Knowing Neurons

The Neuroscience of Avatar – could we really download our brains into a new body?

By Lauren Wagner Thirteen years after the first Avatar movie came out in 2009, director James Cameron invites viewers to journey back to the faraway, lush exo-moon of Pandora with… Read more

Binaural Beats for Behavior Modulation and Brainwave Entrainment

By Jasreen Singh What are binaural beats? Have you ever heard something that wasn’t actually there? Perhaps you were listening to an auditory illusion known as binaural beats. A binaural… Read more

Biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease

By Mariella Careaga Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain disorder that progressively impacts a person’s cognitive functioning and behavioral capacities, leading, ultimately, to the disruption of that person’s daily life.… Read more

La mecánica emocional de la interacción robot-humano

Artículo original: The emotional mechanics of the robot-human interaction  Knowing Neurons Traducido por Estefany Ochoa Las primeras impresiones son fundamentales.  Mientras analizamos a una persona, formamos un breve resumen de… Read more

Iluminando el cerebro con la optogenética

Artículo original: Lighting up the Brain With Optogenetics Brainfacts.org Traducido por Dalí Jiménez Los científicos que estudian el moco de estanque descubrieron su capacidad peculiar de sentir la luz, incluso… Read more

Cerebral Organoids Reveal New Angles for Understanding the Human Brain

When you think of researchers growing “mini-brains,” you might picture a mad scientist out of a sci-fi or horror movie. But the reality looks quite different. Cerebral organoids, often colloquially… Read more

La Optogenética: Una Herramienta Iluminadora con un Futuro Brillante

Artículo original: Optogenetics: An Illuminating Tool with a Bright Future , Jeff Olney Traducido por Valia Gregory Casi todo lo que hacemos requiere del cerebro de alguna manera. ¿Comer una… Read more

La Educación en Neurociencias en la Época del COVID-19: Una Entrevista con la Dra. Megan Peters Sobre la Academia Neuromatch

Artículo original: Neuroscience Education in the Time of COVID-19: An Interview with Dr. Megan Peters about Neuromatch Academy, Sean Noah Traducido por Daniela Semerjian En marzo del 2020, mi investigación… Read more

La Ingeniería Inversa del Cerebro

Artículo original: Reverse Engineering the Brain ,  Joel Frohlich  Traducido por Delaney Ivey ~~~ ¿Podemos aprender todo sobre el cerebro estudiando las células cerebrales individuales? Comenzó con una simple ecuación.… Read more

The AMI Procedure- Gateway to a Cyborg Future

Advances in bioengineering and robotics have delivered incredible devices capable of partially restoring functionality to those who suffer from movement related disabilities. However, this technology is not perfect. Patients still… Read more

Neuroscience Education in the Time of COVID-19: An Interview with Dr. Megan Peters about Neuromatch Academy

In March 2020, my research stopped. The cognitive neuroscience lab where I work was shuttered because our research involves collecting behavioral and neuroimaging data from human participants – something impermissible… Read more

Optogenetics: An Illuminating Tool with A Bright Future

Nearly everything we do requires our brain in some way. Eating a bagel? That uses your brain. Reading this article? That’s using your brain, too. All those questionable decisions you… Read more

How Binaural Beats Affect Your Brain – and How They Don’t

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he beat is low and steady – but it’s all just in my head… While I’m sitting on my couch, listening to some smooth jazz, there is a faint beat… Read more

One Small Map for Fruit Flies, One Giant Leap for Neuroscience

*Note: this article explores a recent paper that has been reviewed and published in its preprint form, before peer review. [dropcap]W[/dropcap]hile there is a certain majesty in the convoluted wrinkles… Read more

Is Neuroimaging Just Modern Phrenology?

You might have heard the term ‘phrenology’ thrown around, usually in the context of pseudoscience and racism. Or, if you’ve heard discussions about the Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained, it… Read more

Reverse Engineering the Brain

Can we learn everything about the brain by studying individual brain cells? It started with a simple equation. In 1980, a mathematician named Benoit Mandelbrot working for IBM plotted the… Read more

The Brain’s Building Blocks: Of Protons and Voxels

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat’s in a brain? That which we call a voxel by any other name would sound far less confusing. Imagine all of the atoms in your brain. Now imagine how these… Read more

Lighting Up The Brain With Optogenetics

Scientists studying pond scum discovered its peculiar ability to sense light, even without eyes. This discovery would eventually lead to a technique called optogenetics, one of the most powerful techniques… Read more

The Past and Promise of Deep Brain Stimulation

In the early 1980s, a few batches of contaminated synthetic heroin triggered severe Parkinson’s disease symptoms among the drug addicts who used it. The tragedy would lead to a new… Read more

Neuromorphic Engineering: Biomimicry from the Brain

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat is the brain? Researchers conceive of neurons as information processing units, meaning that the circuits formed by neurons support logical and mathematical operations. In this view, the brain is… Read more

How Neuroimaging Changes Our View of Science & Humanity

Magritte’s comments on our fascination with the unknown rings true not just in artistic surrealism, but also in many of our scientific research endeavors. The human mind is continually fascinated… Read more

The Ultimate Thought Experiment Part III: Flowers for Algernon

In Part II of this series, we considered artificial intelligent in the context of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel and Stanley Kubrik’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In Space Odyssey, intelligence… Read more

How does fundamental research help you?

Sometimes it’s hard to understand why scientists do what they do. Why spend a career studying cells, fungus, or flies? Other than being nerdy and wanting to learn about our… Read more

Stimulating Neural Circuits with Magnetism

Brain stimulation might sound like some Frankensteinian demonstration from a Victorian science fair. But in reality, it is a contemporary technique making a huge impact in neuroscience by addressing a… Read more

Meet our newest team member Kayleen Schreiber

We have someone new joining our team!  She is a neuroscience PhD student at the University of Iowa, and she studies speech perception – but let’s let the animation she created… Read more

Hacking your Brain with Smart Drugs

What if you could take a pill to enhance your cognitive abilities?  What if this pill could help you ace a test, get more work done efficiently, and truly multitask? … Read more

How Do We Know? The Value of Scientific Models.

Last month, astronomers announced the prediction of a new giant planet in our solar system dubbed Planet IX, a genuine ninth planet with ten times the mass of Earth.  The… Read more

The Neuroscience of Star Wars

For the first time in over a decade, a new Star Wars film is upon us, and if you’re like the staff of Knowing Neurons, your nucleus accumbens is firing… Read more

Mapping Brain Connectivity Using Graph Theory

Have you ever wondered why the same brain regions are often implicated again and again in many tasks and behaviors?  For instance, the prefrontal cortex is implicated in so many… Read more

The Turing Test: Is that Human or Machine?

I propose to consider the following question, ‘Can machines think?’ Thus begins Alan Turing’s paper “Computing machinery and intelligence.”  It’s 1950 England, and the world’s first computer is being used… Read more

The emotional mechanics of the robot-human interaction

First impressions are pivotal.  While reading another person’s cues, an abridged version of them forms as we draw on complex social inferences in merely seconds of interaction.  That is, if… Read more

CRISPR-Cas9: Targeted Genome Editing

~ Infographic by Jooyeun Lee and Kate Fehlhaber. ~ References: Hsu P. & Feng Zhang (2014). Development and Applications of CRISPR-Cas9 for Genome Engineering, Cell, 157 (6) 1262-1278. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.05.010 Fineran… Read more

Intracranial EEG and Mental Time Travel

A familiar progression of chords blares out of your speakers as the red lights of the surrounding traffic fade into the memory of a dark stage illuminated by pulsing neon lights.… Read more

Surfing Brainwaves with EEG: A Classic Tool for Recording Temporal Brain Dynamics

Pictures are powerful tools for illustrating quantitative data and capturing public interest.  Each year, NASA releases many beautiful images of Martian dunes and distant nebulae which help win public funding.… Read more