Using VR to Explore the Brain

Read Time : 2:25 sec

Hello Productive Minds,

Researchers are mapping the brain using AI and then exploring its synapses through VR headsets. I have also included a free prompt to make your email workflow much smoother.

Ida Khanna,
Founder ProductiveAI Club

Today’s Menu

• Using AI to decode brain disorders

• Prompt: Email assistant

• Chart: How AI budgets have evolved over time

• AI-Generated Images: The ‘80s

Researchers use an AI brain map to decode Alzheimer’s and autism

Source: WTSP/Screenshot

We have approximately 100 billion neurons in our brains, akin to the number of stars in the Milky Way. Understanding the brain's complexities can be as challenging as gazing into the night sky without a telescope. However, researchers at the University of South Florida are leveraging AI to gain a closer perspective.

It is believed that disorders like autism and Alzheimer’s may be closely linked to how the brain processes sound. To investigate this, the researchers are focusing on the auditory centers of the brain and how they develop over time, using mice as their test subjects. Mouse brains, although smaller, are structurally similar to human brains, making them valuable for these experiments.

The scientists are concentrating on the brain's largest synapse, the calyx of Held, to study nerve cell communication. By feeding their data into an AI model, they can create a digital representation and explore a 3-D map of the data in virtual reality.

Understanding the brain's growth and changes over time could lead to new treatments for various neurological disorders and even aid in repairing traumatic brain injuries. "It’s like you have a route from, say, New York to Chicago, and someone detours in Cleveland,” explained George Spirou, a medical engineering professor, to the Guardian. “You can figure out why there was some off-ramp that shouldn’t have been there and go back and fix it.”

How to create flowcharts in ChatGPT

• Go to ChatGPT and ask it to provide steps of any process to convert it into a flowchart.

Prompt: Please provide steps for [enter your process topic]

• Now ask ChatGPT to convert the steps into a flowchart format

Prompt: Please create a flowchart representing the steps for [enter your topic] incorporating the above steps. Ensure that related steps are placed side by side.

• Now ask ChatGPT to covert this text into Mermaid code

Prompt: Please write mermaid code for this

• Copy this Mermaid code and go to https://draw.io 

• Open new file and click on + button on top menu bar, go to Advanced → Mermaid

• Paste the Mermaid code and it will give you the visual representation of your flowchart

• You can edit it, add colors, and download this file to use further.

(Pro-tip: Run the prompt and adjust it accordingly to get your desired result)

Email Assistant

Prompt:  I received an email from [name of the person or company] regarding [subject or main content of the email]. Can you pull out the key points from it and summarize it for me? I have a presentation on [specific date] and might need to include this information.

You can adapt the prompt to your specific needs.

_{Source: Great AI Prompts}

A weekend in LA in the ‘80s

Source: @julestinner on Midjourney

Prompts: 

Minimalistic Pin up retro aesthetics artwork of a vibrant and stylized artwork of an los angeles sunset scene. The composition focuses sunset strip lined with tall, slender california palm trees under a spectacularly colored sky transitioning from deep red at the top to bright orange near the horizon. Tiny stars speckle the vivid red sky, adding a dreamlike quality. The foreground features a typical city street with crosswalks. in the background is the skyline of downtown los angeles. A few cars add life to the scene, and the traffic lights glow with a vivid green, contrasting sharply with the warm colors of the sunset. The atmosphere should evoke a sense of warm, tropical evenings in a bustling city. --style raw --ar 4:5