#14: How Decoding the Brain Can Heal Anxiety and Restore Sensations

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From the natural world to outer space, Inverse offers timely journalism and interesting points of view for people who want to know what's next. Health research, updates on SpaceX and NASA, sleep psychology, pseudo-science debunks, nightmarish robots, advancing A.I., shifting cultures, more sustainable energy, and those never-ending studies on caffeine and beer: The Abstract delivers weird facts straight to your brain, three times a week, two stories at a time.

What is humankind’s biggest scientific mystery to date? Humankind.

What sets us apart from our neighboring species is an organ that we’re only beginning to understand: the human brain.

While modern, scientific understanding of this complex network of neurons between our ears really only began in the few decades, we’ve already learned a lot about the body’s control center -- and have been given a lot to think about.

Welcome to the Abstract podcast from Inverse. I’m Tanya Bustos, your host.

Our first story is about groundbreaking research in brain-computer interfaces that’s offering new hope for those who have lost their sense of touch. By decoding neural signals from the brain, researchers were able to create movement and sensory perception in paralyzed limbs. Innovations like these in sense-restoring technology could be life-changing for spinal cord patients, and make a devastating loss of sensation reversible.

Our second story tackles a different kind of feeling — our emotions. By analyzing various neural regions in marmosets, scientists have untangled the root of anxiety in the human brain, unlocking the door to faster and more effective anxiety treatment in the future.