The feel of a cat's fur can reveal some information, but seeing the feline provides critical details: is it a housecat or a lion? While the sound of fire crackling may be ambiguous, its scent confirms the burning wood. Our senses synergize to give a comprehensive understanding, particularly when individual signals are subtle. The collective sum of biological inputs can be greater than their individual contributions. Robots tend to follow more straightforward addition, but researchers have now harnessed the biological concept for application in artificial intelligence (AI) to develop the first artificial, multisensory integrated neuron.
Read more …Making AI smarter with an artificial, multisensory integrated neuron
A new study challenges a common belief in what triggers Parkinson's disease. Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons is widely accepted as the first event that leads to Parkinson's. But the new study suggests that a dysfunction in the neuron's synapses leads to deficits in dopamine and precedes the neurodegeneration. The findings open a new avenue for therapies in which drugs target neuron synapses before neurons degenerate.
Read more …Newly discovered trigger of Parkinson's upends common beliefs
The authors of new research led by the University of Exeter have warned that women who discover, outside of a clinical setting, that they carry a disease-causing variant in one of the BRCA genes (BRCA1 or BRCA2) may be told their risk of breast cancer is 60-80 per cent. In fact, the risk could be less than 20 per cent if they do not have a close relative with the condition.
Read more …Women receiving inflated risks from genetic testing could undergo unnecessary breast surgery