Next time your brain plays tricks on you, you have an excuse: according to new research by UCL scientists published today in the journal Nature, the brain is intrinsically unreliable.

This may not seem surprising to most of us, but it has puzzled neuroscientists for decades. Given that the brain is the most powerful computing device known, how can it perform so well even though the behaviour of its circuits is variable?

A long-standing hypothesis is that the brain’s circuitry actually is reliable – and the apparently high variability is because your brain is engaged in many tasks simultaneously, which affect each other. [continue reading…]

Delicious images of the brain. This is the ventral view of a fresh specimen before it is processed at the Allen Institute. Fewer than 15 highly distinct individual human brains will provide the data for the Allen Brain Atlas.

With $55 million, a collection of frozen human brains and robots capable of processing 192 brain slices a day, the Allen Brain Institute is attempting to do the impossible: systematically map out the expression patterns of more than 20,000 genes that make our grey matter tick. Read More
Source: Wired

Neural electrode array wrapped onto a model of the brain. The wrapping process occurs spontaneously, driven by dissolution of a thin, supporting base of silk. (Credit: C. Conway and J. Rogers, Beckman Institute)

Scientists have developed a brain implant that essentially melts into place, snugly fitting to the brain’s surface. The technology could pave the way for better devices to monitor and control seizures, and to transmit signals from the brain past damaged parts of the spinal cord continue reading

Source:NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (2010, April 18). A brain-recording device that melts into place. ScienceDaily.