#Specific roles of adult neural stem cells may be determined before birth UCSF-led study in mice suggest that stem cells in the brain may not be able to develop into many different cell types,
which are thought commonly of as having the ability to develop into many type of brain cells, are preprogrammed in reality before birth to make very specific types of neurons, at least in mice,
whose lab was the first to identify neural stem cells more than 20 years ago. e did not see that. n mouse brains,
as in human brains, adult neural stem cells reside on the walls of cavities called ventricles, which are filled with cerebrospinal fluid.
Using sophisticated DNA tagging techniques, Alvarez-Buylla and his team traced the development of mouse adult neural stem cells back to their embryonic progenitors.
uite early in embryonic brain development, said Alvarez-Buylla, and then remain quiescent until reactivated later in life.
it turns out that their role in the brain has been determined partly already before birth. he researchers had another surprise,
the scientists found that the mouse adult neural stem cells they studied are derived from embryonic neural stem cells that produce neurons in entirely different parts of the brain. his means that, somehow,
these cells go through a period of neuron production for the embryonic brain and then switch to a different mode and produce cells that get set apart to become adult neural cell progenitors,
mouse brains have long been accepted as excellent basic research models for the human brain, he said.
Alvarez-Buylla also noted that the paper has possible implications for the success of human stem cell therapy in the brain
if we don understand the embryology of the brain, going back to the origins of specific nerve cell types,
Even in the brain, where it is most common, 5fc is only present at around 10 parts per million or less.
The lack of uptake in the non-dividing adult brain tissue pointed to the fact that 5fc can be a stable modification:
he points out. ou may want to delete it after the cells have differentiated into heart, brain or liver cells.
Zhang and postdoctoral researcher Yuejun Chen attached brackets to a gene known to separate the midbrain from the forebrain, the site of higher mental functions.
they found that the gene is also essential to forming the forebrain. f you knock it out,
sewn into pillows to monitor brain signals or applied to interactive textiles with heating and cooling capabilities. revious technologies have achieved similar functionalities,
helping convert sound into electrical signals that travel to the brain. The researchers tested gene therapy in two types of mutant mice.
In the recessive deafness model, gene therapy with TMC1 restored the ability of sensory hair cells to respond to soundroducing a measurable electrical currentnd also restored activity in the auditory portion of the brainstem.
In the dominant deafness model, gene therapy with a related gene, TMC2, was successful at the cellular and brain level,
generating an electrical signal that travels to the brain and ultimately translates to hearing. Although the channel is made up of either TMC1 or TMC2
#Futuristic brain probe allows for wireless control of neurons Scientists used soft materials to create a brain implant a tenth the width of a human hair that can wirelessly control neurons with lights and drugs.
minimally invasive device for controlling brain cells with drugs and lighta study showed that scientists can wirelessly determine the path a mouse walks with a press of a button.
and shine lights on neurons deep inside the brains of mice. The revolutionary device is described online in the journal Cell.
Its development was funded partially by the National institutes of health. t unplugs a world of possibilities for scientists to learn how brain circuits work in a more natural setting. said Michael R. Bruchas, Ph d.,associate professor of anesthesiology and neurobiology at Washington University School of medicine and a senior author
Both options require surgery that can damage parts of the brain and introduce experimental conditions that hinder animalsnatural movements.
and lights. e used powerful nanomanufacturing strategies to fabricate an implant that lets us penetrate deep inside the brain with minimal damage,
and displaced much less brain tissue. The scientists tested the device drug delivery potential by surgically placing it into the brains of mice.
In some experiments, they showed that they could precisely map circuits by using the implant to inject viruses that label cells with genetic dyes.
In all of the experiments, the mice were about three feet away from the command antenna. his is the kind of revolutionary tool development that neuroscientists need to map out brain circuit activity
and pushed the drug out into the brain. e tried at least 30 different prototypes before one finally worked,
crowdsourcing approach to neuroscience is a great way to understand normal and healthy brain circuitry. ource
The researchers suggest that this change was due to the ability of electrical stimulation to reawaken dormant connections that may exist between the brain and the spinal cord of patients with complete motor paralysis. Surprisingly, by the end of the study,
further supporting the hypothesis of reestablished communication between the brain and spinal cord. Edgerton has initiated already a new study to see
#Take a trip through the brain A new imaging tool developed by Boston scientists could do for the brain
In the first demonstration of how the technology works, published July 30 in the journal Cell, the researchers look inside the brain of an adult mouse at a scale previously unachievable, generating images at a nanoscale resolution.
The inventorslong-term goal is to make the resource available to the scientific community in the form of a national brain observatory. a strong believer in bottom up-science,
The researchers have begun the process of mining their imaging data by looking first at an area of the brain that receives sensory information from mouse whiskers,
he complexity of the brain is much more than what we had imagined ever, says study first author Narayanan obbykasthuri,
The researchers see great potential in the tool ability to answer questions about what a neurological disorder actually looks like in the brain
as well as what makes the human brain different from other animals and different between individuals. Who we become is very much a product of the connections our neurons make in response to various life experiences.
and someone with schizophrenia would be a leap in our understanding of how our brains shape who we are (or vice versa).
the scientists are now partnering with Argonne National Laboratory with the hopes of creating a national brain laboratory that neuroscientists around the world can access within the next few years. t bittersweet that there are many scientists who think this is a total waste of time as well as a big
Devices like the Rift also use a less sophisticated method of tricking the brain into perceiving 3-D objects
#Injectable Implants Could Help Crack the Brain Codes A new type of flexible electronic device shows promise for long-term brain mapping
Understanding how the brain worksr doesn, as the case may beepends on deciphering the patterns of electrical signals its neurons produce.
can damage the brain and elicit an immune response, and they tend not to work for very long.
It could also shed light on the brain dysfunctions, like schizophrenia or Parkinson disease (see racking the Brain Codesand hining a Light on Madness.
Further down the road, the concept could lead to a better way to deliver therapeutic stimulation to address neurodegenerative diseases,
or a stable brain-computer interface that might help disabled people do things their condition usually wouldn allow them to do,
One current therapeutic use of implanted electronics is called deep brain stimulation, which is approved FDA and used to treat Parkinson disease.
The therapy involves inserting electrodes into certain regions of the brain and producing electrical pulses meant to regulate abnormal ones.
but because the interface between the brain tissue and the electronics is far from ideal, says Charles Lieber,
Implants for deep brain stimulation often must be repositioned or have adjusted their settings, and usually don last for more than a few years.
Now theye shown that they can use a syringe to inject the mesh scaffold into targeted areas in the brains of live mice.
suggesting that the technology offers ubstantial promisefor long-term brain activity mapping. Made using conventional photolithography techniques
When it encounters a ventricular cavity in the brain, for example, it can unfold to fill in the space,
A year ago, the company announced at CES that it had developed a compact computer for processing sensor information (see udi Shows Off a Compact Brain for Self-driving cars.
a technology that processes sensory information efficiently by loosely mimicking the way the brain works.
The resulting'neural nets'were inspired by the neural circuitry of the brain.""The key is that
using its Magnet proteins to create a photoactivatable Cas9 nuclease (pacas9) for light-controlled genome editing. he existing Cas9 does not allow to modify genome of a small subset of cells in tissue, such as neurons in the brain,
#New Human brain Language Map The map of language centers in the human brain is being redrawn.
a hotdog-shape region in the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere, may not be the seat of language comprehension,
Instead, the team suggests in a study published today (June 25) in the neurology journal Brain,
understanding the meaning of words happens in the left anterior temporal lobe, while sentence comprehension is handled by a complex network of brain areas. his provides an important change in our understanding of language comprehension in the brain,
Marek-Marsel Mesulam, lead study author and director of Northwestern Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer Disease Center, said in a statement.
Neuroscientist Carl Wernicke discovered in 1874 that some stroke victims with damage to the left sides of their brains suffered language impairment,
Wernicke and other researchers surmised that the patientsstrokes had damaged the language comprehension center of the brain.
So he and his colleagues performed language tests and brain MRIS on 72 PPA patients with damage inside and outside of Wernicke area.
PPA and stroke damage the brain differently; in PPA, cortical areas degenerate, but their underlying fiber pathways, necessary for communication between different language centers in the brain,
remain intact. Stroke, however, damages large swathes of brain matter. n this case, we saw a different map of language by comparing two different models of disease,
one based on strokes that destroy an entire region of brain, cortex as well as underlying pathways, and the other on a neurodegenerative disease that attacks mostly brain cells in cortex rather than the region as a whole, Mesulam said in the press release.
This means that language comprehension is much more diffuse and complicated in the brain, and the process likely relies on many interconnected brain regions,
rather than one constrained area. here is no center but a network of interconnected areas, each with a slightly different specialization,
Mesulam told Motherboard o
#Diagnosing Ebola in 15 Minutes As West Africa has battled Ebola over the last year, clinicians have been restricted to time-consuming,
PCR-based assays to diagnose infection. The test required an entire vial of a patient blood,
and the sample then had to be transported for analysis to a laboratory facility, which in Sierra leone, Guinea,
#Three Monkey Brains, One Robotic Arm Linking the brains of multiple animals into a single rainetmay be key to efficiently solving problems with brain-machine interfaces (BMIS), according to two new studies
In the first, the researchers used electrodes to link the brains of three monkeys to a computer
The results of both sets of experiments, published yesterday (July 9) in Scientific Reports, represent the first iving computersand demonstrate that animal brains may be useful in performing tasks,
or x-z). When the monkeys successfully synchronized their brain activities, the arm moved toward the target
all three monkeys were able to synchronize their brain activity to produce a unified output capable of moving the virtual arm in 3-D,
Nicolelis said in a press release. his is the first demonstration of a shared brain-machine interface,
Indeed, if human brains could be linked in a similar way, the results could be spectacular, Iyad Rahwan of the Masdar Institute in Dubai told New Scientist. t is really exciting.
and some sea creatures use thousands of lenses to provide information without the need for a sophisticated brain.
So why not use your brainwaves to switch programmes instead? That could one day be possible,
following experiments carried out by the BBC to investigate the use of technology that allows people to control their televisions with only their brainwaves.
the BBC developed a prototype mind control TV using a low-cost headset equipped with sensors that measure electrical activity in the brain.
The electroencephalography (EEG) brainwave reading headset has a sensor that rests on the user forehead,
The users either concentrated hard or relaxed their brain until the volume bar showed the threshold had been reached, at
including both the sensors and neuroscientistsunderstanding of brain activity, he said. t very early stages in terms of this type of technology,
These pulses then stimulate the retina remaining cells, resulting in the corresponding perception of patterns of light in the brain.
But after scientists implanted chips into his brain three years ago, he's been able to move a robotic arm to shake hands;
"Sorto is one of a handful of people who have been given brain implants to help move objects with their minds since 2006,
Today's study differs from most previous research in the area of the brain researchers targeted for implants
Previously, scientists focused on the primary motor cortex, a part of the brain which coordinates the contractions muscles require to move
Instead, his group targeted a different area in the brain, one he'd studied in animals,
called the posterior parietal cortex. While the primary motor cortex focuses on specific muscle movements, the posterior parietal cortex is about planning movements.
Information from the implants in the posterior parietal cortex transmit the intent to pick up a pint of beer
and lets the computer figure out how to make the movement.""I wanted to run around and just high-five everybody.""
which area of the brain is better for implanting the chips four square millimeters that record the activity of about 100 neurons
The chip is like a microscopic pincushion that's pushed into the brain, Pruszynski says.
he says. like a microscopic pincushion that's been pushed into the brain But what might really improve the device would be feedback.
and his group is considering ways to pipe information into the brain, as well as out of it.
allowing brain signals to be sent to the prosthetic. Mr Baugh custom socket can pick up brain signals to control the arms, known as Modular Prosthetic Limbs (MPL), just by thinking about the movements.
The lab chief engineer of research and exploratory development Mike Mcloughlin said that as the remapped nerves grow deeper
project manager for amputee research at the lab. Researchers envision a kind of cap that an amputee can wear that would feed information about brain activity to the robotic arm.
or focused you are by simply using your brain, but the idea behind these smart glasses is to provide a more accurate assessment of your level of focusf that's something you (or an employer!)
#Superabsorbent Polymer Blows Up Brain Samples To Give a Better View Researchers have come up with an inexpensive technique for enlarging brain samples
Researchers from the Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT) have developed a new method that expands brain tissue so that nanoscale structures can be seen with an ordinary light microscope.
Ed Boyden, an associate professor of biological engineering and brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, and the lead author of the study,
the researchers were able make the brain specimens grow bigger. They painted the specimens with fluorescent dye.
Researchers believe that this technique will allow them to study tiny brain samples, without needing powerful and expensive microscopes.
which expand and contract in the presence of nerve signals from brain. In salt containing water,
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