Optimal Being

Stimulating the sleeping brain may ease suffering from memory loss, stroke or mental health problem. It was late, and Sonia was alone in an unfamiliar town, trying to find her way home. The map showed a route through a dark forest lit by an occasional lantern. She viewed it with foreboding but, seeing other people also using this passage, took it. Walking fast, she neared a couple ahead of her—a man and a woman—who suddenly stopped, turned and grabbed her. The man covered her face with a cloth. She found herself on a stage with a ceiling spanned by a mirror. A crowd of men armed with guns and knives encircled her; she was about to be tortured and killed. Sonia picked up a stone and threw it at the ceiling, which shattered. Pieces of glass rained down, piercing her shoulder and foot. She fled into the forest, pursued by the couple, who could read each other's minds. The woman saw where Sonia was running and informed the man—Sonia knew she would be hunted down. This nightmare and sim...

 A volley of new insights reignites the debate over whether our choices are ever truly our own. You ’ re thirsty so you reach for a glass of water. It ’ s either a freely chosen action or the inevitable result of the laws of nature, depending on who you ask. Do we have free will? The question is ancient — and vexing. Everyone seems to have pondered it, and many seem quite certain of the answer, which is typically either “ yes ” or “ absolutely not. ” One scientist in the “ absolutely not ” camp is   Robert Sapolsky . In his new book,   Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will , the primatologist and Stanford professor of neurology spells out why we can ’ t possibly have free will. Why do we behave one way and not another? Why do we choose Brand A over Brand B, or vote for Candidate X over Candidate Y? Not because we have free will, but because every act and thought are the product of “ cumulative biological and environmental luck. ” Sapolsky tells readers that th...

People over 60 who inhale essential oils of eucalyptus, rosemary or lavender, for example, improve their memory at night. They can better remember what they just heard. For 6 months, neurologists at the University of California at Irvine had 20 people over 60 sleep while an aroma diffuser in their bedroom diffused essential oils for 2 hours. The researchers had the diffuser filled with a different aroma every day of the week. The researchers used essential oils from roses, oranges, eucalyptus, limes, peppermint, rosemary and lavender. During the same period, 23 over-60s in a control group fell asleep every night while a diffuser in their bedroom diffused no detectable essential oils. Before and after the 6-month experimental period, the researchers tested the mental abilities of the subjects with a battery of tests. Results Overall, the researchers found no statistically significant changes in the test results. [Table] However, there was one exception: on the Rey Auditory Verbal Le...

A California-based biotech company says it's successfully implanted lab-made neurons in Parkinson's patients' brains to stimulate a dopamine response — and if it works as intended, it could be a substantial advance in fighting the disease. As  MIT Technology Review  reports , the early stem cell experiment, which was meant to test whether the procedure is safe, appears to have succeeded at that goal. The trial included 12 people with Parkinson's, a debilitating progressive disease characterized by a shortage of dopamine, and was run by BlueRock Therapeutics, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant Bayer. The lab-made neurons were implanted for a year before results were taken, and as researchers told attendees of the International Congress for Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder in Copenhagen at the end of August, the implanted cells seem to have survived — and, in a particularly exciting twist, there are indications that they may be reducing the patients' sy...