Meet the Designer Behind Neuralink’s Surgical Robot

As a designer, what safety considerations did you have to think about with the Neuralink device? The primary safety considerations weren’t so much on the device but on the robot. We had a small role to play, which was to psychologically transform their first-generation robot, which was exposed steel—you could argue it looked pretty ominous—to […]

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Are You Noise Sensitive? Here’s How to Tell

The sympathetic nervous system kicks in, boosting your heart rate, increasing your blood pressure, and triggering the body to produce inflammatory cells. Over time, these changes can lead to chronic inflammation, high blood pressure, and plaque buildup on your arterial walls. To complicate matters, when you begin to lose your ability to hear at a […]

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Why You Hear Voices in Your White Noise Machine

Every night, I—like millions of others—put on a noise machine to help me sleep. Mine offers several types of noise: white, pink, green, and brown. I’ve noticed something strange, though. After about 30 minutes of the noise pumping into my head, I start to hear things. Sometimes it’s music, like a full orchestral score. Other […]

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Your Next Job: Brain-Computer Interface Surgeon

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 of everyday life, we’ll need […]

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They Had PTSD. A Psychedelic Called Ibogaine Helped Them Get Better

After multiple deployments with the US Army Special Forces, Joe Hudak returned home in 2011 changed by his time in Iraq, Afghanistan, and South America. He was quickly diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He tried talk therapy and a range of medications, but they didn’t help. He attempted suicide twice in 2012. “I was fighting […]

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It’s Time to Log Off

“When we’re doomscrolling, we’re kind of looking for the resolution to the issue. Read some more posts. Read some more articles. If I get more information, then maybe I’ll understand the problem,” Price says, describing the doomscrolling cycle. This doesn’t just affect individuals. When a lot of people are experiencing the stress of the news […]

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Ann McKee Is on a Quest to Save Humanity’s Brains

When she describes the moment she realized that CTE and football were connected, she sounds as shocked as she must have been back then. “My first football player [brain] was a 45-year-old man who played nine years in the NFL, and when I saw his brain, I was floored because it meant football was a […]

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How Cinematherapy Helped Me Through a Midlife Crisis

Bewildered, I asked, “You mean, how old am I?” “Yes,” she said. “50.” “You would be joining a young, progressive team, but you look much younger, so I think you’d fit in just fine,” she said. My excitement turned to apprehension as we wrapped up the interview. Driving home, her unsettling words playing in my […]

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Everyone Was Wrong About Why Cats Purr

Feline researchers have long believed that purring is produced by voluntary muscle contractions, but a new report indicates that this vibration in the larynx of cats may be explained by the myoelastic aerodynamic theory of phonation. Studies on the complex action that produces a unique vibration in the larynx of cats—known as purring to most […]

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A Personalized Brain Implant Curbed a Woman’s OCD

Over the next six to eight months, Pearson’s OCD symptoms decreased significantly, and her brain activity triggered the stimulation less often. She told her doctors that before, she was sometimes spending eight hours a day performing compulsions. Now, she estimates that it’s more like 30 minutes. The effects have persisted over the two years since […]

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Why Antidepressants Take So Long to Work

Clinical depression is considered one of the most treatable mood disorders, but neither the condition nor the drugs used against it are fully understood. First-line SSRI treatments (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) likely free up more of the neurotransmitter serotonin to improve communication between neurons. But the question of how SSRIs enduringly change a person’s mood […]

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This Contest Put Theories of Consciousness to the Test. Here’s What It Really Proved

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 of data. Ever since Francis […]

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A Groundbreaking Human Brain Cell Atlas Just Dropped

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 exist in the brain? And […]

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How Insect Brains Melt and Rewire During Metamorphosis

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. On warm summer nights, green lacewings flutter around bright lanterns in backyards and at campsites. The insects, with their veil-like wings, are easily distracted from their natural preoccupation with sipping on flower nectar, avoiding predatory bats, and reproducing. Small clutches of the eggs they lay […]

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Is It Real or Imagined? Here’s How Your Brain Tells the Difference

What is clear is that the brain must be able to accurately regulate how strong a mental image is to avoid confusion between fantasy and reality. “The brain has this really careful balancing act that it has to perform,” Naselaris said. “In some sense it is going to interpret mental imagery as literally as it […]

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Brain Implants That Help Paralyzed People Speak Just Broke New Records

Ann, a stroke survivor, can communicate using a digital avatar that decodes her intended speech. Photograph: Noah Berger/UCSF There are trade-offs to both group’s approaches. Implanted electrodes, like the ones the Stanford team used, record the activity of individual neurons, which tends to provide more detailed information than a recording from the brain’s surface. But […]

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Use of AI Is Seeping Into Academic Journals—and It’s Proving Difficult to Detect

Experts say there’s a balance to strike in the academic world when using generative AI—it could make the writing process more efficient and help researchers more clearly convey their findings. But the tech—when used in many kinds of writing—has also dropped fake references into its responses, made things up, and reiterated sexist and racist content […]

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Everyone Was Wrong About Antipsychotics

Next, Parker wondered how general this effect is. Most antipsychotics developed over the past 70 years stick to dopamine receptors, but a new generation binds to other sites, like acetylcholine receptors. Might these new drugs still be doing something to D1 neurons indirectly? Parker’s team picked three promising new drugs—all in the final clinical trials […]

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The First Pill for Postpartum Depression Is Almost Here

About one in eight women in the United States experiences postpartum depression after giving birth. Soon, there may finally be a convenient, fast-acting medication to treat it—if the Food and Drug Administration gives it the green light. The pill, called zuranolone, is taken over the course of 14 days and works to relieve depressive symptoms […]

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Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder—but Memorability May Be Universal

Imagine spending a weekend afternoon with friends at an art museum: nodding with crossed arms, desperately searching for something insightful to say. The vast majority of paintings you stroll past are immediately forgotten, but some stick in your mind. As it turns out, the paintings you remember are likely the same ones everyone else does. […]

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