Emergence of language in the developing brain 🧠🗣️

Scientists recorded intracranial activity from 46 children aged 2–18 as they listened to The Little Prince. Toddlers showed phonetic encoding in the superior temporal gyrus, while word-level meaning emerged later in associative cortices.

Nudge unveiled a non-invasive ultrasound brain interface that targets deep brain regions with millimeter precision. Using a high-channel phased-array system, it can modulate areas like the thalamus to treat addiction and pain - and eventually enhance everyday cognition.

nudge.com/blog/about/

Neurotech saw $2.3B in investments in 2024. Some key takeaways:

• Implanted tech secured more funding despite fewer deals
• Pain, Parkinson’s, and Depression were the top-funded conditions
• 7 companies raised over $100M each
• The sector grew at an impressive 90% annual rate

The authors share astounding decoding results - potentially too good to be true for non-invasive brain interfacing. Their setup included parieral/occipital contacts while viewing a drone flight for training. The screen was manipulated to flicker in specific frequencies during certain drone behaviors

👓 The retinal implant is combined with a special pair of glasses.

💡 These glasses block out ambient light and direct visual information to the implant using a built-in projector.

⚡ The glasses provide power to the implant, possibly for the implant to be activated only through the glasses.

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🗞️ A recent review article argues optical recording methods might succeed electrophysiological methods in terms of number of neurons being interfaced. Still, ephys offers unique temporal resolution highly suitable for applications such as BCI.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Happy Holiday season! 🎨 We made a small artwork from real invasive brainwaves during movement and rest. Now we only need a matching song to our album cover ...

For me it was "Beyond Boundaries" by Miguel Nicolelis. A must read for anyone interested in brain-computer interfaces!