Category Archives: Neuroscience

Neurology Conferences | Neuroscience Conferences …

August 6, 2017 student

Sessions/Tracks

Neuroscience 2017 on Biteable.

It is our pleasure to invite you to the 17thGlobalNeuroscienceConference will be held during October 16-17, 2017 Osaka, Japan. The main theme of our conference is "NeuroscienceAcross the Lifespan, Amelioration ofNeuroscience" which covers wide range of critically important sessions

Around 1 billion people, nearly one in six of the worlds population, suffer from neurological disorders, from Alzheimer and Parkinson disease, strokes,multiple sclerosisand epilepsy tomigraine, brain injuries and neuro-infections.

The World Health Organization estimated thatneurological disordersaffect up to one billion people worldwide. In fact, neurological diseases make up 11 percent of the worlds disease burden, not including mental health and addiction disorders.

Track 1: Neurology

Neurology might be characterized as the finding and treatment of scatters of the sensory system, which incorporates the cerebrum and spinal rope. The market examination of neurology addresses the biggest and undiscovered market in prescription area. This assessed showcase investigation is relies upon likelihood of endorsement and offers of items in late stage change, statistic patterns and advancing of item. Rising and creating markets at the end of the day helps incomes. CNS therapeutics includes approximately 15% of total pharmaceutical arrangements, about $30 billion around the globe.

11thworld congress onneurology and Therapeuticsduring March 27-29, 2017 at Madrid, spain, 3rdInternational conference onspinal surgeryOctober 16-18, 2017,Chicago,USA, 3rdInternational conference onNeurological disordersand stroke April 24-25, 2017 Dubai, UAE, 2ndInternational conference onNeuro oncology and Neurosurgery, April 24-25,Dubai, UAE, 12thInternational conference onNeurology and NeurophysiologyMay 18-20,2017, Munich, Germany,24thAnnual Internationalstress and behaviour neuroscienceand bio psychiatry conference 2017, May 16-19,2017,saint Petersburg Russian federation,Neuroscience Intensive careInternational Symposium,, March 2-3,2017,Washington,USA,10thInternational conference onNeuroscience and Neurochemistry February 27-28,2017 Amsterdam,Netherlands,11thFENS Forum ofNeuroscience, July 7-11,2018,Berlin,Germany,Finnish Neurological Association,Georgian Society of Neurologists,German Society of Neurology, Italian Society of Neurology,Slovak Neurological Society,Swedish Neurological Society,European Academy of Neurology,European Paediatric Neurology Society

Track 2: Neurons

A neuron is a nerve cell that is the fundamental building square of the sensory system. Neurons are like different cells in the human body in various routes, yet there is one key distinction amongst neurons and different cells. Neurons are specific to transmit data all through the body. These exceedingly particular nerve cells are in charge of conveying data in both compound and electrical structures. There are additionally a few distinct sorts of neurons in charge of various errands in the human body. Tactile neurons convey data from the tangible receptor cells all through the body to the cerebrum. Engine neurons transmit data from the mind to the muscles of the body. Interneurons are in charge of conveying data between various neurons in the body.

Track 3: Neurological disorders

A neurological issue is any turmoil of the sensory system. Basic, biochemical or electrical irregularities in the mind, spinal line or different nerves can bring about a scope of manifestations. Cases of manifestations incorporate loss of motion, muscle shortcoming, poor coordination, and loss of sensation, seizures, perplexity, torment and adjusted levels of cognizance. There are more than 600 neurologic infections. Some of the time they can come about because of biochemical causes also. The pervasiveness rates of the range of neurological issue from various locales of the nation extended from 967-4,070 with a mean of 2394 for each 100000 populaces, giving an unpleasant gauge of more than 30 million individuals with neurological issue (barring neuroinfections and traumatic wounds). Commonness and rate rates of normal issue including epilepsy, neurology, Parkinson's ailment and tremors decided through populace based studies indicate extensive variety crosswise over various districts of the nation. The requirement for an institutionalized screening poll, uniform philosophy for case ascertainment and determination is a fundamental essential for creating strong national information on neurological issue. Higher rates of pervasiveness of neurological issue in provincial ranges, 6-8 million individuals with epilepsy and high case casualty rates of neurology (27-42%) call for pressing procedures to set up effort neurology administrations to take into account remote and country regions, create National Epilepsy Control Program and set up neurology units at various levels of social insurance pyramid.

Track 4: Central Nervous System

CNS disorders can affect either the brain or the spinal cord which results in psychiatric disorders or neurological disorders. The causes of CNS diseases are neurology, trauma, autoimmune disorders, infections, structural defects, degeneration and tumours. So here we focus on mood disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, schizophrenia and autism. Meningitis is a relatively rare infection that affects the delicate membranes called meninges that cover the brain and spinal cord. Encephalitis is the inflammation of the brain which is caused by infection or allergic reactions.

Track 5: Spine and Spinal Disorders:

This Session will incorporate The Neurospinal Disorders finding and therapeutics for patients experiencing all sicknesses of the spine and fringe nerves. For exact analyses and expanded security amid restorative methodology, pros utilize the most exceptional procedures accessible for spinal imaging, interventional neuroradiology, electro-physiological testing, and surgery.

Track 6: Neuro-Degenerative Disorders

Neurons are the building pieces of the sensory system which incorporates the cerebrum and spinal string. Neurons typically don't imitate or supplant themselves, so when they get to be distinctly harmed or bite the dust they can't be supplanted by the body. Neurodegeneration is the umbrella term for the dynamic loss of structure or capacity of neurons, including demise of neurons. Numerous neurodegenerative ailments including amyotrophic parallel sclerosis, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's happen as an aftereffect of neurodegenerative procedures. Dementias are in charge of the best weight of sickness with Alzheimer's speaking to around 60-70% of cases.

Track 7: Pediatric Neurology

Pediatric neurology is a neurology that happens in youngsters or teenagers. Neurology influences around 6 in 100,000 youngsters. Neurology in kids are of three essential sorts. Two are ischemic neurology in which blockage of veins results in absence of blood stream and harm. At the point when a corridor is obstructed, the term blood vessel ischemic neurology (AIS) is utilized. At the point when a vein is obstructed, the term utilized is cerebral Sino venous thrombosis (CSVT). In the third shape, haemorrhagic neurology (HS), the vein breaks as opposed to being blocked. The most well-known signs and side effects of neurology incorporate the sudden appearance of Weakness or deadness of the face, arm or leg, more often than not on one side of the body; Trouble strolling because of shortcoming or inconvenience moving one side of the body, or because of loss of coordination; Problems talking or comprehension dialect, including slurred discourse, inconvenience attempting to talk, failure to talk by any means, or trouble in comprehension straightforward bearings; Severe cerebral pain particularly with regurgitating and languor; Trouble seeing plainly in one or both eyes; Severe unsteadiness or loss of coordination that may prompt to losing equalization or falling; New appearance of seizures, particularly if influencing one side of the body and took after by loss of motion in favour of the seizure movement.

Track 8: Neuro Epigenetics

In the course of recent years, the expansive field of epigenetics and, over the previous decade specifically, the rising field of neuroepigenetics have started to have colossal effect in the regions of educated conduct, neurotoxicology, CNS advancement, cognizance, compulsion, and psychopathology. In any case, epigenetics is such another field, to the point that in the vast majority of these zones the effect is more in the class of entrancing ramifications rather than set up truths. In this concise analysis, I will endeavor to address and depict a portion of the open inquiries and regions of chance that revelations in epigenetics are giving to the train of neuroscience.

Track 9: Neuro Oncology

Essential cerebrum tumors can be either harmful (contain growth cells) or considerate (don't contain disease cells). An essential mind tumor is a tumor which starts in the cerebrum. In the event that a destructive tumor which begins somewhere else in the body sends cells which wind up developing in the cerebrum, such tumors are then called optional or metastatic mind tumors. This talk is centered around essential cerebrum tumors. Mind tumors can happen at any age. The correct reason for cerebrum tumors is not clear. The manifestations of cerebrum tumors rely on upon their size, sort, and area. The most widely recognized side effects of mind tumors incorporate cerebral pains; deadness or shivering in the arms or legs; seizures, memory issues; state of mind and identity changes; adjust and strolling issues; sickness and regurgitating; changes in discourse, vision, or hearing.

Track 10: Clinical Neurology

Track 11: Dementia

Dementia is not a single disease in itself, but a general term to describe symptoms of impairment in memory, communication, and thinking. While the likelihood of having dementia increases with age, it is not a normal part of aging. Light cognitive impairments, such as poorer short-term memory, can happen as a normal part of aging. This is known as age-related cognitive decline rather than dementia because it does not cause significant problems. Dementia describes two or more types of symptom that are severe enough to affect daily activities. An analysis of the most recent census estimates that 4.7 million people aged 65 years or older in the United States were living with Alzheimer's disease in 2010 Japan is facing a worsening health crisis where more of its aging population is expected to be diagnosed with dementia over the next several years. The AFP news agency is reporting that, by 2025, around 7.3 million Japanese residents, or 20 percent of seniors over the age of 65, will suffer from dementia based on figures from the health ministry. The current number of people with the disorder is estimated to be at least 4.6 million nationally and 44 million globally.

Track 12: Parkinsons Disease

Parkinson's malady is not thought to be an existence debilitating condition, but instead it has a huge impact of your own fulfillment. With time, the ailment can realize issues with discourse, development, and mind working. The real confusion in Parkinson's sickness are circulatory strain changes, despondency, enthusiastic changes, thinking challenges, exhaustion, sexual brokenness, notice brokenness, agony and rest issue.

Track 13: Spinal Bulber Muscular Atrophy (SBMA)

Spinal-bulbar solid decay (SBMA) is a hereditary issue in which loss of engine neurons nerve cells in the spinal string and brainstem influences the piece of the sensory system that controls intentional muscle development. SBMA is now and then called Kennedy sickness, after William Kennedy, the doctor who initially portrayed it in 1968. It's likewise once in a while called bulbospinal strong decay. The adjectivebulbar alludes to a bulblike structure in the lower some portion of the mind that contains nerve cells controlling muscles in the face, mouth and throat.

Track 14: Neuronal Development and Regeneration

New neurons and glial cells are constantly produced all through life, not just at the embryonic and neonatal stages. Late examinations utilizing test creatures demonstrate that few districts of the grown-up mind have the ability to recover harmed neural tissues. In a joint effort with analysts at different research centers in NIPS, we have been examining the instruments for cell movement and recovery in the postnatal cerebrum. Our gathering intends to think about the endogenous repair systems in the cerebrum and build up another methodology to advance neuronal and glial cell recovery after damage.

Track 16: Molecular and cellular Neurobiology

Molecular neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience that watches ideas in sub-atomic science connected to the sensory systems of creatures. The extent of this subject spreads themes, for example, atomic neuroanatomy, components of sub-atomic motioning in the sensory system, the impacts of hereditary qualities and epigenetics on neuronal improvement, and the sub-atomic reason for neuroplasticity and neurodegenerative diseases. As with sub-atomic science, sub-atomic neuroscience is a moderately new field that is impressively unique.

Track 17: Neurogenomics

Neurogenomics investigates connections among genotypes, phenotypes, and the earth, utilizing a scope of genomic and bioinformatic ways to deal with integrate datasets catching various levels of sensory system function.The sensory system in vertebrates is comprised of two noteworthy sorts of cells neuroglial cells and neurons. Several distinct sorts of neurons exist in people, with shifting capacities some of them handle outside jolts; others create a reaction to boosts; others arrange in concentrated structures (cerebrum, spinal ganglia) that are in charge of comprehension, recognition, and control of engine capacities. Neurons in these brought together areas have a tendency to compose in monster arranges and discuss broadly with each other. Preceding the accessibility of expression exhibits and DNA sequencing strategies, analysts looked to comprehend the cell conduct of neurons (counting neurotransmitter arrangement and neuronal advancement and regionalization in the human sensory system) as far as the basic sub-atomic science and natural chemistry, with no comprehension of the impact of a neuron's genome on its improvement and conduct.

Track 18: Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science

Neuropsychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with mental disorders attributable to diseases of the nervous system. It preceded the current disciplines of psychiatry and neurology. Neurologists have focused objectively on organic nervous system pathology, especially of the brain, whereas psychiatrists have laid claim to illnesses of the mind. Major Neuropsychiatric Conditions include the following: Addictions, Childhood and development, Eating disorders, Degenerative diseases, Mood disorders, Neurotic disorders, Psychosis & Sleep disorders.

Track 19: Diagnosis and Imaging Techniques

Diagnostic tests and procedures are vital tools that help physicians confirm or rule out the presence of a neurological disorder or other medical condition. Development of techniques that allow scientists to see inside the living brain and monitor nervous system activity as it occurs. Researchers and physicians use a variety of diagnostic imaging techniques and chemical and metabolic analyses to detect, manage, and treat neurological disease. Some procedures are performed in specialized settings, conducted to determine the presence of a particular disorder or abnormality. Many tests that were previously conducted in a hospital are now performed in a physicians office or at an outpatient testing facility, with little if any risk to the patient. Depending on the type of procedure, results are either immediate or may take several hours to process.

Track 20: Neuro-chemistry

It clarifies the neural system operations and their metabolic action of various natural structures in the sensory system. It principally weights on the powerful measures to control the dreariness and mortality with wealth of Schizophrenia, phenylketonuria, meningitis and other psychiatric issue. These are the chemicals brought into the Photo switchable ligands into particle channels stirrups the conceivable methods for assorted parts of neurotransmitters and receptors in the sensory system. Advancements and brilliance in this field uncovered the emeritus experts to the new excursion of Neuroscience as their commitment is basic to the entire new world as death rates were on the running track with permission of the neurodegenerative sicknesses.

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Neuroscience

Neuroscience – Google Books

August 6, 2017 student

Mark F. Bear, Barry W. Connors, Michael A. Paradiso

Widely praised for its student-friendly style and exceptional artwork and pedagogy, Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain is a leading undergraduate textbook on the biology of the brain and the systems that underlie behavior. This edition provides increased coverage of taste and smell, circadian rhythms, brain development, and developmental disorders and includes new information on molecular mechanisms and functional brain imaging. Path of Discovery boxes, written by leading researchers, highlight major current discoveries. In addition, readers will be able to assess their knowledge of neuroanatomy with the Illustrated Guide to Human Neuroanatomy, which includes a perforated self-testing workbook. This edition's robust ancillary package includes a bound-in student CD-ROM, an Instructor's Resource CD-ROM, a Connection Website, and LiveAdvise: Neuroscience online student tutoring.

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Neuroscience - Google Books

Neuroscience

The humble squid’s extraordinary service to neuroscience – Irish Times

August 6, 2017 medical

I first saw them by night, or rather by flashlight aimed beside the dinghy as we fished a mile beyond Brightons pier. A whole shoal of them appeared beneath the boat, waving their arms, their button eyes glistening.

We were not fishing for squid too foreign a taste for England in those days. But this early glimpse left me fascinated with their kind, not least their giant, still greatly mysterious relative with eyes the size of hubcaps.

The Brighton squids were the regular, long-fin Doryteuthis of inshore waters, not the huge, deep-water Architeuthis dux, snared this summer as trawler by-catch on the Porcupine Bank. The C na Mara (a nice echo) landed two separate specimens at Dingle a few weeks apart.

Expiring on they way up, each was around 6m long, counting in the tentacles. They brought to seven the number landed in 350 years, including a remarkable three in 1995 alone.

Two of those were trawled from the Porcupine Bank by a Marine Institute survey vessel. Dr Kevin Flannery, the Dingle marine biologist, would now like the institute to send its remote cameras for a proper look around. Meanwhile, the second squid, as dead as the first but in better shape, will soon be on display in the Dingle Oceanworld aquarium.

What could seem strangest is that giant squid are soft-bodied molluscs, like limpets or winkles. Abandoning external shells to work on jet propulsion, they have developed genes and nerves of special interest to science.

Practically every darn thing we know about how nerves work, wrote Martin Wells (HGs grandson), has been worked out from squid nerves.

I remembered the late Dr Wells, a zoologist at Cambridge University, when watching a grisly YouTube video of New Zealand scientists dissecting an Architeuthis with their students. Wells did his own share of slicing into cephalopods squid, octopus and cuttlefish and as a pioneer researcher found the whole group fascinating and wonderfully alien: Im sure he loved ET. (Find his 1998 book Civilisation and the Limpet.)

Out of water, a giant squid makes a flaccid and slithery corpse, much smaller than when living, reeking of ammonia, and far from the sinister Kraken of Nordic myths. Those tipped ashore in Ireland tend to be young and rather small, well short of the 18m now seen as maximum total length of the bigger females.

Giant squid hunt by sight, snatching at fish (and smaller squid) with velcro-tipped tentacles and pulling them in with suckered arms to a sharp, hard, parrots beak. These durable remnants were found in the stomachs of sperm whales, the squids chief predator, at the Belmullet, Co Mayo, whaling station of the early 1900s.

The Porcupine Bank may, indeed, prove a special local haunt of Architeuthis, where blue whiting and horse mackerel have been found in their food. But giant squids live worldwide, short of the polar seas, and were first filmed alive off Japan in 2004 .

There has been speculation about their variety, with strong claims for eight species or more. But a recent project, led by the University of Copenhagen, studied the genomes of giant squid from 43 tissue samples across their world range. Among the team was Dr Louise Allcock, a leading researcher on cephalopods, at the Martin Ryan Institute at NUI Galway.

It found so little variation in the squid DNA as to plump for Architeuthis dux as a single global species (see the study at http://iti.ms/2vL1T91). But this posed questions for evolution and biogeography: how had the squid spread so widely without mutation and adaptive change?

Global numbers must be large to withstand the steady, substantial appetite of sperm and other toothed whales and the hunting of squid juveniles by dolphins, fish and even sea birds.

Heavy fishing of tuna may have changed the hunting pressure on squid: the increase in tuna catches, referred to in this study, are said to result in an extra 20 million tonnes of squid of all kinds in the world oceans.

A sudden inflation in an original, small population of giant squid could explain the sameness of their global DNA. But the team guessed at the possible migration of adults, unusually tolerant of changing regional conditions, and drifting of the squids young in the great oceanic conveyor belt that carries deep north Atlantic water to surface again in the Pacific.

The squids fellow mollusc, the octopus, is renowned for extraordinary intelligence and colour-change camouflage. A recent sequencing of its genome found it has about 10,000 more genes than humans, with hundreds that dont have counterparts in other animals (nature.com/articles/nature14668).

The squid, like the octopus, edits thousands of genes, using RNA, to serve an exceptional and complex nervous system. This is the largest among invertebrates and for decades has made the ordinary, inshore, fishmongers squid the main model organism of neuroscience.

Michael Vineys Reflections on Another Life, a selection of columns from the past four decades, is available from irishtimes.com/irishtimesbooks; viney@anu.ie

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The humble squid's extraordinary service to neuroscience - Irish Times

Neuroscience

Neuroscience Research Seriously Flawed: A Conversation with Paul Silvia – HuffPost

August 4, 2017 student

The world is not fair to lefties. ---Paul J. Silvia

August 13 is International Left-Handers Day, a time to consider that in the world of cognitive neuroscience research roughly one billion lefties---10%-15% of the entire human population---do not exist. Sorry Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, you dont count. Indeed, I was shocked when University of North Carolina, Greensboro psychologist Paul Silvia informed me during the interview that follows that: Essentially all cognitive neuroscience research uses only right-handed people. Silvia says with lefties laterality in the brain is just so different that it throws off statistical group averaging. But doesnt that simply mean neuroscience research is seriously flawed?

Dutch researcher Roel M. Willems writing in Nature thinks so, because left-handedness falls within the normal range of human diversity---and so Willems has proposed the following:

Moreover, left handedness is not exclusive to Homo sapiens. Chimpanzees also exhibit left and right handedness, for example. And the beat goes on. . .

But I actually contacted Paul Silvia recently because he is one of three dozen academics currently funded by the Imagination Institute (bankrolled by the Templeton Foundation) to explore for an imagination quotient. Silvia and his collaborator Roger E. Beaty were awarded $175,000 to study how the brain generates creative ideas: Creative Connections: Measuring Imagination with Functional Network Connectivity. Results of their 2015-2017 investigation are about to be published.

In another 2015 Imagination Institute award, Silvia and Yale University co-investigator Zorana Pringle were recipients of $150,000 for a two-year study on self-regulation in creativity.

Silvia is the author of five books, among them, How to Write a Lot; and Public Speaking for Psychologists (with D.B. Feldman); and 150 academic papers. He serves on the editorial boards of nine professional journals: Imagination, Cognition, and Personality; Journal of Creative Behavior; International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving; Empirical Studies of the Arts; Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts; Self and Identity; Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin; Social Psychology; Social Psychological and Personality Science.

As a watchmaker (evenings and weekends) as well, Paul Silvia is especially aware of time. And in his spare time away from the watch bench and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where he is currently Lucy Spinks Keker Excellence Professor of Psychology, he shares his horological expertise with the world in his online blog: Adjusting Vintage Watches.

Paul Silva has taught psychology at UNC, Greensboro for the last 15 years. Hes also been a professor of psychology at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and before that a visiting researcher at the University of Erlangen, Germany (1999-2000). His PhD and MA are from the University of Kansas in psychology and his BA (with Honors) in psychology from the University of Southern California.

Suzan Mazur: You published an article in Nature in 2015 on the brain and creative idea production in collaboration with your colleague Roger Beaty and with current Imagination Institute scientific director Scott Kaufman et al. in which you conclude that generating novel ideas requires both cognitive control and spontaneous imaginative processes---in other words the whole brain is needed for creativity. How has your recent Imagination Institute project on generating creative ideas advanced those 2015 findings? Whats new?

Paul Silvia: The 2015 paper was our first toes-in-the-water. The whole brain view is really a good way to think about it. Traditionally with creativity and brain work, investigations have addressed: Whats the creative part? Wheres creativity in the brain? Whats the part that lights up?

And traditionally, the view has been: The right side is the creative part. But theres really no part or piece or even single system. Creativity is a very complex thing. Our earlier study was really a pilot study. We had a small number of people and we were pretty limited in how we were looking at creativity. People werent especially selected because they were creative or eminent or accomplished. It was kind of a proof of concept. There was enough to suggest that we were on to something with the idea.

Suzan Mazur: But why were all of your participants in that first study right-handed?

Paul Silvia: The world is not fair to lefties, Suzan.

Suzan Mazur: Are you left-handed?

Paul Silvia: Im not left-handed but I have a lot of friends who are left-handed.

Suzan Mazur: I am left-handed and particularly curious about this aspect of your study.

Paul Silvia: The reason why our participants were right-handed was largely because of laterality in the brain of lefties. You sort of have to pick all right-handers or all left-handers for a brain-scanning study because youre basically averaging all the brains at the end of the study. For lefties, the laterality is just so different. Also, there are just more righties available.

Something not really appreciated with brain research is that we end up studying a very special group of people who are not taking any medications, are extremely healthy, are not claustrophobic and are fine for two hours in a small space thats freakishly loud. You cant have subjects who have migraines or seizures or depression. So you wind up with very healthy, very emotionally-controlled kind of people as subjects.

Suzan Mazur: How has your research funded by Imagination Institute advanced the 2015 findings? Whats new?

Paul Silvia: Theres a lot thats new. Its hard to create anything large scale without funding and the Imagination Institute has really been a god-send. In our most recent study we were able to work with a lot more subjects, close to 200 people. [Everyone in the Imagination Institute study was paid in cash.] And we specifically recruited people actively pursuing creative careers. So not just anyone off the street.

Primarily, we were able to research in an incredibly comprehensive way. Instead of just seeing creative ideas a person can come up with while theyre in a MRI scanner, the more recent study looked at creativity in everyday life as well.

For 8 to 10 hours, participants filled out personality scales and took intelligence tests, cognitive tests, surveys about creative achievement and hobbies. Then for a whole week we interrupted them 10 or 12 times a day on their smartphones and via a survey app that asked them what they were doing, thinking, and working on right then. We looked at whether they were daydreaming at that very moment. What were they thinking about? Were they thinking about the future? Were they thinking about a creative goal? Was their dream realistic? Was their daydream fulfilling, silly, interesting, idea provoking---

Suzan Mazur: Was this again an all right-handed group?

Paul Silvia: Yes, this was all right-handed. There were lots of exclusions. Illnesses---from epilepsy to stroke---disqualified candidates. Use of a wide range of medications that affect the brain, including some very common ones like antidepressants, also disqualified.

Suzan Mazur: But getting back to the left-handed issue, youre saying its easier to test right-handed people because left-handed people have more lateral brain activity. Its too much work to test lefties?

Suzan Mazur: Thats fascinating.

Paul Silvia: Its mostly because there are more right-handers around. If you could study only lefties, maybe it would work out [laughs]. Youd have to test righties separately from lefties. You cant combine the two.

The left-handers brain isnt a photographic negative of the right-handers brain. If you had half leftie and half rightie, maybe you could make it work but its just that there are so few lefties.

Suzan Mazur: One billion people more or less in the world are left-handed. So cognitive neuroscience research appears to be seriously flawed if it is basing its science only on a right-handed population.

Paul Silvia: The other problem is the ambidextrous people.

Suzan Mazur: Humans have two useful hands. Arent most people ambidextrous in some ways?

Paul Silvia: Yeah, its really not a left/right thing. Its much more like theres this line from 1 to 100 and everyone is on there somewhere. Its something that develops.

My office neighbor is studying how people develop handedness, which starts prenatally. Everyone learns to be handed, its not a biological default. There are just some complex developmental reasons. It starts prenatally and most people end up right-handed.

Suzan Mazur: What was the overall goal of your second study?

Paul Silvia: It was primarily to put how creative ideas arise to a big test. In looking at the creative brain, we needed to learn what our 200 participants were thinking about in everyday life, particularly how people were using imagination in everyday life, and we saw what their brains looked like during those moments via the scanner. Daydreaming, mental imagery, thoughts about everyday environment---that was a really big part of it.

The real test of whether something works is whether you can figure it out inside the lab where things are controlled and can then also say something about what people are like in their everyday lives. We had more people in the second study and there have been advances in neuroscience methods since our first study.

We were using a very fancy-pants method for the second study. We were essentially looking at networks of networks. Instead of looking at individual areas of the brain, we looked at clusters of areas that work together. There are a lot of these networks. Sometimes they compete with each other. Sometimes they cooperate with each other. Creativity seems to come from cooperation among networks that normally compete and inhibit and antagonize each other.

Suzan Mazur: When will you publish your findings of this second study?

Paul Silvia: Well be publishing a lot of different papers. Were now wrapping up the big main one. That should be ready to submit to a journal within a couple of weeks. This project went very well, very smoothly.

We suggested in the earlier paper that theres an old idea about creativity going back decades and decades that theres kind of a yin-yang quality to creative thinking. There are people who say creativity is expansive, its daydreaming, its uncontrolled, its letting your mind roam free. Its loose, a spontaneous way of thinking. But theres a whole other side to this argument that has to do with planning, thinking things through, focus, controlled problem solving.

Many humanist thinkers have suggested that a fusion of these opposites happens in the brain, that there is a network for spontaneous thought, but there is also a network for controlled thought. And when people are coming up with different ideas, these two otherwise unfriendly networks work together.

Suzan Mazur: There is a recent study from Queen Mary and Goldsmiths universities indicating that suppression of the thinking and reasoning centers of the brain--- the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex---through electrical stimulation results in more creative problem solving. However, the ability to solve problems where a higher working memory is needed is apparently worse with electrical stimulation to the same region. Any comment?

Paul Silvia: That would be an example where the unfriendly networks dont work together. We say, sort of to this approach. Yes, and mostly.

Whenever you have really two opposing schools of thought that have existed for centuries, its usually because they both do have some kernel of truth. Clearly an uncontrolled, spontaneous way of thinking is crucial to creativity.

Suzan Mazur: Emotion is coming from the oldest part of the brain.

Paul Silvia: Our brains are always mind wandering, daydreaming and very vivid, very emotional. But the other side is that theres planning, practice, deliberation, foresight and sustained focus. Not letting your mind wander away.

Suzan Mazur: Theres another relevant study, published in Nature earlier this year, by Shi et al.---who cite your 2015 paper. The authors look at grey matter volume across the brain and identify two types of creativity: (1) artistic and (2) scientific, which they associate with two regions of the brain. They say scientific creativity is closely associated with the executive attention network and semantic processing, but also note that the neural basis of scientific creativity is still pretty elusive. Artistic creativity they think is associated with the salience network (dynamic switching network), but say there are conflicting conclusions and that more studies are needed. Are you aware of this study and can you say more about it?

Paul Silvia: I think its a sign of where studies of the creative brain are really going. In the paper we are about to publish based on our large sample and more comprehensive assessment of creativity, it looks like theres a sort of mega-network. Theres the default network---spontaneous thought [deep prefrontal cortex & temporal lobe]; executive network of focused, controlled thought [outer prefrontal cortex & posterior parietal lobe]; and the salience network [dorsal anterior cingulate cortices & anterior insular], which is connecting things that are really important.

People who are most creative use a mega-network of all three working together. Notably the executive and default networks are usually antagonistic. But the calm focus that creative people experience, the expansive focus---there are not a lot of words for it---seems to resonate with a lot of people as a creative high.

Suzan Mazur: You are a watchmaker as well as social scientist. What is your fascination with watches?

Paul Silvia: Watchmaking helps me to cultivate a focus and awareness, its very contemplative. Watches are so intricate. Its fascinating to me that long ago people could make such micro-mechanical machines. It boggles the mind. You can take a watch 20 years old, clean it up, tune it up and it keeps time as good as a Rolex that costs $10,000.

I think time---humans always have a sense that we move through time, time means something to us. The clock is a powerful metaphor.

Suzan Mazur: As a scientist and watchmaker, do you see the brain using algorithms to gather and encode information?

Paul Silvia: Its funny to think of watchmaking and the brain because humans have always used whatever the most advanced technology was at the time as a metaphor for the brain. In ancient Greece, it was a catapult. Its comical now to think of the brain as a catapult as a metaphor. Then you get to telephone systems and switchboards. Certainly, watches and clocks since the 1700s with all these interlocking pieces. The brain as a computer, as software. The most modern metaphor, its almost not a metaphor, is the brain as an organic network, a distributed system---like human society.

Suzan Mazur: I understand the Imagination Institute is looking to find an imagination quotient. Is it findable? Or is it as biologist Stan Salthe says, bell on cat.

Paul Silvia: The Imagination Institute has taken an investment approach in funding three dozen young scholars with fairly far-out ideas. It has a high-risk, high-reward model that importantly raises the profile of imagination studies. From our research, it does appear that some people have much more vivid imagery than others and find it easier to come up with really cool ideas, although humans in general have a lot of mental imagery. Everyone is creative.

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Neuroscience Research Seriously Flawed: A Conversation with Paul Silvia - HuffPost

Neuroscience

30m research neuroscience research boost at UCL – Lab News

August 4, 2017 student

The UCL Institute of Neurologyhas won a 29m infrastructure award to enable the creation of the worlds leading translational neuroscience facility.

The move will combine the UCL Neurology Institute with the operational headquarters of the UK Dementia Research Institute, also based at the university. This move will find better ways across the university of diagnosing and treating neurological disorders such as dementia, stroke and epilepsy.

Professor Michael Hanna, from the Institute of Neurology, said: This major award significantly advances progress towards our vision to create the worlds leading centre for translational neuroscience which will enable us to find treatments, train the next generation and work in close partnerships with industry, funders and patients.

Funding will provide new integrated spaces for laboratories, drug discovery and experimental neurology and its hoped that this drive closer collaboration with patients, funders and industry.

The grant from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has also been supplemented by a number of philanthropists such as a consortium of retailers. Including Iceland, ASDA, HSS Hire, Morrisons and Waitrose, they have all donated the levy on plastic carrier bags to the UCL Dementia Research Initiative. In addition, other partnerships have been formed with medical charities and industry partners who are contributing to this project.

The UK Research Partnership Fund (UKRPIF), which awarded the money to UCL, was launched in 2012 with 100m. Since then, government investment has risen to 900m with UKRPIF funded until 2021.

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30m research neuroscience research boost at UCL - Lab News

Neuroscience

No Room For Neuroscience In New-Look Shire – Seeking Alpha

August 4, 2017 medical

Not so long ago Shire (NASDAQ:SHPG) was under fire for over-reliance on its ADHD portofolio; now, as the company sharpens its focus on rare diseases, the neuroscience business could be jettisoned altogether. During its second-quarter results the group revealed plans for a "strategic review" of the division, which could be worth $9bn, according to EvaluatePharma's consensus-based NPV (see table below).

The company will give more concrete details of its plans by the end of the year, but said options for the unit could include an independent public listing. This seems a more likely outcome than a trade sale, with any potential buyers surely wary about a shrinking franchise grappling with patent expiries.

Nevertheless, in the near term Shire's neuroscience products will remain highly profitable, and Vyvanse is still forecast to be its top seller in 2022, although it is set to lose patent protection the year after.

10 years ago that concern about the company's reliance on ADHD was well founded - in 2006 sales of its stimulants business accounted for two thirds of group revenues, which amounted to $1.5bn in total.

By 2015, in the wake of moves into enzyme-replacement therapies and hereditary angiedema (HAE), the neuroscience division was bringing in just over a third of the company's $6bn in total revenues. And this year, with the huge Baxtalta acquisition bedded in, the unit will represent only a fifth of the company's projected $14.6bn of total sales.

Shire's Chief Executive, Flemming Ornskov, said several times during a media call that the neuroscience unit was strong, adding that the group's decision was part of a "natural evolution" in its shift towards rare diseases, which had seen it buy Baxalta last year.

"Both businesses are thriving, both have significant opportunities for growth in the future, but both are very distinct," he said.

Last year Bernstein analysts mooted Allergan (NYSE:AGN) as a potential buyer for the neuroscience unit.

In spite of its new focus, Shire has sought to wring as much life as possible out of its neuroscience franchise, which chiefly comprises the older ADHD therapy Adderall XR, the amphetamine prodrug Vyvanse and, most recently, Mydayis, which got FDA approval in June for patients aged 13 and older.

However, it is unclear how these newer products will fare as Adderall XR generics become more dominant in the market. Several versions are already on the market, and the drug's last patents are set to expire in 2019, which could lead to another wave of cheaper products and even more pressure on the next-generation therapies.

Splitting off its ADHD portfolio could make sense for Shire if the markets reward it with a premium for being a pure-play orphan company - and it could also use the proceeds to acquire more rare disease businesses to hone its focus further. However, it will escape no one that Glaxosmithkline (NYSE:GSK) recently said it was "considering its options" in rare diseases.

"I'm a believer in focus and building a business that's leader in its category," Mr. Ornskov said. A few years ago this was ADHD, but Shire has finally become big enough to sacrifice its first cash cow.

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No Room For Neuroscience In New-Look Shire - Seeking Alpha

Neuroscience

Neuroscience Graduate Program | School of Medicine …

August 3, 2017 student

Neuroscience Graduate Program

The Neuroscience Training Program at the CU School of Medicine provides multidisciplinary training covering the breadth of neurobiology, from neuronal gene regulation to the development, structure, and function of the nervous system.

Students receive training in cellular and molecular neurobiology, neural development, neuropharmacology, and biochemistry, as well as hands-on training in a variety of state-of-the-art laboratory techniques.

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Neuroscience Graduate Program | School of Medicine ...

Neuroscience

Why Neuroscience Is the Key To Innovation in AI – Singularity Hub – Singularity Hub

August 3, 2017 medical

The future of AI lies in neuroscience.

So says Google DeepMinds founder Demis Hassabis in a review paper published last week in the prestigious journal Neuron.

Hassabis is no stranger to both fields. Armed with a PhD in neuroscience, the computer maverick launched London-based DeepMind to recreate intelligence in silicon. In 2014, Google snagged up the company for over $500 million.

Its money well spent. Last year, DeepMinds AlphaGo wiped the floor with its human competitors in a series of Go challenges around the globe. Working with OpenAI, the non-profit AI research institution backed by Elon Musk, the company is steadily working towards machines with higher reasoning capabilities than ever before.

The companys secret sauce? Neuroscience.

Baked into every DeepMind AI are concepts and ideas first discovered in our own brains. Deep learning and reinforcement learningtwo pillars of contemporary AIboth loosely translate biological neuronal communication into formal mathematics.

The results, as exemplified by AlphaGo, are dramatic. But Hassabis argues that its not enough.

As powerful as todays AIs are, each one is limited in the scope of what it can do. The goal is to build general AI with the ability to think, reason and learn flexibly and rapidly; AIs that can intuit about the real world and imagine better ones.

To get there, says Hassabis, we need to closer scrutinize the inner workings of the human mindthe only proof that such an intelligent system is even possible.

Identifying a common language between the two fields will create a virtuous circle whereby research is accelerated through shared theoretical insights and common empirical advances, Hassabis and colleagues write.

The bar is high for AI researchers striving to bust through the limits of contemporary AI.

Depending on their specific tasks, machine learning algorithms are set up with specific mathematical structures. Through millions of examples, artificial neural networks learn to fine-tune the strength of their connections until they achieve the perfect state that lets them complete the task with high accuracymay it be identifying faces or translating languages.

Because each algorithm is highly tailored to the task at hand, relearning a new task often erases the established connections. This leads to catastrophic forgetting, and while the AI learns the new task, it completely overwrites the previous one.

The dilemma of continuous learning is just one challenge. Others are even less defined but arguably more crucial for building the flexible, inventive minds we cherish.

Embodied cognition is a big one. As Hassabis explains, its the ability to build knowledge from interacting with the world through sensory and motor experiences, and creating abstract thought from there.

Its the sort of good old-fashioned common sense that we humans have, an intuition about the world thats hard to describe but extremely useful for the daily problems we face.

Even harder to program are traits like imagination. Thats where AIs limited to one specific task really fail, says Hassabis. Imagination and innovation relies on models weve already built about our world, and extrapolating new scenarios from them. Theyre hugely powerful planning toolsbut research into these capabilities for AI is still in its infancy.

Its actually not widely appreciated among AI researchers that many of todays pivotal machine learning algorithms come from research into animal learning, says Hassabis.

An example: recent findings in neuroscience show that the hippocampusa seahorse-shaped structure that acts as a hub for encoding memoryreplays those experiences in fast-forward during rest and sleep.

This offline replay allows the brain to learn anew from successes or failures that occurred in the past, says Hassabis.

AI researchers snagged the idea up, and implemented a rudimentary version into an algorithm that combined deep learning and reinforcement learning. The result is powerful neural networks that learn based on experience. They compare current situations with previous events stored in memory, and take actions that previously led to reward.

These agents show striking gains in performance over traditional deep learning algorithms. Theyre also great at learning on the fly: rather than needing millions of examples, they just need a handful.

Similarly, neuroscience has been a fruitful source of inspiration for other advancements in AI, including algorithms equipped with a mental sketchpad that allows them to plan convoluted problems more efficiently.

But the best is yet to come.

The advent of brain imaging tools and genetic bioengineering are offering an unprecedented look at how biological neural networks organize and combine to tackle problems.

As neuroscientists work to solve the neural codethe basic computations that support brain functionit offers an expanding toolbox for AI researchers to tinker with.

One area where AIs can benefit from the brain is our knowledge of core concepts that relate to the physical worldspaces, numbers, objects, and so on. Like mental Legos, the concepts form the basic building blocks from which we can construct mental models that guide inferences and predictions about the world.

Weve already begun exploring ideas to address the challenge, says Hassabis. Studies with humans show that we decompose sensory information down into individual objects and relations. When implanted in code, its already led to human-level performance on challenging reasoning tasks.

Then theres transfer learning, the ability that takes AIs from one-trick ponies to flexible thinkers capable of tackling any problem. One method, called progressive networks, captures some of the basic principles in transfer learning and was successfully used to train a real robot arm based on simulations.

Intriguingly, these networks resemble a computational model of how the brain learns sequential tasks, says Hassabis.

The problem is neuroscience hasnt figured out how humans and animals achieve high-level knowledge transfer. Its possible that the brain extracts abstract knowledge structures and how they relate to one another, but so far theres no direct evidence that supports this kind of coding.

Without doubt AIs have a lot to learn from the human brain. But the benefits are reciprocal. Modern neuroscience, for all its powerful imaging tools and optogenetics, has only just begun unraveling how neural networks support higher intelligence.

Neuroscientists often have only quite vague notions of the mechanisms that underlie the concepts they study, says Hassabis. Because AI research relies on stringent mathematics, the field could offer a way to clarify those vague concepts into testable hypotheses.

Of course, its unlikely that AI and the brain will always work the same way. The two fields tackle intelligence from dramatically different angles: neuroscience asks how the brain works and the underlying biological principles; AI is more utilitarian and free from the constraints of evolution.

But we can think of AI as applied (rather than theoretical) computational neuroscience, says Hassabis, and theres a lot to look forward to.

Distilling intelligence into algorithms and comparing it to the human brain may yield insights into some of the deepest and most enduring mysteries of the mind, he writes.

Think creativity, dreams, imagination, andperhaps one dayeven consciousness.

Stock Media provided by agsandrew / Pond5

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Why Neuroscience Is the Key To Innovation in AI - Singularity Hub - Singularity Hub

Neuroscience

Shire may spin off Neuroscience franchise, upgrades guidance – Times of India

August 3, 2017 student

(Adds Neuroscience details)

LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Shire said it was exploring strategic options for its hyperactive drugs business, including a possible independent public listing, as the London-listed pharmaceutical maker upgraded its full-year earnings forecast on Thursday.

Shire, which reported 7 percent growth in second-quarter product sales, said it expected to complete a strategic review of its Neuroscience franchise by the end of the year.

"As part of the board's ongoing commitment to optimise Shire's portfolio and strategic focus, Shire is assessing strategic options for our Neuroscience franchise to derive even greater value from this franchise," it said.

The company upgraded the midpoint of its full-year forecast by 10 cents to $15 after stronger-than-expected costs savings from its acquisition of haemophilia specialist Baxalta last year.

It reported second-quarter revenue of $3.75 billion and non GAAP earnings per ADS of $3.73, up 11 percent and beating a market forecast of $3.60.

Shire shares were trading up 3.4 percent at 4,341 pence at 1126 GMT.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Jason Neely)

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Shire may spin off Neuroscience franchise, upgrades guidance - Times of India

Neuroscience

GSK to shutter central neuroscience R&D hub in China – FierceBiotech

August 3, 2017 medical

After reports surfaced in the Chinese press this week, GlaxoSmithKline has confirmed to FierceBiotech that it will be shutting down operations at its Shanghai R&D base as it looks west.

The U.K.-based drugmaker told FierceBiotech,Following a portfolio review and prioritization, GSK has decided to close its Neuroscience R&D Centre in Shanghai and move key programs to its global R&D hub in Upper Providence in the U.S., where they will benefit from co-location with other pipeline R&D programs."

The China R&D development organization will continue to be based in Shanghai and is set to expand over the next two years to accelerate the development of new medicines. We remain committed to China and will focus our R&D efforts in China on the needs of China, at both our Shanghai site and our Institute for Infectious Diseases and Public Health in Beijing. It did not say how many staffers would be affected.

This comes less than a year after the company looked to strengthen its China R&D commitment. Li Min, GSK's global head of neurosciences and general manager of R&D China, said last year, as quoted by news site China Daily: In the field of neurological diseases, we are very much committed to neurodegeneration and neuroexcitation. In medicine, you need to stay focused. You have to commit to one direction and make it happen.

Two yearsago, it launched the Neuro2020 project, encouraging partnerships with local universities, something Li said was part of our five-year plan to establish both our research as well as connectivity to the rest of our ecosystem, especially in China.

GSK has, of course, had a rather difficult past in the region. China is a major world economy with a growing middle class and the potential for big pharmaceutical sales and R&D, but tough policies led by a central and uncompromising government have made western biopharma expansion into China problematic.

Back in 2013,GSK became embroiled in a sex, lies and videotape-type scandal that saw allegations of bribery from certain sales teams in the region, with a deeper twist when a sex tape of former head of GSK China, Mark Reilly, in his Shanghai apartment with his girlfriend, was alleged to have been made, and then sent to CEO Andrew Witty. Witty has since been replaced by Emma Walmsley, who announced last month a major shake-up of the companys R&D.

Walmsley said she was focusing GSKs attention on two therapeutic areas in which it already has a sizable presencerespiratory and HIV/infectious diseasesand two in which it aspires to growoncology and immuno-inflammation. GSK will spend 80% of its R&D budget on top prospects in these areas. Neuroscience was not on her list of core areas to focus on.

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GSK to shutter central neuroscience R&D hub in China - FierceBiotech