This mind-controlled 'bionic spine' could see paralysed patients walk again

Australian researchers have developed a tiny ‘bionic spine’ that can be implanted into a blood vessel next to the brain to read electrical signals and feed them into an exoskeleton, bionic limbs, or wheelchair to give paraplegic patients greater mobility based on subconscious thoughts.

Sighing is actually a life-saving reflex, and scientists have found the switch that controls it

Here's why we all need to be sighing 12 times an hour.

Remember all those times your parents told you it was rude to sigh? Well, you can discount that advice entirely, because sighing's actually a crucial reflex that keeps our lungs healthy, and researchers have just uncovered the switch in our brain that controls it.

What the mouse eye tells the mouse brain

Tübingen researchers have shown that image processing in the eye is more extensive than previously thought. They investigated the channels that transmit information from the eye to the brain. In the course of this investigation, they not only identified numerous new cell types: they also found that the retina seems to possess some 40 different channels into the brain, twice as many as previously assumed. The results of their study are published in the latest edition of Nature.

Chronic stress could lead to depression and dementia!

A major review of published research suggests that chronic stress and anxiety can damage areas of the brain involved in emotional responses, thinking and memory, leading to depression and even Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr Linda Mah, the lead author of the review carried out at a research institute affiliated to the University of Toronto, said:

Fragmented baby care can affect brain development!

Mothers, put down your smartphones when caring for your babies! That's the message from University of California, Irvine researchers, who have found that fragmented and chaotic maternal care can disrupt proper brain development, which can lead to emotional disorders later in life.

While the study was conducted with rodents, its findings imply that when mothers are nurturing their infants, numerous everyday interruptions - even those as seemingly harmless as phone calls and text messages - can have a long-lasting impact.

Dr. Tallie Z. Baram and her colleagues at UCI's Conte Center on Brain Programming in Adolescent Vulnerabilities show that consistent rhythms and patterns of maternal care seem to be crucially important for the developing brain, which needs predictable and continuous stimuli to ensure the growth of robust neuron networks. Study results appear today in Translational Psychiatry.

Artificial Brain Boost

Scientists are working on computers with the ability to boost our brain function when they notice us getting tired, and the technology could eventually be used to tailor our user experience depending on how stressed or how worn-out we're feeling.

It works via a technique called functional near infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS. Two sensors on the scalp beam a harmless red light into the skull. This red light analyses the amount of blood vessels in the brain, and from this it can determine the levels of oxygen present at any given moment. High oxygen levels mean the brain is working hard, and low levels mean it's basically cruising along on autopilot.