#LED scanner safely peeks inside your brain New brain-scanning technology that shines dozens of tiny LED LIGHTS on the head works as well as more traditional methods without radiation exposure and bulky magnets.
and deep brain stimulators that are used to treat Parkinson disease. The magnetic fields in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) often disrupt either the function or safety of implanted electrical devices.
but the method had been limited to small regions of the brain. The new DOT instrument covers two-thirds of the head
and for the first time can image brain processes taking place in multiple regions and brain networks such as those involved in language processing
and self-reflection (daydreaming). hen the neuronal activity of a region in the brain increases, highly oxygenated blood flows to the parts of the brain doing more work,
and we can detect that, says senior author Joseph Culver, associate professor of radiology at Washington University in St louis. t roughly akin to spotting the rush of blood to someone cheeks
and capturing the dynamic changes in the colors of the brain tissue. Although DOT technology is used now in research settings,
the most commonly used imaging method for mapping human brain function. Functional MRI also tracks activity in the brain via changes in blood flow.
In addition to greatly adding to our understanding of the human brain, fmri is used to diagnose and monitor brain disease and therapy.
Portable scans Another commonly used method for mapping brain function is positron emission tomography (PET), which involves radiation exposure.
Because DOT technology does not use radiation, multiple scans performed over time could be used to monitor the progress of patients treated for brain injuries, developmental disorders such as autism,
neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson, and other diseases. Unlike fmri and PET, DOT technology is designed to be portable,
including learning more about how deep brain stimulation helps Parkinson patients, imaging the brain during social interactions,
and studying what happens to the brain during general anesthesia and when the heart is stopped temporarily during cardiac surgery.
Better image quality For the current study, published online in Nature Photonics, the researchers validated the performance of DOT by comparing its results to fmri scans.
a key area of the frontal lobe used for language and speech production. The overlap between the brain region identified as Broca area by DOT data
and by fmri scans was about 75 percent. In a second set of tests researchers used DOT and fmri to detect brain networks that are active
when subjects are resting or daydreaming. Researchersinterests in these networks have grown enormously over the past decade as the networks have been tied to many different aspects of brain health and sickness, such as schizophrenia, autism and Alzheimer disease.
In these studies, the DOT data also showed remarkable similarity to fmriicking out the same cluster of three regions in both hemispheres. ith the improved image quality of the new DOT system,
While DOT doesn let scientists peer very deeply into the brain, researchers can get reliable data to a depth of about one centimeter of tissue.
That centimeter contains some of the brain most important and interesting areas with many higher brain functions, such as memory, language and self-awareness, represented.
which will suffer potentially lethal brain bleeding. Researchers used standard magnetic resonance imaging as part of a new method to measure stroke damage to the blood-brain barrier.
that medicine could seep out of the bloodstream and into the brain, causing major damage.
has leaked into brain tissue from surrounding blood vessels. By quantifying this damage in 75 stroke patients, Leigh identified a threshold for determining how much leakage is dangerous.
if it could predict who had suffered a brain hemorrhage and who had not. The new test correctly predicted the outcome with 95 percent accuracy.
The blood-brain barrier limits the passage of molecules from the bloodstream into the brain. Without it
the brain is open to infection, inflammation, and hemorrhage. Ischemic stroke patients are at risk of bleeding into the brain
when there is damage to the barrier. TIMING IS EVERYTHING In an ischemic stroke, a blood clot is stuck in a vessel, cutting off blood flow to a portion of the brain,
which begins to die if the clot remains. When patients come to the hospital within a few hours of suffering an ischemic stroke,
however, there is already too much damage to the blood-brain barrier and the drug causes bleeding in the brain, severe injury,
or by directly injecting tpa into the brain. MRI FOR EVERY STROKE PATIENT Typically, physicians do a CT SCAN of a stroke victim to see
electrostimulators to change neural signals in the brain; and drug delivery systems to apply medicines directly to affected areas,
because electroceutical approaches would use implantable devices to directly modulate activity in specific brain circuits.
act globally throughout the brain. o make electroceuticals practical, devices must be miniaturized, and ways must be found to power them wirelessly, deep in the brain, many centimeters from the surface,
he says. he Poon lab has solved a significant piece of the puzzle for safely powering implantable microdevices,
we can safely transmit power to tiny implants in organs like the heart or brain,
It paralyzes patients as it kills motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Researchers like Feldman believe stem cell therapiesoth from embryonic and adult varietiesight help patients grow new nerve cells.
and restore some lost brain cell function in young mice with a rodent version of the illness,
The compound, called FRAX486, appears to halt an out-of-control biological runingprocess in the schizophrenic brain that unnecessarily destroys important connections among brain cells,
and still make a difference in restoring brain function in these mice is intriguing. FRAX486 is a PAK inhibitor,
as it is called, makes a protein that appears to regulate neurons in the cerebral cortex responsible for igher-orderfunctions, like information processing.
In studies of rodent brain cells, the researchers found that a DISC1 deficit caused deterioration of vital parts of the neuron called spines
The scientists were able to see this by peering into the brains of the mice with DISC1 mutations on the 35th and 60th day of their lives, the equivalent of adolescence and young adulthood.
Sawa cautions that it has not yet been shown that PAK is elevated in the brains of people with schizophrenia.
Grants from the National institutes of health, the Stanley Foundation, the RUSK Foundation, the S-R Foundation, the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, Johns Hopkins Medicine Brain science Institute, the Maryland
the new findings support the idea that genetic differences expressed early during brain development may have a lot to do with the development of bipolar disorder symptomsnd other mental health conditions that arise later in life, especially in the teen and young adult years.
the neurons made from bipolar disorder patients also differed in how they were ddressedduring development for delivery to certain areas of the brain.
This may have an impact on brain development, too. The researchers also found differences in microrna expression in bipolar cellsiny fragments of RNA that play key roles in the eadingof genes.
For example the Kv2. 1 channel that this probe binds to leads to epilepsy when it s not functioning properly. n addition the ability to better observe electrical signaling could help researchers map the brain at its most basic levels. nderstanding the molecular
mechanisms of neuronal firing is a fundamental problem in unraveling the complexities of brain functioncohen says.
#Light makes mice forget scary memories University of California Davis rightoriginal Studyposted by Andy Fell-UC Davis on October 14 2014to test a longstanding idea about how the brain retrieves memories about specific places
and the data provides the first direct evidence that it is true. hey could also see how the specific cells in the cortex were connected to the amygdala a structure in the brain that is involved in emotion
Autism has also been linked to dysfunction of the amygdala a brain structure involved in processing emotions.
In this study we wanted to figure out how the brain does thatanderson says. Anderson and his colleagues discovered two intermingled
but distinct populations of neurons in the amygdala a part of the brain that is involved in innate social behaviors.
Interestingly these two populations are distinguished according to the most fundamental subdivision of neuron subtypes in the brain:
Then by shining a light on these modified neurons via a tiny fiber optic cable inserted into the brain researchers can control the activity of the cells as well as their associated behaviors.
However the current study helps to provide a needed link between gene activity brain activity and social behaviors nd if you don t understand the circuitry you are never going to understand how the gene mutation affects the behavior. oing forward he says such a complete understanding will be necessary for the development of future therapies.
#Neurons reveal the brain s learning limit Scientists have discovered a fundamental constraint in the brain that may explain why it s easier to learn a skill that s related to an ability you already have.
As reported in Nature the researchers found for the first time that there are limitations on how adaptable the brain is during learning
Understanding how the brain s activity can be lexedduring learning could eventually be used to develop better treatments for stroke and other brain injuries.
and cookies but it would be difficult to make hamburger patties with the existing ingredientssadtler says. e found that the brain works in a similar way during learning.
or the study the research team trained animals (Rhesus macaques) to use a brain-computer interface (BCI) similar to ones that have shown recent promise in clinical trials for assisting quadriplegics
and amputees his evolving technology is a powerful tool for brain researchsays Daofen Chen program director at the National Institute of Neurological disorders
and Stroke (NINDS) part of the National institutes of health. t helps scientists study the dynamics of brain circuits that may explain the neural basis of learning. he researchers recorded neural activity in the subject s motor cortex
whereas the easier-to-learn patterns were combinations of preexisting brain patterns. Because the existing brain patterns likely reflect how the neurons are interconnected the results suggest that the connectivity among neurons shapes learning. e wanted to study how the brain changes its activity
when you learn and also how its activity cannot change. Cognitive flexibility has a limit
Lead researcher Kaye Morgan from Monash University says the imaging method allows doctors to look at soft tissue structures for example the brain airways
The new imaging method which was developed using a synchrotron x-ray source may also open up possibilities in assessing how effective treatments were for other lung heart and brain diseases.
Our brains are able to judge the trustworthiness of a face even when we cannot consciously see it. he results are consistent with an extensive body of research suggesting that we form spontaneous judgments of other people that can be largely outside awarenessexplains Jonathan Freeman an assistant professor in New york University's psychology department.
The researchers focused on the workings of the brain's amygdala a structure that is important for humans social and emotional behavior.
To gauge this part of the brain's role in making such assessments the study s authors conducted a pair of experiments in which they monitored the activity of subjects amygdala
In the experiments a new set of subjects viewed the same faces inside a brain scanner
which is thought to terminate the brain's ability to further process the face and prevent it from reaching awareness.
#See into living brain with lasers and nanotubes Stanford university rightoriginal Studyposted by Bjorn Carey-Stanford on August 7 2014by injecting carbon nanotubes into the bloodstream scientists can use near-infrared lasers to see blood flow in a living animal s brain.
The new technique which is almost completely noninvasive was developed for mice but could offer insight into human ailments such as strokes migraines and possibly Alzheimer s and Parkinson s diseases.
Some of the most damaging brain diseases can be traced to irregular blood delivery in the brain.
or activity of the brain or even stimulate an immune response. Meanwhile noninvasive techniques such as CT SCANS or MRI visualize function best at the whole-organ level
Furthermore it does not appear to have any adverse affect on innate brain functions. he NIR-IIA light can pass through intact scalp skin
and skull and penetrate millimeters into the brain allowing us to see vasculature in an almost noninvasive waysays first author Guosong Hong who conducted the research as a graduate student in Dai s lab
First the light penetration depth needs to be increased to pass deep into the human brain. Second injecting carbon nanotubes needs approval for clinical application;
#or be caused in part by#changes in blood flow to certain parts of the brain.
NIR-IIA imaging might offer a means of better understanding the role of healthy vasculature in those diseases Hong says. e could also label different neuron types in the brain with biomarkers
Eventually we might be able to use NIR-IIA to learn how each neuron functions inside of the brain. ther coauthors of the study are from Stanford Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical school.
and her collaborators to create a transparent whole-brain specimen. With the CLARITY method a rodent brain is infused with a solution of lipid-dissolving detergents
and hydrogel#a water-based polymer gel that provides structural support #thus learingthe tissue but leaving its three-dimensional architecture intact for study.
so that it can be used to clear other organs besides the brain and even whole organisms.
a cranial volume reported as only 380 milliliters (23.2 cubic inches) suggesting a brain less than one third the size of an average modern human s and short thighbones
Here too the brain size they estimate is within the range expected for an Australomelanesian human with Down syndrome.
#EEG reveals image in short-term memory Researchers have tapped the rhythm of memories as they occur in near real time in the human brain.
and use that brain activity to predict which individuals could store memories with the highest quality or precision.
Although past research has decoded thoughts via brain activity standard approaches are limited expensive and in their ability to track fast-moving mental representations,
BRAIN STORAGE The findings come from a basic research project led by Awh and coauthor Edward K. Vogel that seeks to understand the limits of storing information. t turns out that it quite restricted,
has established that brain activity can track the content of memory. EEG, however, provides a much less expensive approach
It should provide us with new insights into how rhythmic brain activity supports core memory processes.
#eurogrid chips mimic the brain to use less energy Compared to the human brain, today computers are ridiculously slow
the brain is hard to match, says Kwabena Boahen, associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford university. Boahen and his team have developed a circuit board consisting of 16 custom-designed eurocorechips.
and synapses than other brain mimicking devices using only about the power it takes to run a tablet computer.
But it still a power hog compared to the brain. he human brain, with 80,000 times more neurons than Neurogrid, consumes only three times as much power,
Comparison aside, Neurogrid speed and low power characteristics make it ideal for more than just modeling the human brain.
you have to know how the brain works to program one of these, says Boahen, gesturing at the $40,
OTHER ATTEMPTS TO MIMIC THE BRAIN In an article published in the Proceedings of the IEEE,
including the European union Human brain Project, which aims to simulate a human brain on a supercomputer. By contrast
the US BRAIN Projecthort for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologiesas taken a tool-building approach by challenging scientists to develop new kinds of tools that can read out the activity of thousands
or even millions of neurons in the brain as well as write in complex patterns of activity.
Zooming from the big picture, Boahen article focuses on two projects comparable to Neurogrid that attempt to model brain functions in silicon and/or software.
IBM OLDEN GATECHIP One of these efforts is IBM Synapse Projecthort for Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics.
to emulate the ability of neurons to make a great many synaptic connections feature that helps the brain solve problems on the fly.
HICANN CHIP FOR BRAIN SIMULATORS Heidelberg University Brainscales project has the ambitious goal of developing analog chips to mimic the behaviors of neurons and synapses.
Their HICANN chiphort for High Input Count Analog Neural Networkould be the core of a system designed to accelerate brain simulations
For instance, a chip as fast and efficient as the human brain could drive prosthetic limbs with the speed
Approximate computing could endow computers with a capability similar to the human brain s ability to scale the degree of accuracy needed for a given task.
#Dendrites are like minicomputers in your brain University of North carolina at Chapel hill rightoriginal Studyposted by Mark Derewicz-UNC on October 30 2013the branch-like projections of neurons called dendrites are not just passive wiring
but act more like tiny computers multiplying the brain s processing power. uddenly it s
as if the processing power of the brain is much greater than we had originally thoughtsays Spencer Smith an assistant professor in the University of North carolina at Chapel hill s School of medicine.
His team s findings published in the journal Nature could change the way scientists think about longstanding scientific models of how neural circuitry functions in the brain
Previous research using dissected brain tissue had demonstrated that dendrites can use those molecules to generate electrical spikes themselves
whether normal brain activity involved those dendritic spikes. For example could dendritic spikes be involved in how we see?
They used patch-clamp electrophysiology to attach a microscopic glass pipette electrode filled with a physiological solution to a neuronal dendrite in the brain of a mouse.
Once the pipette was attached to a dendrite Smith s team took electrical recordings from individual dendrites within the brains of anesthetized and awake mice.
they seem to be a computational unit as well. is team plans to explore what this newly discovered dendritic role may play in brain circuitry and particularly in conditions like Timothy syndrome in
and connections as our brain processes new information. In order to do this individual neurons use an internal gauge to maintain a delicate balance that keeps our brains from becoming too excitable.
Scientists have theorized long a larger internal system monitors these individual gauges like a neural thermostat regulating average firing rates across the whole brain.
Without this thermostat they reasoned our flexible neurons would fire out of control making bad connections or none at all.
which the brain is excited too and autism in which the brain is excited not enough. f we can figure out how these set points are built we may be able to adjust them
and bring the brains of people suffering from such disorders back into balancesays Gina Turrigiano a professor at Brandeis University who led the study.
Turrigiano and colleagues observed in vivo that neocortical neurons cells that control higher functions such as sight language
when the brain does most of its wiring affected largely by the environment in which the animal is being raised.
and wakefulnesshengen says. he other rules in the brain have to play out in the context of this tightly regulated system of locked-in average firing rates. ource:
#Shortcut lets brain make memories in a flash Mcgill University rightoriginal Studyposted by Anita Kar-Mcgill U. on October 16 2013nerve cells have a special re-assemblytechnique that enables the brain to quickly form memories.
when it s the wrong timesays Wayne Sossin a neuroscientist at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at Mcgill University and senior investigator on the paper. his is especially important with nerve cells in the brain as you only want the brain to make precise
#How slow-wave sleep helps us learn Boston University Brown University Posted by David Orenstein-Brown on August 22 2013brown (US)# Scientists have pinpointed the brainwave frequencies
and brain region associated with sleep-enhanced learning of a finger-tapping task akin to typing
#We were trying to figure out which part of the brain is doing what during sleep independent of
In part because it employed three different kinds of brain scans the research is the first to precisely quantify changes among certain brainwaves
and the exact location of that changed brain activity in subjects as they slept after learning a sequential finger-tapping task.
and accuracy volunteers showed on the task after a few hours sleep was associated significantly with changes in fast-sigma and delta brainwave oscillations in their supplementary motor area (SMA) a region on the top-middle of the brain.
These specific brainwave changes in the SMA occurred during a particular phase of sleep known as#slow-wave#sleep.
It s an intensive activity for the brain to consolidate learning and so the brain may benefit from sleep perhaps
because more energy is available or because distractions and new inputs are fewer says corresponding author Yuka Sasaki a research associate professor in the department of cognitive linguistic & psychological sciences.#
The extent of reorganization that the brain accomplishes during sleep is suggested by the distinct roles the two brainwave oscillations appear to play.
while their brains were scanned both with magnetoencephalography (MEG) which measures the oscillations with precise timing and polysomnography
By this time the researchers had good baseline measurements of their brain activity and subjects had become accustomed to sleeping in the lab. On day four the subjects learned the finger-tapping task on their non-dominant hand (to purposely make it harder to learn).
On day five the researchers scanned each volunteer with an magnetic resonance imaging machine which maps brain anatomy
so that they could later see where the MEG oscillations they had observed were located in each subject s brain.
In all the experimenters tracked five different oscillation frequencies in eight brain regions (four distinct regions on each of the brain s two sides.
Sasaki says she expected the most significant activity to take place in the#M1#brain region which governs motor control
since a project to further study how the brain consolidates learning. In this case they re looking at visual learning tasks.#
#Would it be with similar frequency bands and a similar organization of neighboring brain areas?##In addition to Tamaki Sasaki and Watanabe other authors on the paper contributed from Boston University MGH National Taiwan University and Arizona State university.
#Computer picks emotion based on brain scan CARNEGIE MELLON (US) For the first time, scientists have identified which emotion a person is experiencing based on brain activity.
The study, published in PLOS ONE, combines functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) and machine learning to measure brain signals to accurately read emotions in individuals.
The findings illustrate how the brain categorizes feelings, giving researchers the first reliable process to analyze emotions.
Until now, research on emotions has been stymied long by the lack of reliable methods to evaluate them,
For the study, 10 actors were scanned at the Scientific Imaging & Brain Research center while viewing the words of nine emotions:
It was able to correctly identify the emotional content of photos being viewed using the brain activity of the viewers.
To identify emotions within the brain, the researchers first used the participantsneural activation patterns in early scans to identify the emotions experienced by the same participants in later scans.
when the computer model made use of activation patterns in only one of a number of different subsections of the human brain. his suggests that emotion signatures aren limited to specific brain regions,
but produce characteristic patterns throughout a number of brain regions, says Vladimir Cherkassky, senior research programmer in the psychology department.
This is how emotions are organized in the brain. In the future, the researchers plan to apply this new identification method to a number of challenging problems in emotion research,
and the brain scientists say. A team of researchers introduced a robot designed to replicate the color pattern
#Tiny new sensor could simplify brain wave research Two years ago, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the U s. developed a tiny magnetic sensor that could detect the human heartbeat without touching the subject's skin.
making it capable of measuring human brain activity and becoming almost as sensitive-but much cheaper and easier to operate-than the best magnetometers available today.
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a noninvasive procedure that measures the magnetic fields generated by the brain. This helps neuroscientists understand perceptual and cognitive processes
or even create better brain-computer interfaces. Today, the gold standard in MEG technology are superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDS.
The NIST sensor was used to measure alpha waves in the brain associated with a person opening
After a period of training however the rats learned to activate the electrical impulses with their brains allowing them to walk
Eventually they even started forming new neuronal connections between the brain and the lower spine circumventing the cut in the spinal cord.
Those electrodes deliver a current plus they can detect electrical impulses (such as those that would be used to move the legs) in the brain.
#Gelatin Nanoparticles could Deliver Drugs to your Brain Stroke victims could have more time to seek treatment that could reduce harmful effects on the brain thanks to tiny blobs of gelatin that could deliver the medication to the brain non-invasively.
The researchers found that gelatin nanoparticles could be laced with medications for delivery to the brain
Once administered the gelatin nanoparticles target damaged brain tissue thanks to an abundance of gelatin-munching enzymes produced in injured regions.
Illinois professor Kyekyoon#Kevin#Kim graduate student Elizabeth Joachim and researchscientist Hyungsoo Choi developed tiny gelatin nanoparticles that can carry medicationto the brain which could lead to longer
They can be administered nasally a noninvasive and direct route to the brain. This allows the drug to bypass the blood-brain barrier a biological fence that prevents the vast majority of drugs from entering the brain through the bloodstream.#
#Overcoming the difficulty of delivering therapeutic agents to specific regions of the brain presents a major challenge to treatment of most neurological disorders#said Choi.#
#However if drug substances can be transferred along the olfactory nerve cells they can bypass the blood-brain barrier
and enter the brain directly.##To test gelatin nanoparticles as a drug-delivery system the researchers used the drug osteopontin (OPN)
and prevent brain cell death if administered immediately after a stroke.##It is crucial to treat ischemic strokes within three hours to improve the chances of recovery.
so that treating a rat with nanoparticles six hours after a stroke showed the same efficacy rate as giving them OPN alone after one hour#70 percent recovery of dead volume in the brain.
#Gelatin nanoparticles are a delivery vehicle that could be used to deliver many therapeutics to the brain#Choi said.#
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