Category Archives: Neurotechnology

PD Neurotechnology, a MedTech start-up for patients suffering from Parkinsons Disease, the second most common neurologic disease in the world, is targeting 500.000 in the financing round opened by SeedBlink, the European co-investment platform in tech startups.

This 5.000,000 Series A round is led by CIC Capital Partners, the co-investment from CIC Capital Partners & BigPi is of4.500,000. The PD Neurotechnologys pre-money valuation is of30.000,000.

The funds raised in this investment round will be used for manufacturing purposes, clinical trials and to boost business development in new markets.

PD Neurotechnology is providing people with Parkinsons Disease and other movement disorders with affordable, easy-to-use medical wearables and advanced AI software for monitoring and treatment, which can be applied at home or in non-clinical settings.The PD Neurotechnologys team includes 40 specialists in biomedical devices, neurology, healthcare, logistics, artificial intelligence and Parkinsons

Disease, and has a world-class advisory board of leading neurology and Parkinsons disease scientists.

PDNeurotechnologys first product, PDMonitor, is a CE marked class IIa medical device, consisting of monitoring devices/wearables, which capture and showraw motion data frompredefined body locations, a Smart Box, which processes motion data and extracts PD symptoms, and a PD Monitor Cloud, which merges symptoms and mobile app input into a powerful knowledge base, thus making patient management more effective. The Physician tool is a powerful disease management tool and electronic patient record which helps the treating physician access this data, supporting disease staging and treatment optimization.

Nikos Moschos, Founder & Business Director of PD Neurotechnology said: We are very proud of our multisensory approach and system architecture, which ensures that Parkinsons Disease symptoms are continuously monitored in a user-friendly manner, enabling prompt support and treatment optimization. Our goal has always been to develop innovative and non-invasive solutions to help patients feel safer, and forge a close and effective doctor-patient relationship. Our plans for the future are substantial, we are constantly looking for new sources of growth and we always seek to diversify and enhance the solutions we provide.

Ionu Ptrhu, Managing Director & Corporate Development at SeedBlink said: It is important that we back MedTech innovators, as they not only impact the economy, but they improve peoples lives. We need to strengthen their ability to provide efficient solutions. Meaningful innovation makes our investment all the more meaningful. We are enthusiastic about PD Neurotechnologys products and are keen to support their growth.

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PD Neurotechnology, a MedTech start-up for patients suffering from ...

Life is not breathing, neither is it heartbeat. Though vital, they are engines for the basic quantity of experience. They are not often prioritized in processes, so their share of what it means to be and to know isnt particularly outsized.

Life is thoughtbuilt by brain cells and molecules. Thought is how to know. Thought has properties. Knowing locations are memory where thought acquire properties for experiences. When someone remembers something, thought got there and acquired that, if forgotten, it was unable to be acquired.

When there is an emotion, mood, interest, delight, anger, hate and so on, they are properties in memory destinations, acquired by thoughts relaying there.

Thought is what drives the extent to know. Consciousness is by how much it is possible to know. The more any organism can know, the more conscious the organism is. There are objects with molecules that cannot know, hence they are not conscious. There are organisms with levels of what they can know, regardless of how sharp a particular sense is. It is knowing, at any point, that determines conscious experience.

States of consciousness also, are graded by knowing. Coma, sleep, general anesthesia and others have forms of thought, but not relaying to where they acquire certain properties to bear levels of experience for attention and awareness.

Thought can acquire or lose properties across experiences. When someone is hungry, but something scary happens, or some news of a situation, and the hunger goes away, it can be said that the thought lost that property, then acquired for fear or something else. Thought properties make up an overall of construct of cells.

Thought can be prioritized [just one] or pre-prioritized [others] though interchanges are fast and numerous between those.

Prioritized is close to attention but more expansive. Pre-prioritized encompasses awareness, but exceeds that to processes ongoing not even in awareness.

Thought function is what sets physical or mechanical functions across the body, for internal senses and with external senses.

Thought, with representative properties in memory locations, can cause physical sensation, controlled or automatically.

Thought properties are thebasis of all mental health and illnesses. They are also the form with which memory is stored. Thought with certain limited properties is what neurotechnology accesses in cortical areas.

Thought is what represents senses, or the identity, uniformity, or integration of senses, from their differentiated types, coming into the thalamus and olfactory bulb for processing.

Thought is what relays to the cerebral cortex for interpretation. It is thought that goes in old and new sequences, getting better on cognitive tasks after a while.

The future of mental care is thought properties and how they are acquired to determine experience, which is possible byvideo games and other digital displays.

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Brain ScienceConsciousness as the Property of Thought | Neurotech - VGR.com

New Study On Global Facial Recognition Technology Market 2022 by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2032 Added to Quince Market Insights Database

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The Major players profiled in this report include: NEC Corporation, Aware, Gemalto, Ayonix Face Technologies, Cognitec Systems GmbH, NVISO SA, Daon, StereoVision Imaging, Techno Brain, Neurotechnology, Innovatrics, id3 Technologies, IDEMIA, Animetrics, MEGVII, Idemia, Gemalto NV, Ayonix Corporation, Herta Security, Keylemon SA., Cross Match Technologies, ZK Software, Safran Group (Morpho S.A.), FaceFirst LLC, 3M Cogent Inc., and Animetrics Inc.

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Table of Contents

Report Overview: It includes the Facial Recognition Technology market study scope, players covered, key market segments, market analysis by application, market analysis by type, and other chapters that give an overview of the research study.

Executive Summary: This section of the report gives information about Facial Recognition Technology market trends and shares, market size analysis by region and analysis of global market size. Under market size analysis by region, analysis of market share and growth rate by region is provided.

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Facial Recognition Technology Market to witness a substantial growth owing to rising adoption of technology till 2032 | NEC Corporation, Aware,...

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16 September 2022

The Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health researchers, Associate Professor Trevor Chong and Associate Professor Adrian Carter have received 2022 ARC Future Fellowships.

Future Fellowships are awarded to outstanding mid-career researchers, who will receive funding support for the next 4 years.

These fellowships are extraordinarily competitive and recognise the outstanding research programs and leaders in their fields, said the Director of the Turner Institute, Professor Kim Cornish.

Both Trevor and Adrian have demonstrated significant research impact and international recognition in cognitive neuroscience and neuroethics, respectively.

A/P Adrian Carter is researching ethical frameworks for responsible innovation of neurotechnology.

Neurotechnology is advancing at a rapid pace, with new drugs, brain implants, and monitoring technologies emerging to better diagnose, prevent and predict mental and neurological illness, A/P Carter said.

My hope is that this fellowship will ensure that advances in neuroscience research are able to benefit all Australians, particularly under-served populations while maximising people's privacy, agency and participation in the process.

He said this meant that the voices of those affected by mental illness and neurological disease in the research and implementation of neurotechnological innovation will be represented and heard.

Associate Professor Chong will be researching the neurobiology of curiosity by combining cutting-edge techniques in computational modelling, pharmacointervention, and neuroimaging.

Curiosity is the bedrock of learning, education, and discovery, A/P Chong said.

Our insatiable desire to pursue and relieve our curiosity drives innovations that directly impact our health, economies, and social well-being. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a reduction in curiosity is characteristic of depressive illnesses and apathy, which have debilitating consequences.

Despite the importance of curiosity to our lives, we have a limited understanding of the brain processes that drive it.

The goal of my Fellowship is to develop a biological framework that explains what makes people curious, and why.

The Australian Government is funding 100 mid-career researchers to focus on finding solutions for key industry challenges and training the next generation of researchers under the ARC Future Fellowships scheme.

The ARC Future Fellowships scheme attracts and helps retain the best and brightest mid-career researchers, as they undertake research in areas of national importance, said Ms Judi Zielke PSM, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Australian Research Council (ARC)

https://www.monash.edu/turner-institute

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ARC Future Fellowships awarded to Turner Institute researchers - Monash University

Venice, Toronto

Laura Poitras sublime Golden Lion-winning doc chronicles photographer Nan Goldins mission to hold the Sacklers responsible for the opioid crisis perpetrated by their company Purdue Pharma. Its also a portrait of the artist, an intimate look at grassroots political action and a devastating story about family. SHERI LINDEN

Venice, Toronto

Martin McDonaghs superb dark comedy about the abrupt breakup of lifelong friends (a never-better Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) evolves steadily into an unexpectedly poignant account of a bond severed, though never erased. Its the writer-directors most deeply and distinctly Irish work for the screen to date, and also one of his best. DAVID ROONEY

Venice, Telluride

Luca Guadagninos affecting account of first love between two cannibal drifters in 1980s Middle America is a delicate emo horror movie. Even when theyre feasting on flesh, the film depicts its protagonists (played with touching fragility by Taylor Russell and Timothe Chalamet) not as monsters but as outsiders hungering to connect. D.R.

Venice, Toronto

Sbastien Lifshitzs sharp, tender doc reveals the secret history of a support network created by cross-dressing men and trans women in the 1950s and 60s. The focus is the Catskills guesthouse that was a refuge for these pathfinders. In their specificity and emotion, the recollections here are alive with a complexity that defies labels. S.L.

Toronto

Steven Spielbergs film is a vivid depiction of the auteurs earliest flashes of directing talent and a portrait, full of love yet unclouded by nostalgia, of the family that made him. With heart-grabbing turns by Michelle Williams, Paul Dano and Gabriel LaBelle, it brims with compassion for both of his parents, who divorced when he was a teen. JOHN DEFORE

Toronto

Rian Johnsons delightful sequel offers enjoyable action, delicious comeuppances and daring design. Yet it doesnt suffer from give em the same thing, but more of it bloat. Its ensemble Daniel Craig is joined by Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Janelle Mone and others is even better, its critique of the rich sharper. J.D.

Toronto

A personal drama shimmering with pain, pride and hard-won elation, Elegance Brattons feature debut draws on his own story as a gay Marine to create one of the most stirring portraits of queer Black masculinity since Moonlight. Its a stellar vehicle for theater actor Jeremy Pope in his first leading screen role. D.R.

Telluride

Emma Corrin and Jack OConnell steam up the screen as kindred spirits ignited by carnal passion in Laure de Clermont-Tonnerres sharp and sensuous adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel about an upper-class womans affair with a working-class man. Its an interpretation thats true to Lawrences idealization of sex and nature in invigorating ways. S.L.

Venice, Toronto

Imprisoned and subject to a filmmaking ban in his country, Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi offers his most chilling clandestine metafiction yet. Deceptively simple, with increasingly complex layers, its a hushed powerhouse about the divide between modernity and tradition, the world of difference between Tehran and Irans rural backwaters. D.R.

Venice, Toronto

Anchored by a superb Virginie Efira as a 40ish teacher whose bond with her boyfriends daughter awakens unexpected maternal yearnings, Rebecca Zlotowskis film confirms her gift for investing formulas with freshness and charm, smarts and sexiness. It has the contours of conventional Parisian dramedy, but deepens into something tougher and wiser. JON FROSCH

Venice, Toronto

A spellbinding drama about the isolation of motherhood, the grief of parenting and racial interpellation, Alice Diops narrative debut chronicles the trial of a Franco-Senegalese woman who committed infanticide. Based on a real case that riveted France, the film derives its power from its subtlety and observational naturalism. LOVIA GYARKYE

Venice, Telluride

Cate Blanchett is astonishing as a composer-conductor whose reputation is shattered by revelations about her personal life in Todd Fields rich, mesmerizing character study that doubles as a caustic dissection of power dynamics and cancel culture. Its a forensically crafted, major work whose audaciousness, artistry and scalding authority are bound to start conversations. D.R.

Telluride, Toronto

In one of his best docs yet, Werner Herzog turns his lens on the world of brain-computer interfaces, their therapeutic potential and chilling implications. Speaking with people working in neurotechnology (inventions that link the nervous system to electronic and other devices), he summons a wry, lyrical mix of awe and foreboding. S.L.

Telluride, Toronto

Centering on female members of a Mennonite colony sorting out their response to sexual abuse by men in their sect, Sarah Polleys film is a finely crafted vision of rage and hope. With an ace cast led by Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley, the smart, beautifully shot feature addresses existential questions facing any contemporary woman navigating patriarchal setups. S.L.

Telluride, Toronto

Florence Pugh is monumental as an English nurse who travels to an Irish village in 1862 to care for a child who has stopped eating in Sebastin Lelios mesmerizing film, perhaps his best yet. Based on Emma Donoghues novel, its a haunting study of religious obsession and the oppression of women. STEPHEN FARBER

This story first appeared in the Sept. 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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Critics Picks: Cate Blanchett, Steven Spielberg Films Among the 15 Best of the Fall Festivals - Hollywood Reporter

KALAMAZOO, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Stryker (NYSE:SYK) today announced the launch of its Pulse Intelligent Delivery Platform, a full-circle product and fulfillment offering optimized for high volume foot and ankle procedures in the ambulatory surgery center (ASC) setting, which will debut at the 2022 American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society Annual Meeting (AOFAS), taking place Sept. 14-17 in Qubec City, Canada. The company will also feature its Prophecy Footprint Surgical Planning, which will be the first surgical planning tool to provide clinical guidance on the whole foot in connection with total ankle arthroplasty.

This is an exciting year for Strykers Foot & Ankle business, as we continue to expand our robust portfolio to meet the needs of our surgeon customers, said Michael Rankin, VP Marketing and Medical Education, Strykers Foot & Ankle business unit. With the launch of the Pulse Intelligent Delivery Platform, we now offer a comprehensive suite of products that provides a robust program for foot and ankle surgery within an ASC setting.

The Pulse Intelligent Delivery Platform provides an integrated product configuration and delivery offering for foot and ankle surgery within the ASC setting of care through:

"As surgical procedures continue to migrate to the ASC setting, both surgeons and administrators are looking for ways to streamline their operational efficiency while increasing the reliability of their surgical equipment, said Bruce Cohen, MD, CEO of OrthoCarolina. Efficiency and reliability are exactly what Strykers Pulse platform provides for forefoot procedures in the ASC."

Other Products Debuting at AOFAS

Also being introduced at AOFAS is Prophecy Footprint, an add-on service to Strykers Prophecy Surgical Planning system that provides an understanding of the ancillary procedures to be considered for patients needing total ankle replacement surgery with concomitant pathology. Prophecy Footprint is currently in limited release in the U.S., with plans for a full launch next year.

We also look forward to introducing Prophecy Footprint at AOFAS, which will change the way surgeons prepare and plan for total ankle cases, said Rankin. In order to have a successful total ankle surgery, you have to consider what is going on with the foot itself. By facilitating a more comprehensive view of the foot around the ankle, Footprint can help surgeons with their most complex patient populations.

Rounding out its offering for foot and ankle procedures, Stryker will showcase the CurveBeam AI HiRise weight-bearing computerized tomography (WBCT) imaging system at AOFAS. Strykers Foot & Ankle business has entered into an exclusive co-promotion and distribution agreement with CurveBeam AI, a leader in WBCT. This exclusive agreement will offer a turnkey surgical solution for our foot and ankle surgeon customers treating complex deformities.

Stryker will offer product demonstrations and a virtual reality experience at AOFAS at booth #103 for more information.

About Stryker

Stryker is one of the worlds leading medical technology companies and, together with its customers, is driven to make healthcare better. The company offers innovative products and services in Medical and Surgical, Neurotechnology, Orthopaedics and Spine that help improve patient and healthcare outcomes. Alongside its customers around the world, Stryker impacts more than 100 million patients annually. More information is available at http://www.stryker.com.

The information presented is intended to demonstrate the breadth of Strykers product offerings. A surgeon must always refer to the package insert, product label and/or instructions for use before using any of Strykers products. Products may not be available in all markets because product availability is subject to the regulatory and/or medical practices in individual markets. Please contact your sales representative if you have questions about the availability of products in your area.

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Stryker Launches Pulse Intelligent Delivery Platform at the 2022 American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society Annual Meeting - Business Wire

In early August 2022, news outlets around the world reported that a team of more than 100 medical staff performed a complex operation to separate conjoined twins fused at the skull.

Three-year-old twins Arthur and Bernardo Lima were born in rural north Brazil in 2018, fused at the top of their heads, and sharing vital cerebral blood vessels. The surgical team had spent months practicing the separation procedure using virtual reality mock-ups based on CT and MRI scans of the twins.

Then, in what surgeon Noor ul Owase Jeelani called space-age stuff, surgeons at the Instituto Estadual do Crebro Paulo Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro performed seven surgeries on the twins, over more than 27 hours of operating time, with the assistance of colleagues at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. The two teams, more than 9,000 km apart, liaised using VR headsets. The operation said to be the most complex of its kind ever performed was successful, and the twins have now begun a six-month rehabilitation at the hospital.

The Great Ormond Street surgeons had performed similar procedures in 2006 and 2011. And in 2019, they operated on two-year-old sisters Safa and Marwa Ullah, having first used VR to create an exact replica of the twins skulls, brains, and cerebrovascular systems.

Conjoined twins are rare, occurring in about 1 in 50,000 births, and craniopagus twins who are fused at the skull and share brain tissue account for 2% to 6% of these with an estimated incidence of 1 in 2.5 million births. It is thought that 50 are born each year; of these, 40% are stillborn, and one-third die within a day of birth. About one-quarter survive and are considered for surgical separation.

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The earliest known description of craniopagus twins appears in Sebastian Mnsters Cosmographiae Universalis. The Latin edition, published in 1559, includes a brief reference to twin girls, born in Bierstadt in September 1495, who were joined at the foreheads. It also contains wood cuts showing the girls standing with their heads turned toward each other. These twins reportedly lived to the age of 10, at which point one of them died and was separated from the other; the second died soon afterward. As well as being the first reported case, this seems to be the first recorded case of a separation, and it is also notable for the longevity of the twins.

Craniopagus twins can be broadly divided into partial and total types, depending on the extent to which their skulls are fused, with total craniopagus twins being considered to share a single cranium. The exact point of attachment is variable but occurs most commonly at the parietal bone at the back of the skull.

Successful separation of craniopagus twins was unheard of until relatively recently. The first recorded case of both twins surviving for more than a few hours after separation was published in the early 1950s, and in this case, one of the twins died a month after the operation without regaining consciousness. Since then, advances in brain imaging and neurosurgical techniques have significantly increased the likelihood of a successful outcome following separation.

Exactly how conjoined twins form is unclear. Aristotle claimed that most of them are due to the embryos growing together, but the early embryologists traditionally explained it as the result of an incomplete splitting event at around two weeks of gestation, when the embryo is still a small clump of identical cells. More recently, it has been suggested that craniopagus twins occur as a result of two separate embryos fusing before four weeks of gestation and before neurulation that is, the folding of the neural plate to form the neural tube is finished.

Conjoined twins raise many ethical challenges and philosophical questions. For example, is it morally acceptable to sacrifice one life to save another? And if separation is performed in the early years of life, it will be done without the patients autonomy and informed consent.

Twenty-two years ago, the birth of Gracie and Rosie Attard presented British high court judges with their most difficult case ever. The twins were joined at the abdomen and shared an aorta. Doctors believed that, if separated, one would die at once, but the other would have a 94% chance of survival; if they were not separated, both were likely to die within six months.

The girls parents would not agree to separation on religious grounds and were happy for Gods will to decide what happens, but also were content to leave the decision to the court. The three judges involved in the case agreed that it would be lawful to separate them. After a 20-hour operation, Gracie survived and Rosie died, as expected.

Conjoined twins also raise fascinating questions about self-identity and consciousness. If conjoined twins share brain tissue, might they also share conscious experience? Canadian twins Krista and Tatiana Hogan, who were born in 2006 and remain joined at the skull, provide some clues.

An electroencephalogram (EEG) performed on the twins when they were two years old showed that light shone in one of the pairs eyes evoked a response in the visual cortex in the other. Brain scanning further showed that their brains are connected by a thin piece of tissue, which neurosurgeon Douglas Cochrane of British Columbia Childrens Hospital calls a thalamic bridge.

The thalamus is a deep brain structure that processes sensory information before relaying it to the cerebral cortex and may play a role in conscious awareness. Cochrane therefore believes that the twins experience shared sensations and feelings. Anecdotal evidence for this comes from observations made by their family. As reported in the New York Times Magazine, The family suspected that even when one girls vision was angled away from the television, she was laughing at the images flashing in front of her sisters eyes. The sensory exchange, they believe, extends to the girls taste buds: Krista likes ketchup, and Tatiana does not, something the family discovered when Tatiana tried to scrape the condiment off her own tongue, even when she was not eating it.

According to the CBC documentary Inseparable, the twins also share motor control. Krista and Tatiana Hogan share the senses of touch and taste and even control one anothers limbs. Tatiana can see out of both of Kristas eyes, while Krista can only see out of one of Tatianas Tatiana controls three arms and a leg, while Krista controls three legs and an arm. They can also switch to self-control of their limbs.

Krista and Tatiana say they know one anothers thoughts because they can talk in their heads, but we will probably never know if this is true. Recent advances in neurotechnology make some aspects of consciousness accessible, but an individuals full subjective experience likely always will remain private. For Krista and Tatianas family, there is no question that each of them is an individual they are two normal little girls who happen to go through life sharing a bubble.

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If separating conjoined twins results in death, which one should die? - Big Think

Having made a film on every continent, tireless searcher Werner Herzog keeps things stateside for Theater of Thought. Even so, he travels far, exploring one of the last great frontiers, the human brain, from a rich multitude of angles. The result is one of his most piercing inquiries yet.

In Silicon Valley and in the laboratories and conference rooms of academia, he speaks with more than two dozen people working at the forefront of neuroscience and neurotechnology, the catch-all term for cutting-edge inventions that link the nervous system to electronic and other devices. Herzog is the clear-eyed student at times amazed and delighted, and, at others, skeptical and alarmed. Amid the cryostats and nanoparticles and fiber optics, the clunky gadgets and impenetrable-to-the-layperson diagrams, he summons a wry and lyrical mix of awe and foreboding.

The Bottom LineA quintessentially Herzogian fusion of hope, horror, humor and heart.

Like his 2020 doc, Fireball, a film that studied meteors through chemistry, geology and mythology, entering the kind of territory Joseph Campbell called the inner reaches of outer space, Theater of Thought navigates the places where science and poetics diverge, entwine and sometimes fuse. (Both films were edited with crisp precision by Marco Capalbo.) Herzogs interviewees are entrepreneurs, mathematicians, surgeons, philosophers. For good measure, he spends quality time in the Catskills with a renowned high-wire artist. Crucially, he includes a clip from a Soviet-era silent film, Earth, that captures a character at the brink of death; another character wants him to report back from the other side. The possibility of afterlife communication is one of the what-ifs Herzog asks the experts to ponder, his questions driving the documentarys progression from interview to interview, synapse to synapse.

As Theater peers beneath the skull its only literal glimpse at the pulsating gray matter is a brief one the movie is as steeped in metaphysics as it is in brain science. Its also a trenchant, deeply felt warning: When computers can extract information directly from the brain or feed commands straight into it, privacy, autonomy and the very sense of self are at stake.

For all the unease over ethical questions, the film opens with a pastoral sense of calm: Side by side on a rock beneath trees in brilliant full leaf, Herzog and neurobiologist Rafael Yuste, the films chief scientific adviser, gaze at a laptop. We cant see whats on the screen or hear what theyre saying, but their unforced camaraderie hints at the spontaneous bursts of tenderness that punctuate the doc as when Herzog interviews Cori Bargmann and Richard Axel, scientists who are married to each other, and catches them off guard with his questions about music, and dinner conversation, and the possibility of communicating with animals. Such moments bring to the fore the unspoken challenge that courses through the film: Could a brain-computer interface conjure such emotion, such unexpected chords of sweet, awkward, lovely feeling?

Herzog draws a beaming smile from Daro Gil, IBMs head of research, when, after a tour of the quantum-computer lab, he asks him about fishing. The oceans another frontier whose depths have only begun to be plumbed becomes a subtheme. After posing the somewhat loaded question How stupid is Siri? to AI expert Tom Gruber, one of the creators of the virtual assistant, Herzog admires videos from Grubers dives, sparking a discussion of collective blindness in schools of fish and human societies alike blindness to trawling nets, blindness to destructive courses of action. Neuroscientist Christof Koch insists that Herzog interview him only after hes had his morning row on Puget Sound, immersed in the bliss of being all motion in the flow without thought.

A different kind of flow, one that leaves no room for fear, defines the mental prowess of Philippe Petit, the high-wire artist who enthralled the world with his 1974 walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center (a story told in the magnificent documentary Man on Wire). Its enthralling too to see him nearly 50 years later, practicing his art in his rural New York backyard. Herzogs visit with Petit follows his conversation with Joseph LeDoux, who has mapped the mechanisms of fear in the brain.

At the heart of all this is the mystery of how a mass of ridged and folded tissue, the cerebral cortex, gives rise to consciousness a mystery that remains unsolved even as the experts find ways to interact with neurons, control the nervous system and counteract disorders with such therapeutic procedures as deep brain stimulation. For people who have suffered a stroke or have Parkinsons, the results can be miraculous. An engineer shares his prototype for a chip implant that might restore sight to those with optic nerve damage.

It goes without comment in the film that research on animals is apparently still part and parcel of many of the innovators and scholars work. Herzog is concerned with how people are the guinea pigs. The new brain technologies can regulate behavior and thought in ways that, bioethicist Sara Goering notes, would gratify advertisers. Talk about direct-to-consumer! And so the field of neurorights is a growing legal focus. In 2021, when Herzog was making Theater of Thought, Chile became the first nation to amend its constitution to protect mental privacy and personal identity from invasive technologies. The doc acknowledges this landmark without explaining the amendment, which is being regarded as a potential model for other countries.

Herzogs stateside travels bring him, inevitably, to the projection booth of an old-school movie theater, the Roxie in San Francisco, where he meets neuroscientist Jack Gallant, who studies the human visual system and decodes mental imagery. Surfacing here and in other conversations is another underlying anxiety about neurotechnology, one thats close to Herzogs heart: Will tech-enabled telepathy and other hot-wired feeds to the nervous system render filmmaking and movie watching as we know them obsolete? Or maybe, Herzog ventures, everything we think is real has been a delusion all along. Are we, he asks hauntingly, as only he can, behind our facades, ghostwritten? Having contemplated what makes us human via spectacular prehistoric evidence, the auteur asks us to consider a science fiction future thats closer than we might want to believe.

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Theater of Thought Review: Werner Herzog Crafts a Bracing Exploration of Neurotechnology and Consciousness - Hollywood Reporter

Im sure you know at least one of the companies of the billionaire Elon Musk, his dream began looking to facilitate online transactions, that is

digital payments through PayPal. Subsequently, Tesla, focused on the electrification of the automobile industry. Later, SolarCity with the aim of populating rooftops with solar panels. Not to mention SpaceX and its related interests in establishing a colony on Mars! As you can see, the richest person in the world has very interesting plans for the coming years in multiple sectors.

Now he has in sight the power to support people who have suffered the loss of a specific function and even improve the lifestyle of the population and surely you can imagine how he could do it, since it is about installing microchips in the brain to develop functions or, simply, to recover aspects such as mobility lost by accident.

Neurotechnology is within its investment plans and, of course, it is carrying out various projects related to the cause. The last of them has been the probe that has been made regarding the company Synchron, a firm especially focused on the incorporation of brain chips.

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The first thing that should be mentioned is that this possible contact would be directly linked to the difficulty that is taking place in the development of the Neuralink program. Various technical complications have meant that it has not been possible to establish a coordinated proposal and, of course, that the established deadlines are not being met.

Neuralink accumulates a series of delays, which have begun to deteriorate Elon Musks relationship with his own employees. This new agreement could encourage the improvement of its technology over the coming months. It should be remembered that the company hoped to be able to carry out tests on human beings at the end of 2021, this objective having been missed due to the lack of capacity to carry out the program or, simply, due to the lack of knowledge to carry it out.

The main difference that Synchron has with respect to Neuralink is that, in order to work, it is not necessary to cut part of the skull. This may be a differential factor for Elon Musk to have decided to contact Thomas Oxley, the greatest exponent of the North American company. In a way, we find ourselves before a company that is much more capable of carrying out this type of research program. In fact, it has already carried out tests with up to a total of 4 people in Australia.

It should be noted that, according to Reuters information, Synchron has about 60 employees and has so far raised about $65 million from investors. On the contrary, Neuralink employs about 300 workers, so it has, a priori, more alternatives to be able to carry out a project in depth.

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Elon Musk seeks to expand his empire in the world of neurotechnology - Gearrice

BOSTON, September 07, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--VoxNeuro Inc. ("VoxNeuro" or the "Company"), a commercial stage Software-as-a-Medical-Device (SaMD) brain health company that analyzes brain biomarkers to assess cognitive function, announced a new partnership with Boston University ("BU"), a world-class institution and private research university at the forefront of neuroscience and neurotechnology.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220907005212/en/

From left: Dr. Andrew Budson, MD, Boston University; Dr. Kyle Ruiter, PhD, VoxNeuro; Dr. Katherine Turk, MD, Boston University (Photo: Business Wire)

In partnership with BU, VoxNeuro has launched two studies that will evaluate its cognitive health assessment platform in an outpatient setting to assess diagnostic accuracy. The studies will focus on patients suffering from mild-Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI)/Concussion and Alzheimers disease, respectively.

On a combined basis, mTBI/Concussion and Alzheimers disease affect over ten million Americans annually, and the inefficiencies of current behavior-based screening methodologies results in considerable excess cost and time to patients, clinicians and the healthcare system. VoxNeuros cognitive health software is expected to provide additive diagnostic information to improve clinical management beyond traditional testing methods. This represents a significant step forward for brain health as VoxNeuro provides for better identification and management strategies.

The studies will be led by Dr. John Connolly, PhD, VoxNeuros Chief Science Officer and Dr. Kyle Ruiter, PhD, VoxNeuros Vice President of Clinical & Scientific Affairs, alongside co-investigators Dr. Andrew Budson, MD, Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and Associate Director of Boston Universitys Alzheimers Disease Research Center, and Dr. Katherine Turk, MD, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and co-Leader of the Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement Core at the Boston University Alzheimers Disease Research Center.

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"We are excited to test the hypothesis that by combining EEG brainwaves and cognitive testing clinicians may be able to diagnose correctly who is suffering from Alzheimers disease or a brain injury in a manner that may not require a research laboratory to interpret the data," said Dr. Budson.

Dr. Ruiter echoed this excitement, saying, "we are thrilled to be partnering with Boston University, an institution that continues to be at the head of neuroscience research, discovery and innovation. BUs best-in-class team is a pillar of Bostons globally recognized biotech hub and through our collaboration with them we anticipate rich insights into VoxNeuros unique and proprietary data sets that will help drive the development of our second-generation product. Together, we are going to continue to push the boundaries of brain health through innovation."

VoxNeuro anticipates that this will continue to enhance its market awareness and will improve the ability of clinicians to accurately diagnose, treat, and aid in the management of patients suffering from mTBI/Concussion and Alzheimers disease. The Company also anticipates that this work may support new regulatory filings with the FDA and Health Canada.

About VoxNeuro Give the Brain a Voice

VoxNeuro is pushing the boundaries of brain health and empowering healthcare providers with a breakthrough SaMD technology that uses validated brain biomarkers. The Companys EEG-based reports deliver a comprehensive understanding of how a brain is functioning through the objective measurement of a patients attention and concentration, information processing, and working memory. VoxNeuro complements existing clinical workflow to provide clinicians and patients with a more complete picture of brain health, and to inform clinical decision-making.

Visit voxneuro.com to learn more.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements under Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expects" or "it is expected", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from results contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. When relying on forward-looking statements to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except as may be required by applicable securities laws.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220907005212/en/

Contacts

MediaDouglas Martin416-388-7734media@voxneuro.com

Investor Relations1-833-869-6387investorrelations@voxneuro.com

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VoxNeuro Announces Collaboration with Boston University and Launch of Clinical Studies Focusing on Concussion and Alzheimers Disease - Yahoo Finance