What is Artificial Intelligence?

synaptic communication captured on a laser camera

Scientists from the Medical College of Georgia, lead by Dr. Tsien, were able to decode the communication among neurons during formation and recall of memory. Using state-of-the art neurotechnologies and the century-old Pavlovian condition, they were able to recognize in real time the formation and recollection of a memory in a mouse's brain.

In the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain, MCG scientists connected 128 electrodes in order to detect communication among 200 to 300 neurons during the time when the [subject] mice learned to associate a certain tone with a mild foot shock 20 seconds later.

An algorithm computed the neuronal chats and translated them into discernible and dynamic patterns that provided scientists a clearer picture of what the memory appeared during formation and recall.

MCG scientists used a mouse as the subject. The subject underwent two memory recall tests. One, by hearing a tone, the mouse freezes and second, returning to the chamber where the foot shock occurred. They later correlated these actions to memory retrieval.

The results were very significant to finding specific solution to memory problems, because as Dr. Tsien said, "the ability to watch memories being made in real time should help pinpoint where problems lie, enabling more targeted research and eventual treatment".

Click here to read more about Decoding Neuronal Communication, Memory Formation and Recall and Pavlovian Conditioning.

FUGA is a method of measuring human experience in media enjoyment

Digital games, both computer and video are among the fastest growing entertainment forms in the media industry and large scale investments are being dedicated to develop new digital games. In addition to entertainment, digital games are becoming more valuable resources of learning and therapy for both the mentally and physically disabled.

FUGA, the fun of gaming is a method of measuring the level of fun in multimedia gaming. It mainly focuses on measuring the human experience of media enjoyment from computer games and developing emotionally adaptive gaming prototypes.

FUGA's main objective is to develop novel methods and improve existing models to evaluate the different aspects of gaming experience, such as cognitions and emotions, comprehensively with high temporal resolution.

FUGA will employ neurological and physio-psychological instruments such as facial EMG, EEG, ECG, EDA, and respiration, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), eye movement recordings, the so-called (online) implicit association test and tracking of behavioral indicators of emotion and motivation.

new digital games are developed for different purposes in education, therapy and entertainment

The results of this innovative measurement approach will be primarily used in the development of new digital games for several different purposes in education, entertainment and therapy.

Click here to read more about FUGA project and Fun of Gaming

A view of the brain in cortical simulation using BlueMatter algorithm that exploits the Blue Gene supercomputing architecture

The IBM Cognitive team has recently announced a significant progress in the development of the Cat-brain based computing system that mimics the brain's abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition, while rivaling the brain's low power and energy consumption and compact size.

The team led by the IBM Research Almaden, has made a significant advancement in the cortical simulation and an algorithm called BlueMatter, that synthesizes neurological data. These two major milestones indicate the feasibility of building a cognitive computing chip.

These progress will charter a unique area in exploring the computational dynamics of the brain, and move closer to its goal of building a compact, low-power synaptronic chip using nanotechnology and advances in phase change memory and magnetic tunnel junctions.

The cognitive team built a cortical simulator that incorporates a number of innovations in computation, memory, communication as well as details from neurophysiology and neuroanatomy in order to perform the first near real-time cortical simulation of the brain in large scale. After which, they combined the algorithm with the cortical simulator to experiment with various mathematical hypotheses of brain function.

Click here to read more about Cat-Brain Based Computing, Cortical Simulation, BlueMatter algorithm and Blue Gene Supercomputing Architecture.

Jurjen Caarls on augmented reality in action.

Augmented reality is one of the latest innovations in the electronics industry. It is an improved technology of the usual virtual reality application by superimposing graphics, audio and other sense enhancements from computer screens onto real time environments. It is a blend of computer-generated enhancements in the real world which allows for users to move around rather than just sit and watch what's on the 'screen'.

The result is a 'visual walkman', a doctoral dissertation subject by Jurjen Caarls. He developed a prototype that allows one to "walk" inside an augmented reality environment. He made use of sensors with accurate, real-time measurements of position and orientation. Caarls developed specific image processing techniques, and methods for mixing and filtering the information from various sensors in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague.

One of the basic components of an augmented reality system is the head-mounted display of two small screens and two semi-transparent mirrors to achieve the effect of actual walking in the augmented world in real time. The equipment built into the augmented reality helmet includes a camera, angular velocity sensors, and accelerometers.The other components include a tracking system and mobile computer for the hardware.

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The left brain image shows the area of compromised white matter (blue area) among poor readers relative to good readers at the beginning of the study. The center brain image shows the area where the structural integrity increased (red/yellow area) among poor readers who received the instruction, and it is very similar to the initially compromised area. The right brain image shows that following the instruction, there were no differences between the good and poor readers with respect to the integrity of their white matter.

Dyslexic children are poor readers. Possibly because their brains' neural networks are wired differently than that of normal children. Cognitive scientists say, they are picture readers, so they learn to read very slowly when words are not defined by pictures and sounds.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Timothy Keller and Marcel Just have found evidence of possible brain rewiring after an intensive remedial sessions to improve reading skills in young children. The evidence showed an improvement in dyslexic brain's structure with respect to the white matter, the brain tissue that carries signals between sections of grey matter, where information is processed.

The experiment commenced by scanning the brains of 72 children using fMRI, 47 of them were good readers and 25 were poor. The good readers did not receive the 100-hour remedial training, while the group of poor readers underwent the remedial reading session.

After completion, all the 72 subjects' brains were re-scanned. The 47 good readers did not show an increase in the brain tissue while the other 25 showed the white matter in their brains has increased significantly correlating to an improvement in their reading skills. "The children who showed the most white matter change also showed the most improvement in reading ability, confirming the link between the brain tissue alteration and reading progress", researchers said.

Click here to read more about First Evidence of Brain Rewiring, Behavioral Training, Remedial Reading Treatment and Dyslexia.