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These are amazing news for people with brain damage conditions like Cerebral Palsy. If they can replace the "dead" areas with new cells. Not sure about the dise

These are amazing news for people with brain damage conditions like Cerebral Palsy. If they can replace the "dead" areas with new cells. Not sure about the diseases since they will just make the new neurons damaged again. I wonder what are the implications for healthy brains. If humans are born with 80 billion neurons and you can increase that number...

ben_w 8y ago
Without better knowledge of the structure of the brain, adding extra neurons isn’t going to anything noteworthy in exactly the same way smooshing together three cow brains isn’t going to make a human brain. I’m optimistic that we will learn these structures, but we have yet to, is all.
- jf- 8y ago
  That seems to be one of the findings of the paper- the new neutrons were self-organising, in that they could find the right kind of other neutrons to attach to. How far that self-organisation would extend is an open question however.
- myth_drannon 8y ago
  Well, what about smooshing together three human brains? From my basic knowledge of neuroplasticity, if the brain area is unused the nearby areas will take over and use it for their functionality (e.g. blind person's increased sense of hearing and smell)
- IAmGraydon 8y ago
  From the article: "Now researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, and the Helmholtz Zentrum München have demonstrated that, in mice, transplanted embryonic nerve cells can indeed be incorporated into an existing network and correctly carry out the tasks of damaged cells originally found in that region."
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    That's about repairing damaged brains, not augmenting healthy brains.
    - mattigames 8y ago
      I think replacing very old cells with new ones, think 60-year-old's brain may prove to be pretty much the same, in the sense that they have neuroplasticity once again.
      - ben_w 8y ago
        Depends on your goals. To think like a 20-year-old again? Sure, I’d buy that. Superhuman? Nah — and there’s plenty we are unable to think. I’m interested in both types of brain enhancement.
kowz23 8y ago
Trump would just be tweeting more.
baldfat 8y ago
New Treatment for Cerebral Palsy: M2 Macrophage Transplantation Improves Motor and Cognitive Function https://www.abclawcenters.com/blog/2018/03/27/new-treatment-for-cerebral-palsy-m2-macrophage-transplantation-improves-motor-and-cognitive-function/ https://www.abclawcenters.com/blog/2018/03/27/new-treatment-...
wycs 8y ago
>I wonder what are the implications for healthy brains. If humans are born with 80 billion neurons and you can increase that number Or do some somatic gene therapy before injection. Seems like about the only way to increase IQ after birth, short of an extremely advanced neural prothesis.

ben_w 8y ago

Without better knowledge of the structure of the brain, adding extra neurons isn’t going to anything noteworthy in exactly the same way smooshing together three cow brains isn’t going to make a human brain. I’m optimistic that we will learn these structures, but we have yet to, is all.

jf- 8y ago
That seems to be one of the findings of the paper- the new neutrons were self-organising, in that they could find the right kind of other neutrons to attach to. How far that self-organisation would extend is an open question however.
myth_drannon 8y ago
Well, what about smooshing together three human brains? From my basic knowledge of neuroplasticity, if the brain area is unused the nearby areas will take over and use it for their functionality (e.g. blind person's increased sense of hearing and smell)
IAmGraydon 8y ago
From the article: "Now researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, and the Helmholtz Zentrum München have demonstrated that, in mice, transplanted embryonic nerve cells can indeed be incorporated into an existing network and correctly carry out the tasks of damaged cells originally found in that region."
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  That's about repairing damaged brains, not augmenting healthy brains.
  - mattigames 8y ago
    I think replacing very old cells with new ones, think 60-year-old's brain may prove to be pretty much the same, in the sense that they have neuroplasticity once again.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Depends on your goals. To think like a 20-year-old again? Sure, I’d buy that. Superhuman? Nah — and there’s plenty we are unable to think. I’m interested in both types of brain enhancement.

kowz23 8y ago

Trump would just be tweeting more.

baldfat 8y ago

New Treatment for Cerebral Palsy: M2 Macrophage Transplantation Improves Motor and Cognitive Function https://www.abclawcenters.com/blog/2018/03/27/new-treatment-for-cerebral-palsy-m2-macrophage-transplantation-improves-motor-and-cognitive-function/ https://www.abclawcenters.com/blog/2018/03/27/new-treatment-...

wycs 8y ago

>I wonder what are the implications for healthy brains. If humans are born with 80 billion neurons and you can increase that number Or do some somatic gene therapy before injection. Seems like about the only way to increase IQ after birth, short of an extremely advanced neural prothesis.