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This’ cool…Watch the time travel through the brain for the last 100 years

Drawing by Spanish Histologist, Herederos de Santiago Ramón y Cajal in 1899

根据Jeff Hawkins的Memory-prediction framework理论, 大脑是个学习记忆的机器，外部信息一层一层达到高级中枢，并储存起来，高级中枢又向下一层一层作出预测信息，与新的外部信息比较，如果匹配，就会有相应的反射行为，如果不匹配就会被整合到更高一层的中枢储存起来。。。重复性的工作很容易形成匹配与巩固，而创造性的工作就要靠大脑建立新的匹配的效率了。。。我们大脑所反映的就是外部和内部的世界，所谓创造也就是所有信息片段在学习记忆的随机碰撞中形成的某种模式，这些模式一直存在，聪明的人由于处理信息快可能比常人有更多的机会预测到这一模式，从而发现发明新的东西。。。但对于这个世界可能没有什么新的东西，万物都是随机的存在。。。从你在路上看到一个熟人到挥手打招呼的时间大概是250毫秒，也就是四分之一秒，这个行为大脑动用了几百万的神经细胞，大概消耗几个卡路里，未来的大脑可能是生物-芯片合成脑的效率会更快，也就是1毫秒，而且所有人类已知信息都可以储存在芯片里，人类不需要主动记忆，只需学习模式分辨的能力，人类的进化会从基因的进化转移到材料的进化上。。。就像T101到T1000一样。。。可以预见谁发明最好的材料谁就掌握这个世界，而为争夺新材料的战争也会永无止境。。。

芝加哥神经科学年会印象最深的演讲是两个顶级魔术师的表演，Apollo Robbins和Eric Mead。。。神经科学家自从2005年邀请达赖喇嘛以后，一直在搞这种对话，试图用科学方法了解宗教家，建筑师，舞蹈家，发明家，魔术师的大脑是怎么运行的，以期找到新的研究切入点。。。魔术师在精彩表演之余阐述了他们各自的实践理论基础，称魔术是通过操控观众的记忆，注意，感知等神经行为来实现表演目的，催眠术也是其中的一种，只不过被精神医生用来做治疗而已。。。科学家目前的工作可能会帮助理解这种行为的生理机制，对魔术事业大概没有什么帮助。。。两位魔术师对魔术的未来也各抒己见， Robbins认为魔术的秘密被公布后，就是纯粹的艺术了（他以在表演之前告知被操纵者他将要达到的目的为特征），而Mead认为未来的表演更多是现场表演而不是现在流行的媒体表演（他以在现场操纵观众情绪著称）。。。魔术是一门学问，和科学一样。。。

sfn历年邀请的演讲者:

2009  Apollo Robbins, Eric Mead

2008  Mark Morris

2007  Jeff Hawkins

2006  Frank Gehry

2005  Dalai Lama

花了两天时间完成了这个破斯特，展示我两年的工作成果。。。就那么一点点。。。

design a totem for my home page…

在今天的世界，即使信息随手可得，面对层出不穷的新知识，还是会被不停地诱惑。。。小点说用cell phone就可以做所有事情，不用说youtube, facebook, twitter这些花哨玩意儿，连小说都可以现场直播了，这世界是变化的越来越快了。。。难道人类的大脑真地在进化吗？也就是说运行速度越来越快，看看科学演讲人语速的比拼，再比较一下现在的电影和上个世纪的电影，就知道这是事实。。。这些进化来自自由思想的碰撞以及文明的竞争和选择，当然这个基因要被传递下去。。。从第一个凿兽骨的石头到有上万个零件的宇宙飞船，人类的脑回想必是增加了很多，尽管才用了几万年。。。即使如此，还保留着象我一样的保守分子，不肯尝试嗑药来提高自己的运行速度，以做更多的事情，包括发明创造。。。都说嗑药能激发创造力吗。。。也许能改变基因从而加速人类的进化呢？是应该健康地活着，还是尽快燃烧自己，照亮全人类，这是另许多人困惑的问题。。。看看书单，就知道自己兴趣有多广，也就知道专业有多深。。。我现在作的东西是蚂蚁搬家的游戏，很难激发什么创造力。。。要么提出新的理论，要么发明新的方法，如此才能进步，很不幸，在生物学界混的大批闲人都是酒囊饭袋（也许其他学界也是如此），我常为作为其中一员而自惭形秽。。。所以我还在被不停地诱惑着，考古，宇航员，智能工程师，小说家，心理学家，精神病医生，语言学家。。。

"Our brain makes decisions up to seven seconds before we become aware of them — along with the philosophical principle that any action must be dependent on preceding causes, imply that our behaviour is never self-generated and that freedom is an illusion." (Martin Heisenberg, Nature, 2009, 459,164； Soon, CS. Nature Neurosci. 2008, 543)

自由意志看来是不存在的，我们的行为是随机经验决定的。。。而随机经验是个体与周围环境相互作用的结果，我要去看电影这个个体行为可能是受媒体，朋友等信息刺激的结果。群体无意识也证明了这一点；至于怀疑，思考等行为也是一种先验。有人多疑，有人易信，这不过是大脑随机活动的结果，人类像自然万物一样，从来没有过自由意志。。。这样我们跟动物就没什么明确的界限了。。。

清晨的光从百叶窗射进来，我提前一个小时醒了，于是看了眼纽约客，等待我新设置的教堂的钟声。。。在这个竞争的社会，人们开始尝试各种手段来提高自己的竞争力，包括吃药。。。就像运动员为了提高成绩会用兴奋剂一样，许多人已经开始用大脑兴奋剂，甚至有人在扑克比赛中用也没有被禁。。。你愿意加入这场前卫的脑武器竞赛的实验中去吗？我想试一试。。。

Adderall for ADHD, is a brand-name drug psychostimulant composed of mixed amphetamine salts, which is thought to work by increasing the amount of norepinephrine and dopamine in the brain.

Ritalin for ADHD and narcolepsy, is the brand-name of methylphenidate, most commonly prescribed psychostimulant and is a potent central nervous system stimulant derived from amphetamine thought to exert its effect by enhancing dopaminergic transmission in the brain.

Provigil (modafinil) for narcolepsy, increases the release of monoamines 

Donepezil for Alzheimer’s disease, is a centrally acting reversible acetylcholinesterase inhibitor.

Ampakines for Alzheimer’s disease, a new class of compounds known to enhance attention span and alertness, and facilitate learning and memory, AMPA receptor agonist.

Piracetam for stoke recovery and dementia, is a drug which enhances cognition and memory, slows down brain aging, increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain.It is hypothesized to act on ion channels or ion carriers, thus leading to non-specific increased neuron excitability.

A small turkey crossed the road near the children’s hospital this morning…

忙碌中来到了新年，看VV摄影入迷，收获颇丰，我也作了许多模特，留下了些历史的影子，等着它们发黄。。。我的实验也越来越让人兴奋，终于在这里完成了些自己满意的工作，是该离开的时候了。。。我觉着自己一直在向着自己的理想行进，从未间断过，似乎那是命中注定的，有神在引导一样，尽管我对神没什么认识，也没什么敬拜。。。

送走了惆怅的VV，我们又开始了各自的长途跋涉，期望着在新的一年在那个城市会师，然后幸福地生活。。。 

I was thinking about my research a lot recently and come out some of the exciting projects:

1. To make a schizophrenia-like model with drosophila by mutating multiple schizophrenia related genes.

2. To build a neural circuit in microchips with neural stem cells.

3. To make a math model on neural circuits affected by multiple schizophrenia related genes.

4. To turn astrocytes or Schwan cells into neurons through neural stem cells by genetic induction.

So I need to go to a fly-lab to learn tech on Drosophila first, others I can manage by myself. 

I met this game when reading the article by Ben Pickard:

"Schizophrenia as genetic pelmanism
If you take a brand new pack of cards and start shuffling, it is not hard to appreciate that the longer you continue, the less likely it will be that you will find a series of cards in the same order as in the beginning. The European and Asian genomes are like a pack of cards that effectively started shuffling as humans first walked “Out of Africa” some 100,000 years ago. Meiotic recombination is the shuffling process and the result is a decreasing ability to predict at the gross level what combinations of marker alleles will be found together on a chromosome. African populations, with a longer “shuffling” time and without population bottlenecks (which effectively reorder the cards) show the least predictability (“linkage disequilibrium,” LD) across their genomes."

It’s quite an interesting metaphor for this pair of comparison.  And it’s a good game. Maybe VV can write another paper on it……

According to the  DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10, I do have this schizoid personality disorder, since I satisfy more than four of the criterias. VV’s loving me might be my personality is similar to the guy in "English Patient", like what was analyzed in this article. However, it’s not so frightened situation, that I can still live peacefully and maybe happily…

This is a moral dilemma. Is it morally acceptable to redirect a runaway trolley car hurtling toward five workers onto a track with just one worker? How about pushing a man off a footbridge into the path of the trolley to stop it before it hits the hapless workers? Most people say they would sacrifice one life to save five in the first scenario but not the second. In this case, emotion may trump utilitarian logic.

cited from Science 2008, 320:734-37

Neurobiologists, philosophers, psycologists and legal scholars are all looking for the origin of human morality, there are lots of new discoveries recently with the  aid of fMRI imaging technique, but the connections of neurons are so complicated, it’s still too early to say which part of the brain is responsible for morality. A more detailed disection of the brain may show us more what we don’t  know yet.

I’ve been following the research of stem cell since 1997, though I still work with some neural stem cells , I didn’t have chance to work in the top labs in the world. The idea is first heated in 1990’s when embryonic stem cells were cultured from mouse, and famous Dolly was born….then from the application purpose of treating diseases with stem cell transplantation, and ethical conficts of using human embryo, scientists are thinking of using cells from patient itself and easily disected and enriched in large numbers, to reverse the cell fate from aging to young…for the last decades, there has been a great leap in this area, especially the success of Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, who turned the human skin cells from patient into embryoic stem cells by introducing 4 genes into the cell. This solve the key problem of stem cell therapy….though it’s still far from the final application in clinic, this will make the stem cell research hotter and hotter. There are several papers come out from Nature and Science recently, and authors are all from Harvard, they are doing the same thing, but it seems more practical, such as making stem cell line with skin cells from DS patients; inducing pancreatic beta cells from glands cells….And the mile stones are mapped and the leading scientists are remembered…

Shinya Yamanaka  Kyoto University

James Thomson  University of Wisconsin

Kevin Eggan Harvard University

George Q. Daley Harvard Stem Cell Institute

Douglas A. Melton  Harvard University

Irving Weissman Stanford University

Fred H. Gage  Salk Institute

Even Y. Snyder Harvard University 

Martin Evans University of Cambridge

Gail R Martin UCSF 

Joseph Altman MIT 

Alxander Maksimov Russian Histologist 

People are looking for this day when human brain and computer communicate more directly than talking through fingers, and envolve together, which may change the world completely…the new research in UK has just made a promising progress. The cultured neurons are connected by electrodes to a robot, and the signals can be received and sent feedback to avoid collision. I remembered from an exhibition in Museum of Science in Boston that a paralyzed patient could control the keyboard of a computer through a chip implanted in his mortor cortex. But this research seems make more reduction than before, which could be used as a model for neuronal circuit studies.

The power of a computer is up to its calculating speed, the power of a human brain is atributed to its neural transduction speed; are there a limit for both? the computer can become bigger and bigger, or smaller and smaller with the material revolution, which leads to an expotientnal increase of speed limited by the energy consumed only, while human brain has to consider a balence between the size and energy consumed. The new research recently used a math model to see weather the human brain size changes with evolution, and drew the conclusion that it won’t unless human doen’t live in a dangous world. However I think there are other posiibilities to reach the objectives. Suppose we get a biological modification to improve the metablism efficacy and shrink the total volume of our body, then the brain could become smaller too and high speed running.  The iPhone might be leading the trend for human brain evolution….high speed, low energy consumption, small size…..I heard from some researchs that said the future human is like a ball already, maybe that’s it…..

Keep a record here for learning later. Two websites on psychiatry movies, one is documentary for education, the other is for entertainment.

A recent study has confirmed the previous discovery that lesbian or gay has a biological foundation:   "The scans showed the right side of the brain in heterosexual men was typically 2% larger than the left. Lesbians showed a similar asymmetry, with the right hand side of the brain 1% larger than the left. Scans on homosexual men and heterosexual women revealed both sides of the brain were the same size."……"They found heterosexual women and gay men shared brain circuitry linking a region called the amygdala, which plays a key role in emotional responses, to other parts of the brain."

This old topic once interested me some time ago with a small blog….who knows the behavior could not be mimic by A.I. ? And "The Voight-Kampff empathy test is not far away from the sort of thing that cognitive neuroscientists are actually doing today" (Chris Frith)…