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Can your brain process language and fabricate prediction when you’re unconscious? Answers come from neuroscientists at Baylor College of Medicine in studies published in the journal Nature.

The scientists studied patients undergoing epilepsy surgery and recorded electrical activity from hundreds of individual neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region critical for learning and memory. Using sophisticated probes, they monitored how brain cells respond to sounds and spoken stories while the patients were under general anesthesia.

The results show that the brain cells of the unconscious can not only respond to musical tones, but also demonstrate improvements in distinguishing them as the experiments progressed. When the anesthetized subjects listen to short stories, patterns of brain activity reflect different categories of words, including nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The signals also contain information about words likely to come next, suggesting that the brain anticipates how the story will continue.

This neuronal activity as well as other study data does not prove that anesthetized patients consciously hear, understand, or remember the stories. The brain processes information without a person being aware of it.

These findings could help scientists understand how consciousness differs from the brain’s underlying information-processing abilities. They could also eventually help design brain-computer interfaces and speech prosthetics designed to assist communication following strokes or neurological injuries.

The references for this report are available on my website.

#BrainResearch #Consciousness #GeneralAnesthesia #Neuroscience #BrainComputerInterface

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The answer comes from clinical physiologists at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet. They followed 427 men and women born in 1958, tracking their physical performance from age 16 through age 63.

Their data show that aerobic fitness and muscular endurance generally peaks between ages 26 and 36. By age 35, physical performance begins a gradual decline. By age 63, performance has fallen by approximately 30 to 48 percent.

These effects are likely due to muscle cell deterioration, decline in cellular energy production, and nervous system exhaustion.

But there is some encouraging news. Those who exercise can improve their physical capacity by roughly 5 to 10 percent. The studies also show that better fitness earlier in life is associated with less arterial stiffness by age 63. Exercise does not prevent every age-related change, but it does help preserve fitness and your arterial structures.

The bottom line: it’s never too late to improve your strength. Whether you’re 35, 55, or older, regular physical activity can still make a meaningful difference.

The references for this report are available on my website.

#HealthyAging #Exercise #MuscleStrength #PhysicalFitness #KarolinskaInstitutet

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This possibility is even more likely if you are a bird. So report Penn State biomedical physiologists reporting their studies of 12 guinea fowl in the journal Royal Society Proceedings B.

In the experiments, half of the birds carried small weights on one leg during development while the other half did not. At 16 weeks, researchers measured how much energy the birds used walking with and without extra weight.

Their data show that the birds unburdened with extra weights while growing up used 23% more energy when walking with an added load. Birds accustomed to the weights during development carried them as adults without using extra energy.

Assuming you can translate these results to humans, physical activity during childhood and adolescence would help make movement more energy-efficient later in life. That would encourage lifelong exercise. A key caveat: carrying leg weights is not the same as typical human childhood exercise.

If clinical studies with appropriate childhood exercise confirm this principle, terrific. If not, this study is strictly for the birds!

The references for this report are available on my website.

#ChildhoodExercise #PhysicalActivity #ExerciseScience #HealthyAging #HealthResearch