Tag Archives: brains

There’s a lot to like about brain-computer interfaces, those sci-fi-sounding devices that jack into your skull and turn neural signals into software commands. Experimental BCIs help paralyzed people communicate, use the internet, and move prosthetic limbs. In recent years, the devices have even gone wireless. If mind-reading computers become part …

New drugs for Alzheimer’s are finally coming onto the market after decades of failed attempts to slow its devastating progression. But startup Cognito Therapeutics is taking a drug-free approach to treating the memory-robbing disease. The Cambridge, Massachusetts–based company is developing a headset to combat cognitive decline. In results from a …

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Whenever you’re actively performing a task—say, lifting weights at the gym or taking a hard exam—the parts of your brain required to carry it out become “active” when neurons step up their electrical activity. But is your brain active even …

The first person to receive a Neuralink brain implant has apparently recovered and can now control a computer mouse using their thoughts, according to Elon Musk, the company’s cofounder. “Progress is good and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware …

Elon Musk said on the social media platform X on Monday that the first human patient has received a brain implant developed by his company Neuralink. The product also now has a name: Telepathy. After years of delays, Neuralink started recruiting patients for a clinical trial in the fall after …

In September, Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink announced the much-anticipated news that it would start recruiting volunteers for a clinical trial to test its device. Known as a brain-computer interface, or BCI, it collects electrical activity from neurons and interprets those signals into commands to control an external device. While …

Amber Pearson has had a severe form of obsessive compulsive disorder since she was in high school. She would wash her hands so much they became raw and bled. Her bedtime routine easily took 45 minutes because it involved checking that all the doors and windows were closed and the …

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Science routinely puts forward theories, then batters them with data till only one is left standing. In the fledgling science of consciousness, a dominant theory has yet to emerge. More than 20 are still taken seriously. It’s not for want …

Today, an international team of researchers shared an extraordinarily detailed atlas of human brain cells, mapping its staggering diversity of neurons. The atlas was published as part of a massive package of 21 papers in the journal Science, each taking complementary approaches to the same overarching questions: What cell types …

You can 3D-print nearly anything: rockets, mouse ovaries, and for some reason, lamps made of orange peels. Now, scientists at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have printed living neural networks composed of rat brain cells that seem to mature and communicate like real brains do. Researchers want to create mini-brains …