Benjamin Scott, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University, explains why computational and systems neuroscience needs new ideas from other areas—developmental biology in particular.

By Ben Scott

https://www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neuroscience/computational-and-systems-neuroscience-needs-development/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=org-social&utm_campaign=20240702-computational-development

The question of what came first: the chicken or the egg. This chicken came from an egg, which came from the previous chicken, which came from the egg before it. So you can follow back in time if there comes a moment when you can say: here I have a chicken that didn't come from an egg, so the chicken was first; or here I have an egg that didn't come from a chicken, so the egg was first. But that doesn't work at all. The ancestors of birds were dinosaurs, thousands of generations of successive eggs and chickens back. Those dinosaurs laid eggs, so were eggs first? However, some dinosaurs laid eggs without hard shells. Can you consider those as chicken eggs? The dinosaurs from which the birds evolved only slightly resembled birds. So can you consider those as birds or chickens? And what were the ancestors of those egg-laying dinosaurs? Did those not resemble birds at all? And did those lay eggs? Thus the history of chickens and their eggs disappears into the fog of history and the question of what came first proves meaningless.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Final 🎉fact check of the day: one side of your brain can control the same side of your body.

You may have heard that the motor cortex on side of your brain controls the opposite side of your body; it’s true. But for years researchers have also known that those signals show up on the same side as well.

They’ve even created a therapy around it - a noninvasive brain machine interface called Ipsihand. Following stroke damage, it helps people learn how to tap those same side signals and use them to move. It works via an EEG that reads brain signals and moves a robotic arm cuff to help the user to ‘get it’ through training.

https://www.neurolutions.com/ipsihand/

And with that, I declare that my one month fact checking (a book) slog is complete! To everyone who was here for the journey, thanks make helping me make it just a bit more fun. ❤️