedowns). One can be certain that McGregors brain has stored vastly fewer kinematic boxing patterns than the brain of a person who has boxed all their life, such as Mayweather Jr.

Mayweather Jr may be 40, he may have ring rust after being absent from the ring for almost two years, and McGregor is not only 11 years his junior but also possibly faster and stronger; but everything we know about the way experts brains work tells us that the smart money is on Mayweather Jr recording a convincing win.

Merim Bilalic is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Continued here:
Mayweather will beat McGregor, neuroscience predicts - PBS NewsHour

A nap can be a beautiful thing when we feel our brain slowly grinding to a halt. Whether its a siesta to shake off a food coma, a daytime doze on a lazy Sunday, or an all-out nap orgy with friends or loved ones, we arise feeling replenished, recharged, and ready to take action. Unfortunately, not very many bossessee any correlation between snoring and success. Onlya handful of organizationBen & Jerrys, Nike, Zappos, Google, and The Huffington Post, to name a fewcurrently see naps assmart business. Theyve invested innap pods and massage chairsbecause they know that, when it comes to boosting productivity and creativity in the workplace, naps can bejust what the doctor ordered.

If you arent among the lucky few who work for nap-friendly bosses, youve come to the right place for advice. Ima Harvard Medical School neuroscientistwho firmly believes in thepower of the unfocused mind, and my goal is to have every business on Earth including your employer embrace naps as a vital part of the workday.

First, allow me to clarify a few things and offer a bit of a disclaimer.

Not all naps are equal, and not all brains are equal. Everyone will respond differently to napping, as some brains are more energy-efficient than others. For instance, a 15-minute catnap might give Sally the salesperson three extra hours of battery life, but it will only provide Mary the marketer with one extra hour of productivity. Science also offers us some words of caution. Unhealthy napping habits may increase the risk ofdiabetes,muscle aches, andheart disease. People who uselong, frequent napsas a substitute for sleep, for example, seem to get ill more often.

On the other hand, strategic napping is scientifically proven to provide countless benefits. To get your boss on board, approach him or her with these three compelling science-backed arguments:

Employee disengagement has officially become an epidemic in America, withGallups 2017 State of the American Workplace Reportrevealing that 51 percent of todays workforce members are disengaged from their jobs. Chances are good that your employers no exception to this trend.

Your boss is probably trying to re-engage the team by preaching (and rewarding) immense focus and tireless, around-the-clock hard work. However, you need to explain to him or her that the human brainoperates at its bestwhen its encouraged to oscillate between focus and unfocus.

Though naps may not seem very engaging,brain sciencetells us a vastly different story. While youre asleep, your brainsfocus circuitsget some much-needed rest, but believe it or not, other parts of your brain kick into overdrive. In fact, the brainconsumesmoreenergyduring a nap than it does while youre awake and the bulk of this energy is devoted toward regions that promoteself-awareness and emotional control. Therefore, naps dont just help us think better; they help usfeelbetter (especiallymorning naps).

A well-rested focus circuit, paired with a greater sense of self, is a recipe for engagement in the workplace. All it takes isfive to 15 minutes per day.

In todays ever-changing business world, innovation is what keeps companies afloat. Creative energy must flow through every department, and its up to your boss to foster an atmosphere that encourages this.

Perhaps he or she bought beanbag chairs, ping-pong tables, and colorful artwork in an attempt to stimulate creative thought, but few things come close to sparking creativity like a nap does. Explain to your boss that naps will help your teamnavigate complex tasks,sharpen its thinking,andkeep a keen eye on its competition. Naps drop drawbridges between seemingly disconnected thoughts and allow for new insights to emerge.

Keep in mind, however, that in order to reap the full creative benefits of napping, its best todevote 90 minutes to each snooze. This may require a rejiggering of the workday; perhaps your company could lengthen its lunch break to promote midday napping, and then extend its office hours a bit to make up for it.

Napping helps people freshen up their ideas and gain sudden, unexpected insights. On a companywide basis, they can give a business just the creative edge it needs to thrive.

Its no coincidence that some of the worlds most endearing and innovative companies were among the first to embrace napping as a viable business strategy. This is the wave of the future, and your boss will be in great company if he or she hops aboard today. Current and prospective employees will be thrilled by the idea of working in a progressive environment that mirrors the likes of Google.

But it also goes beyond business. Some of the worlds most inspiring mindswere also known nappers. Salvador Dal, Ludwig van Beethoven, Aristotle, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Edison power-napped their way to universal reverence, and even presidentsKennedy, Reagan, and Clintonwere fans of the practice.

If your boss still doesnt see napping as legit, sign and circulate thisnap petitionamongst your co-workers. It will give your group even more cred, and your boss may be more open to listening.

Strategic napping is productivity in disguise and its time for your boss to recognize this fact. Thanks to science, we can now unmask the hidden benefits of naps and bring a whole new meaning tosleeping on the job.

Srini Pillay, M.D., is the CEO of NeuroBusiness Group and the award-winning author of numerous books, including Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind, Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear, and Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders. He also serves as an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and teaches in the Executive Education Program at Harvard Business School.

Here is the original post:
Use neuroscience to convince your boss to let you nap at work - Mashable

EvergreenHealth announced the grand opening of its Neuroscience, Spine & Orthopedic Institute on the health systems Kirkland campus.

The Institute spans four levels of EvergreenHealths DeYoung Pavilion and includes two newly constructed floors to house the systems musculoskeletal and orthopedics practices, providing patients with the convenience of complementary services in one location.

The two new floors on levels four and five of the DeYoung Pavilion combine innovative design and technology to enhance patient care, while also accommodating the integration of EvergreenHealths musculoskeletal and orthopedics services.

Now, from a single location, patients receive in-clinic evaluation and diagnostic care, imaging, minimally invasive procedures, surgical consultation and rehabilitation within orthopedics, spine surgery, physiatry, podiatry, neurosurgery and pain management.

The new floors join EvergreenHealths neurological care practices located on the third floor, along with a comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation services center on the second floor.

Offering comprehensive neuroscience, spine and orthopedic services under one roof further helps us to meet the growing needs of our community, said Bob Malte, CEO of EvergreenHealth in a press release. As we continue celebrating 45 years of serving Eastside residents, the opening of these two new floors reinforces our ongoing commitment to advancing the health of all patients through high quality, multidisciplinary care.

The newly built-out floors are part of EvergreenHealths 10-year Master Facility Plan approved by the organizations Board of Commissioners in July 2015 to promote growth that enables EvergreenHealth to meet the communitys evolving health care needs. When the DeYoung Pavilion opened on the Kirkland campus in 2009, it reserved its top two levels as shelled space, allowing the health system to later develop the floors in response to increased demand and community growth.

The two new floors in the Neuroscience, Spine & Orthopedic Institute feature 51 exam rooms, two imaging centers, three procedural rooms and six pre- and post- procedure rooms. The spaces were thoughtfully designed to promote healing while providing ease of access for patients of all abilities, and offers continuity between services. For example, for patients receiving procedures, the overall flow from admission to discharge moves in a forward direction, with no need for backtracking. Tablets allowing for electronic patient self-check-in make the entire process more user-friendly for patients and efficient for staff members.

This new development is the result of many years of thoughtful and innovative planning, as part of our mission to expand EvergreenHealths musculoskeletal service offerings, said Yung Lee, DO, medical director of EvergreenHealths Sport & Spine Care practice in a press release. Our team is proud to continue the journey towards a more integrated model of care that best meets the needs of our patients.

Construction and development of the new unit was made possible by generous donations from Mike and Mary Kay Hallman, The Schultz Family Foundation, and Tom and Connie Walsh.

EvergreenHealth recently celebrated other expansion efforts across the health system, including the opening of a new urgent care center in Mill Creek, and two new inpatient floors in the Silver tower on the Kirkland campus.

For more information on the Neuroscience, Spine & Orthopedic Institute and to watch a virtual tour of the space, visit https://youtu.be/7-xC_sNOy7U and http://www.northwestsportbackjoint.com.

Visit link:
EvergreenHealth opens neuroscience, spine and orthopedic ... - Kirkland Reporter

The brain is as beautiful as it is complex. Throughout the centuries scientists have attempted to glean understanding from the brain based on its anatomy. Since Santiago Ramn y Cajals detailed drawings at the turn of the 20th Century, neuroscientists of the modern era have been zooming in on the brain to unlock its secrets. Recent improvements in imaging technologies, greater access to microscopes and specialist software have culminated in the cutting-edge imaging currently being performed on brains and brain tissue across the world.1. Recreating the retina: drawing it by hand

Line drawing of the retina. Ramn y Cajal. Wellcome Images.The neuroanatomist and father of modern neuroscience, Santiago Ramn y Cajal looked at brain tissue stained using the Golgi Stain method under his microscope. He then drew what he saw, producing beautiful reconstructions of neurons such as the line drawing of the retina above.

2. Recreating the retina: from electron micrographs

Connectome of the mouse retina. Max Planck Society

Nowadays, whole sections of the retina have been reconstructed in unprecedented three-dimensional detail. In 2013 Helmstaedter et al. published their paper on the connectomic reconstruction of the inner plexiform layer in the mouse retina. The group used a lot of manpower to manually reconstruct the neurons in a small section of the mouse retina by tracing projections through electron micrograph sections.Related:From Cajal to now

3. Antibody-labelling lights up the brainBy using primary antibodies to target a protein of interest, neuroscientists can then use a fluorescent secondary antibody against the primary to increase the fluorescence signal, producing pretty yet insightful images. Such as the following...

Confocal micrograph image of the adult mouse hippocampus, with immunofluorescent staining for perineuronal nets. Blue = DAPI (cell nuclei), green = parvalbumin interneurons, red = wisteria floribunda agglutinin (WFA; commonly used to label perineuronal nets). Credit Adam Ramsaran, The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, ON).

Confocal micrograph of the anterior region of the developing zebrafish brain.Some of the neurons (shown in green) express the green fluorescent protein (GFP) under the control of specific gene expression. Axons, tracts and neuropils have been labeled using antibodies that mark tubulin (in red) and synaptic vesicles (in blue). Credit: Monica Folgueira and Steve Wilson, Wellcome Images.

Confocal micrograph of hippocampal interneurons that express serotonin receptors (green) co-labeledin red for calretinin, and counterstained with DAPI (blue), a marker of cell nuclei. Credit: Margaret I. Davis

4. Speeding up labeling

Antibody labeling and imaging in Drosophila melanogaster brains can take up to a week. In this image, genetically encoded chemical tags have been expressed in neurons of interest. It takes just 15 minutes to stain for these tags with their substrates. Credit: Ben Sutcliffe, Jefferis lab. MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

5. Deeper insights into the brain

Your browser does not support HTML5 video.

YFP mouse brain section. The 720m z stack is color coded for depth, such that red cells are deepest in the tissue and the blue cells shallowest. Credit Dr. Mark Lessard, The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, USA.

Multiphoton imaging systems, such as Leica's SP8multiphoton confocal system (used to capture the video above), use longer and less-damaging wavelength beams of light to excite fluorescent proteins deeper in tissue, enabling neuroscientists to see complete structures in intact tissue.

6. CLARITY: See through brains

Despite improvements in imaging systems, such as multiphoton laser scanning microscopes, the brain tissue itself hinders imaging, by causing light to scatter.In 2013, Chung et al. published their seminal paper on their hydrogel method, CLARITY, which makes brain tissue transparent, reducing the scattering of light, affording structural and molecular interrogation of the whole intact brain.

7. Live imaging in the brain

Multiphoton image of microglia (GFP, green) and cerebral blood vessels (Texas-red dextran, red) in a living, anesthetized transgenic mouse. Harris A. Gelbard, 2009 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition.

8. Imaging Activity With Genetically Encoded Calcium Indicators

This video from the Sur labshows In vivo imaging of visual cortex neurons expressing the genetically encoded calcium indicator GCamp6 responding to a moving grating (top right corner).

9. A Look Inside the Head With Magnetic Resonance Imaging

This video from the Human Connectome Projectexplains how Principal Diffusion Direction uses colors to map out the different directions that water molecules diffuse through the brain's white matter. This data is then used to reconstruct 3D representations of the white matter tracts in the brain.

View original post here:
Imaging the Brain in the Era of Modern Neuroscience - Technology Networks

Kirkland, Wash.-based EvergreenHealth opened its Neuroscience, Spine & Orthopedic Institute on the main campus, according to Kirkland Reporter.

Here are five things to know:

1. The new institute encompasses four levels of the health system's DeYoung Pavilion.

2. To construct the institute, the health system also built two new floors, which will hold the musculoskeletal and orthopedic practices. The construction was a part of EvergreenHealth's 10-year Master Facility Plan.

3. The new floors house 51 exam rooms, two imaging centers, three procedural rooms and six pre- and postoperation rooms.

4. The Neuroscience, Spine & Orthopedic Institute offers orthopedics, spine surgery, physiatry, podiatry, neurosurgery and pain management.

5. Patients will now have access to in-clinic evaluation and diagnostic care, imaging, minimally invasive procedures, surgical consultations and rehabilitation in one location.

More articles on practice management:Menorah Medical Center acquires 3 physicians to form orthopedic clinic: 5 things to know Washington University School of Medicine new spinal cord injury clinical trial site: 7 takeawaysStudy: Obesity alone shouldn't determine TJR candidates

See the original post:
EvergreenHealth unveils Neuroscience, Spine & Orthopedic Institute: 5 things to know - Becker's Orthopedic & Spine

In Las Vegas, on August 26, the unbeaten American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr and the immensely popular Irishman Conor McGregor will face off in a boxing ring, where only striking with hands while standing is allowed. It would be just another boxing match, albeit a huge one, except that McGregor is not even a boxer. Instead, he holds the lightweight and welterweight titles in mixed martial arts (MMA), an emerging combat sport where striking and grappling with both hands and legs is allowed, both while standing and on the ground.

It is an unprecedented match-up and some people believe that McGregor, with his speed, athleticism and youth (he is 11 years younger than Mayweather) has a shot at doing something that 49 professional boxers before him have not been able to accomplish. But scientific evidence from the neuroscience of expertise, an emerging field investigating the brain functioning of experts, warns against betting on an MMA fighter even one as skilled as McGregor upsetting a boxer in a boxing match.

The neuroscience of expertise

The performances of experts often leave us speechless, wondering how it is humanly possible to pull off such feats. This is particularly the case in sports. Consider the serve in tennis. Once the ball is in the air, the brain needs time to process the ball's trajectory and prepare an appropriate course of action, but by the time the body actually executes the required movements in response to these mental processes, the racket will do no more than slice the air, as the ball will have already passed by.

This is the paradox of fast reaction sports such as tennis or boxing: it is only when the ball or the punch is in the air that we can tell with certainty what is going to happen, but by then it is far too late to react in time, even for the quickest humans. The expert brain adapts to this problem by "reading" the intention of the opponent. The positioning and movements of feet, knees, shoulders and the serving hand in tennis give away clues about the direction and power of a tennis serve.

Similarly, the positioning of feet, hips and shoulders provide enough information for the boxing brain to anticipate a punch well in advance. This anticipation power of experts is the reason why the very best practitioners can look like characters from The Matrix, giving the impression of having all the time in the world in an environment where split-second responses decide who wins and who loses.

Being fast and having good reflexes in general is certainly helpful in rapidly changing environments like sports. But no speed in this world will be enough if the brain hasn't experienced and stored tens of thousands of movement patterns, which can then be reactivated and used for reading the situation at hand.

Muhammad Ali vs Jim Brown

This is illustrated by another unofficial cross-discipline event that occurred 50 years ago between the legendary Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown, National Football League (NFL) legend. Jim Brown was a force of nature. He was incredibly quick, immensely powerful, and his extraordinary coordination and reflexes made him one of the greatest NFL players. In the mid 1960s, aged 30, Jim Brown was bored with the NFL and was pondering other ways of making a living. One of them was boxing, a sport where his immense quickness and sheer power would seem to be especially useful.

He persuaded his manager to organise a meeting with Muhammad Ali, at that time at the peak of his powers, who happened to be in London, where Jim Brown was shooting a film at that time. They met in Hyde Park, where Ali used to work out while preparing for the next bout. Ali tried to persuade Brown to give up on his dream of being a boxer. Brown maintained that he was as quick and as powerful as Ali, if not more so, and if boxing suited Ali, it should suit him too.

A "sparring session" ensued, where Ali asked Brown to hit him as hard as possible. The problem was that Ali was never to be found at the spot where he had been standing a moment earlier. According to the legendary promoter Bob Arum, after about 30 seconds of swinging and missing by Brown, Ali pulled off one of his lightning quick one-two combinations and stopped Brown momentarily in his tracks. At that moment, Brown, visibly winded, clocked the situation and simply said: "OK, I get the point."

Don't expect McGregor to be so totally embarrassed, as Brown was. After all, MMA includes aspects of boxing and McGregor has had experience with the sport, unlike Brown. Still, that experience is limited because boxing is just a part of the MMA skill set (not to mention embedded in a context where one needs to employ leg strikes and takedowns). One can be certain that McGregor's brain has stored vastly fewer kinematic boxing patterns than the brain of a person who has boxed all their life, such as Mayweather Jr.

Mayweather Jr may be 40, he may have ring rust after being absent from the ring for almost two years, and McGregor is not only 11 years his junior but also possibly faster and stronger; but everything we know about the way experts' brains work tells us that the smart money is on Mayweather Jr recording a convincing win.

Explore further: How to stop boxing deaths and brain injury with a simple rule

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Continued here:
Mayweather will beat McGregor, neuroscience predicts - Phys.Org

Hyundai Motor is pleased to announce its continuing collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), introducing as part of the Art+Technology LAB. The project examines how the fields of art and technology converge through the artists vision for a neuroscientifically-driven concept car.

Hyundai Motor worked with conceptual artist Jonathon Keats to advance idea, which presents a speculative alternative to driverless car technology. Technical advisors from the South Korean car manufacturer worked with the artist to investigate how the users cognitive processes could be interpreted to provide novel sensory experiences while driving.

is inspired by Keats ongoing questions about the development of driverless cars and their effects on automobile technology and culture. Keats inquiries led him to identify four features which accentuate the link between art and neuroscience technology.

In Keats concept, this connection was made manifest as adjustable audio effects generated by the Hyundai IONIQ that stimulate the users perception while driving. Vehicle speed is conveyed to the driver by adjusting the tempo of the soundtrack playing on the stereo system; autobody aerodynamics are conveyed by adjusting the left-right speaker balance, vehicle RPM with an increase or decrease in soundtrack pitch, and driving efficiency by the level of audio distortion.

Hyundai Motor is the presenting sponsor of the Art+Technology LAB program, which is also supported by technology companies including Google, SpaceX, Accenture, and NASAs Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). This program originates from the legendary Art and Technology Program that ran from 1967 to 1971 and involved world renowned artists such as James Turrell, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Irwin, Andy Warhol, and Claes Oldenberg.

Hyundai Motor participated in the initiative from 2015 as part of a long-term partnership with LACMA, commencing with The Hyundai Project at LACMA. Since then, more than 20 artists have received grant funding and technical support for ideas that combine art and technology.

In April, a Hyundai Santa Fe car was used by a 3D scanning studio ScanLAB Projects in their Art+Technology LAB project. This exhibit captured vast panoramas of Yosemite National Park and converted them into a digital diorama that was presented inside the car.

Spearheaded by Project IONIQ, Hyundai Motors ongoing commitment is to create innovative mobility solutions enabling movement that is entirely free of limitations, enhancing the future lifestyles of our customers, John Suh, Vice President at Hyundai Motor, said. We are constantly exploring how new forms of mobility can help us overcome current transportation limitations. Engaging with art and technology projects allows us to explore this field in entirely new ways.

For me, this collaboration has presented a remarkable opportunity to explore the future of transportation with a company that is at the forefront of that industry, says Keats. I have benefited greatly from the expertise of John Suh and Hyundai engineers, as well as the support of LACMA, all of which has allowed me to challenge conventional thinking with The Roadable Synapse.

Besides the Art+Technology LAB, Hyundai has supported LACMA through art and technology exhibitions and acquisitions, Korean art studies, print on demand publications, and many other initiatives. In addition, Hyundai Motor is partnered with Tate Modern in London, UK, and MMCA, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, in Seoul, Korea. Each association forms part of an overall project to contribute to the development of a sustainable art environment that delivers inspiration and unique experiences to all areas of the world.

Coming up in October, the Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern will reveal an installation work by Danish artists SUPERFLEX, followed by the opening of the MMCA Hyundai Motor Series in Korea with artist and film director Heungsoon Im in November.

More:
Hyundai Motor connects art and technology through pioneering neuroscience concept with Lacma - Automotive World (press release)

Researchers from Belgium have developed a novel open-source software platform for processing streaming experimental data in closed-loop neuroscience experiments, while optimizing CPU resource use through a threaded architecture. The software dubbed "Falcon" has a sub-millisecond intrinsic latency, wide hardware compatibility and high flexibility in the implementation of experimental processing pipelines (J. Neural Eng. 14 045004).

Closed-loop electrophysiology experiments in which voltage measurements are used to record the activity of neural populations within the brain, which is then stimulated in direct response to the activity measured have considerable potential to explore the mysteries of brain dynamics and function.

To control these experiments, software speed and flexibility are of vital importance. Many software solutions, however, constrain themselves to specific experimental setups (such as electroencephalogram-based brain-computer interfaces, or cellular electrophysiology) or are tailored for particular hardware and data types and offer the user little control over the allocation of CPU resources.

To address these issues, Davide Ciliberti and Fabian Kloosterman of the Neuro-Electronic Research Flanders in Belgium have developed Falcon. A client-server application written in C++, Falcon's multi-threaded signal processing pipeline is built around a graph architecture, comprised of individual signal processing nodes, connected by buffered threads. Users can construct new real-time analysis pipelines by connecting basic processing nodes such as spike detectors and digital filters to suit their given experimental design.

Based on the chosen graph structure, Falcon is then able to intuitively map the necessary computations to the available CPUs so as to maximize the overall processing speed and throughput, such as by determining which computations need to be executed prior to, and which during, the actual experiment. Furthermore, on multi-core CPU systems, different processing threads can be executed in parallel across the different cores, reducing processing times.

"Falcon is highly flexible, as it allows the implementation of arbitrary real-time processing pipelines, including those requiring complex data structures like encoding models, and gives the user direct control over the CPU resources," Ciliberti told medicalphysicsweb.

Falcon would be particularly useful, the researchers say, for handling those closed-loop experiments that require complex data structures and the real-time execution of computationally intensive algorithms such as, for example, population neural decoding and encoding from large cell assemblies.

Being open source, Falcon is free-to-use. In addition, Falcon is not limited to specific hardware choices. In their study, for example, the researchers have demonstrated the capacity for Falcon to work successfully with both Neuralynx and Open Ephys hardware - demonstrating round-trip latencies of less than 1ms and less than 15ms, respectively, on both 32- and 4-core workstations, with the software only contributing 0.5ms. These round-trip latencies are at least comparable to those in other closed-loop setups.

"Falcon basically gives the experimenter a free hand over what needs to be implemented for a closed-loop experiment of interest," Ciliberti says, adding: "We will be glad to assist clinical labs that want to push real-time experiments in their research scope or want to use Falcon to test out new algorithms for decoding brain activity as part of brain-computer interfaces."

To demonstrate one such real-time experiment, the researchers describe Falcon's use to successfully detect neural population bursts from the hippocampus of a freely-moving rat with low latencies, averaging at 40ms.

With this initial study complete, the researchers are now working to expand Falcon's compatibilities with different acquisition systems and hardware. Alongside this, they plan to further demonstrate the potential of Falcon, showing how it could be used to decode neural states from the firing of large neuronal ensembles over timescales in the order of tens of milliseconds.

"For the first time, the neuroscientist community will be able to perturbed complex spike patterns at an unprecedented temporal resolution and specificity," Ciliberti says, adding: "For example, by transiently suppressing a given neuronal activity pattern for example, corresponding to a past experience we can investigate its contribution to the formation of a new memory."

Open Ephys enables closed-loop electrophysiologyWearable device monitors driver vigilanceBrain-computer interface adapts to user's moods

See the original post:
Falcon focuses on closed-loop neuroscience - Medical Physics Web (subscription)

Image credit: Harper Voyager

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE GOD WAVE AND THEGOD PEAK

When I asked Patrick whether he was inspired or influenced by works of science fiction, like Scanners or Minority Report, he admitted to loving Dune with a passion, but said that wasn't his inspiration for The God Wave. "I didn't get out there to emulate Frank Herbert," he joked. According to him, he didn't intend to write a science-fiction book at all when he sat down to work on God Wave (which took him about two years to finish). Instead, as someone who has studied both mysticism and neuroscience, he wanted to write a book about the convergence between the two.

The results were the Alphas and Zetashumans with the power to manipulate matter and energy using only their brainwaves. The God Wave follows a research institute called Forward Kinetics as its head scientist, Chuck Brenton, explores this new ability in his test subjects...before a covert military operation called Deep Shield tries to take control of Chuck's project and turn his subjects into living weapons. The God Peak explores the aftermath of Deep Shield's attempts to harness the power of the Zetas, and swings between techno-thriller and hard sci-fi.

One of the most interesting aspects of the books is that much of the neuroscience is pulled from Hemstreet's own professional experience as a neuroscientist and engineerthe science of brain waves, like the alpha, beta, theta, and gamma waves, is represented accurately, with small departures here and there (such as the shapes the characters' brainwaves make on the EEG machine and the algorithms used to regulate them). In person, Hemstreet can easily dive into the precise terminology when explaining the fine line between science and sci-fi in his books, from the distinction between beta and gamma waves to the difficulties of navigating, say, an airplane using only one's thoughts. He mentions Paul Dirac, the Nobel-prize winning physicist, as an influence on his view of the universe, along with Carl Jung's collective unconscious.

THE COLLISION OF SCIENCE AND SCI-FI

To Hemstreet, the combination of though-controlled VR and worldwide VR communities sounds like the beginning of a new chapter in human society: "Imagine a society where instant change is rendered at the speed of thought, where anyone who has a thought can share it..." he says. "That will be the greatest step in human history...VR is gonna be the great enabler of people's unity."

The question ofwhen (or if) humans will be able to manipulate the world around them without a computer interface lies at the center of Patrick's fiction, but regardless of how it's done, his message remains the same. According to Hemstreet, "Human existence is always about breaking through barriers of what's impossible."

We couldn't agree more.

Go here to see the original:
Sci-Fi Author Patrick Hemstreet Talks About VR, Neuroscience, and His New Book, 'The God Peak' - Outer Places