Goal-based prosthetic readout

In this week’s Science, Richard Andersen’s lab shows the first use of a region (relatively) distant from primary motor areas for brain readout in a reaching task. Using a very small number of neurons (8-16 cells), the investigators were able to achieve a 60-70% accuracy in predicting reach movements to a particular target (out of 8 total targets). Read on for the abstract or here for the full article.

Multi-neuron recording & analysis methods: 3 reviews

3 papers from Nature Neuroscience review current methods for recording from multiple neurons and analyzing the results.

Neuroscience databases

Exciting developments in neuroscience databases.Two articles: a new database, Neurodatabase.org, and an interesting review of current work going on in the creation of neuroscience databases.

Different STDP rules found in different cells

Dendritic computation experiment: 1 pyramidal cell = 2 layer neural net

Pach clamp experiments on pyramidal dendrites support a model where a single pyramidal cell is equivalent to a 2-layer AI-style neural net.

Diary of a user of Paxil

Journalist takes a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, paroxetine HCl (Paxil), for 44 days, and reports on effects.

http://slate.msn.com/id/95903/