Elon Musk’s Neuralink unveils device to connect your brain to a smartphone

"A monkey has been able to control a computer with its brain," Musk said, referring to tests of the device.

Neuralink
  • Neuralink seeks to build a brain-machine interface that would connect human brains with computers.
  • No tests have been performed in humans, but the company hopes to obtain FDA approval and begin human trials in 2020.
  • Musk said the technology essentially provides humans the option of "merging with AI."
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Technology & Innovation

The profound effects of exercise on the brain: A conversation with Dr. John Ratey

The Harvard Medical School's clinical professor of psychiatry wrote the book on the topic.

Photo by Nigel Roddis/Getty Images for IRONMAN
  • Dr. John Ratey's 2008 book, Spark, investigated the many important effects that exercise has on mental health.
  • While physical fitness is essential to good health, moving in a variety of ways is even more important.
  • Recent research suggests that exercise is as effective for treating certain mental health conditions as pharmaceuticals.
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Surprising Science

Want a shortcut to better living? Psychedelics may be it.

LSD may help us change our lives by spurring perspective shifts.

  • Psilocybin trip may turn banal insights into "sticky" and "revealed truths" that change the way we live our lives.
  • For instance, LSD may be able to help smokers cut their addiction. How so? By allowing them to have a perspective shift on its effects.
  • Sometimes the insights made during psychotherapy, after years of counseling, can be made with an LSD trip in a single afternoon.
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Videos

How neuroscience shows the highs and lows of humanity

Here's what neuroscience and psychology have to say about how people humanize and dehumanize one another.

  • When humans think about other humans versus inanimate objects, that difference can be seen in activated brain regions on fMRI scans.
  • Studies reveal that those brain regions don't light up equally when we look at all people – we tend to humanize some people and dehumanize others when we see things like homelessness, drug addiction, different ethnicities or someone in an outgroup.
  • On the other hand, humanization can be increased by something seemingly trivial: human touch. Studies show that NBA teams who touch more on the court play better together, and that the touch of a loved one can reduce pain.
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Videos

7 new things we’ve learned about the brain

Brain plasticity. Mindful superpowers. Pokémon invading our grey matter. Scientists have only begun to learn about the human brain.

(Photo: A Health Blog/Flickr)
  • In 1848, Phineaus Gage kicked off our modern neuroscience after blasting a tamping iron through his skull.
  • We explore 7 things scientists have since learned about this important, complex organ.
  • Many mysteries remain such as where consciousness originates and how we evolved such a multipurpose mind.
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Mind & Brain