Both cardiac cells in the heart and neurons in the brain communicate by electrical signals,
which so far has been used mainly in brain science. Dr Gil Bub, from Oxford university explained:''When there is scar tissue in the heart or fibrosis,
and shape of such excitation waves would mean unprecedented direct control of organ-level function, in the heart or brain,
including those in our own brains and hearts r
#Another Dimension: 3-D Cell Growth Opens New Pathway For Spinal cord Repair, Griffith University Study Griffith University researchers have opened a new avenue to advance a therapy to repair the paralysed spinal cord.
A paper published in the prestigious Nature group journal Scientific Reports presents a novel technique to grow cells in three dimensions, without the traditional restrictions of matrix or scaffolds.
By using floating liquid marbles, cells can freely associate and form natural structures as they would normally within the human body."
when neurobiology merged with microfluidic engineering technology. Lead researcher, Griffith Phd student Mr Raja Vadivelu,
"In Australia, more than 12,000 people live with spinal cord paralysis and there is at least one new occurrence every day,
"In light of the overwhelming impact of spinal cord injury, new therapeutic interventions for drug discovery and cell therapy are needed urgently."
"The transplantation of the specialised cell type from the olfactory (sense of smell) system is a promising approach to spinal cord repair."
"Successful partial regeneration of a completely severed spinal cord in a human was achieved recently in an overseas study,
"What is needed now is to make the transplantation therapy more effective and suitable for patients with a range of different spinal cord injuries."
In turn, this will help the spinal cord to regenerate more effectively.""Liquid marbles are a remarkably simply way to culture cells in 3d,
"Burnes probably didn't think they could be used to help develop a therapy for spinal cord repair,
but combining neurobiology and engineering at Griffith University has at last found an incredible use for the'round globules,
While in space, he will wear a special dosimeter to study the effects of space radiation on the brain.
#Paralyzed man walks again using brain-computer link A brain-to-computer technology that can translate thoughts into leg movements has enabled a man paralyzed from the waist down by a spinal cord injury to become the first such patient to walk without the use of robotics,
The slow, halting first steps of the 28-year-old paraplegic were documented in a preliminary study published in The british-based Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation,
The feat was accomplished using a system allowing the brain to bypass the injured spinal cord and instead send messages through a computer algorithm to electrodes placed around the patient's knees to trigger controlled leg muscle movements.
but incremental achievement in the development of brain-computer interfaces that may one day help stroke
brain-controlled walking after a complete spinal cord injury,"said biomedical engineer Zoran Nenadic, who led the research. 3. 6 metres The steps taken a year ago by the experiment's subject,
which brain signals were transmitted to a robotic prosthesis attached to the patient's legs to produce movement,
Practised with virual reality In previous research by other scientists, a brain-computer interface has been used to allow paralyzed patients to grasp a cup of coffee with a robotic arm
which he practiced thinking about walking to produce necessary leg-moving brain waves. Those signals were picked then up by an electroencephalogram (EEG) he wore as a cap
or brain, allowing for clearer reception of the neural messages and perhaps the delivery of pressure sensation from sensors in the foot back to the brai i
'oxytocin, has long been known to promote bonding between a mother and a child. Now scientists have shown it does this by permanently changing the nerve pathways in the brain that control certain social behaviours.
Researchers believe the results could lead to new ways of using the hormone to treat psychological problems such as stress and speech disorders.
Oxytocin is produced by women during pregnancy birth and in the production of milk for breastfeeding.
In experiments in mice, the scientists mapped oxytocin to unique receptor cells in the left side of the brain's cortex.
They found that the hormone controls the volume of'social information'processed by individual neurons,
'EEG or Electroencephalography measures electrical activity in the brain using pads on the scalp, and is used to diagnose epilepsy and sleep disorders.
#Brain training app that could help schizophrenia sufferers live a normal life A new brain training app developed to help improve the memory of people with schizophrenia could save taxpayers thousands of pounds,
The computer game has been designed by neuroscientists at Cambridge university to help patients recover their ability to carry out everyday tasks that rely on having a good memory.
Its aim is to train the brain in episodic memory, which helps people remember events such as where they parked their car in a multi-storey car park
-which is why scientists at Cambridge university developed the brain training app to help. The computer game is called Wizard
Professor Sahakian and colleagues began a collaboration with the team behind the popular brain training app Peak
#Neuroon mask helps you avoid jet lag by tricking brain into changing time zones A revolutionary smart mask promises to help you stave off the dreaded effects of jet lag by preparing your body for the time difference before you even board the flight.
and artificially triggers sensors in your eyes during the flight to trick the brain into adjusting to the new time zone.
It is fitted with sensors that monitor brainwaves, eye movement, oxygen levels and the wearer's body temperature before sending this information to an app on their connected phone.
which artificially triggers the light sensors in a person's eyes to make their brain believe the sun is coming up.
Or it can trick the brain into thinking it is in a different time zone. Mr Adamczyk said:'
'The Neuroon is an artificial light source-it activates the light sensitive receptors that send information to our brains.'
'More specifically it targets the pineal gland-the part of the brain that produces melatonin, the sleep hormone.'
and with light therapy it can manage the production of sleep hormone in the brain.'
This is found in many organs including the brain, and can make mice cleverer and at the same time less fearful.'
INTELLIGENT MICE CREATED WITH'HALF-HUMAN'BRAINS Last year, mice injected with human brain cells grow to have'half human brains'that make them smarter than other rodents,
scientists have found. Researchers claim that giving mouse pups a type of immature human brain cell,
known as glial cells, caused their brains to grow differently so they became more humanlike. These human glial cells,
which are the support cells of the brain providing it with structure and nutrients, multiplied and grew to replace a similar type of cell in the brains of the mice.
While the mice still had their own neurons-the cells that transmit and store information in the brain-the support cells were almost entirely human, according to the researchers.
Tests in these mice showed that they appeared to have better memories than those that did not have these hybrid brains.
It is thought the human cells improved the efficiency of the mice brains. The results have raised the prospect that it may be possible to make animals smarter by injecting them with human brain cells.
And they were quicker at learning the location of a hidden escape platform. They were also less able to recall a fearful event after several days than ordinary mice,
and as PDE4B is also found in humans, this could be of interest in the search for treatments for brain conditions as well as mental decline linked to aging.
The experiments also showed that PDE4B-inhibited mice suffered less anxiety, choosing to spend more time in open, brightly lit spaces than normal mice,
which preferred dark, enclosed spaces. And while mice are scared naturally of cats, the modified mice responded less fearfully to cat urine,
suggesting that inhibiting PDE4B could increase risk-taking behavior. Dr Laura Phipps of Alzheimer's Research UK
who were involved not in the study, said:''This study highlights a potentially important role for the PDE4B gene in learning and memory in mice,
#Human brain grown in a LAB that could help Alzheimer's research A near-complete human brain comparable with that of a five-week-old foetus has been grown in a laboratory dish.
The brain'organoid'was created from reprogrammed skin cells and is about the size of a pencil eraser.
Scientists hope the lumpy mass of functioning nerve cells and fibres will prove to be a valuable research tool for non-animal testing of new drugs and investigating brain disorders such as Alzheimer's.
As well as neurons and their signal-carrying projections-axons and dendrites-the'brain'also contains support and immune cells.
It has 99%of the genes present in the foetal brain a rudimentary spinal cord, and even the beginnings of an'eye'.
'Lead researcher Professor Rene Anand, from Ohio State university in the US, said:''It not only looks like the developing brain,
its diverse cell types express nearly all genes like a brain.''We've struggled for a long time trying to solve complex brain disease problems that cause tremendous pain and suffering.'
'The power of this brain model bodes very well for human health because it gives us better
and more relevant options to test and develop therapeutics other than rodents.''To build the replica brain, the team transformed adult skin cells into induced pluripotent stem (ips) cells by altering their genes.'
'The artificially created stem cells were coaxed then into developing the different cell types and signalling circuitry of the brain.
Full details of the brain growing process are being kept confidential by the scientists but involved causing the stem cells to differentiate into the full range of brain tissues.
The organoid was allowed to grow to the equivalent of 12 weeks in the womb, almost matching the maturity of a five-week-old foetal brain.'
'If we let it go to 16 or 20 weeks that might complete it, filling in that 1%of missing genes,'said Prof Anand.'
'We don't know yet.''He spoke about the work at the 2015 military health system research symposium,
run by the US department of defence, in Fort lauderdale, Florida, US. Already the scientists have gone on to create brain organoid models of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease,
and autism, in a dish. With the addition of a blood circulation, which is currently lacking,
they also hope to use the model to study stroke therapies. Military applications include research on Gulf war syndrome, traumatic brain injury,
what it touches through a microchip in his brain Scientists working with Darpa have developed a robotic arm that can'feel'It allowed a 28-year-old paralysed man'feel'for the first time in a decade A tiny array of electrodes were implanted into the sensory part of his brain Force
and transmitted into Nathan's brain. The electrodes can also detect electrical signals from his brain.
This allows him to not only control the hand's movements but to feel what the mechanical fingers are touching.
He said'Using advanced technologies that translate the forces applied to the fingertips of the robotic hand into electrical signals that could be used to directly stimulate the sensory neurons in the brain,
and feel what the robotic hand was touching using only his brain.''Through neurotechnology we're opening up entirely new worlds of experience and independence.'
'Neural technologies are being developed by Darpa under its Revolutionising Prosthetics program that aims to help people who have lost limbs
It uses microarrays of electrodes that can be implanted into the brains of volunteers to pick up tiny electrical pulses from the neurons.
Answers were sent more than a mile using brain signals It is a breakthrough that could pave the way for soldiers being able to read each other's thoughts on the battlefield
magnetic coils and the internet to send brain signals between two people. It begun with the first person,
who was wearing a cap studded with electrodes that recorded their brain activity, thinking of an object.
Crucially, only the'yes'signal was strong enough to fool their brain into seeing a flash of light.
'This is the most complex brain-to-brain experiment, I think, that has been done to date in humans.'
'They have to interpret something with their brains they have seen never before.''Writing in the journal Plos One,
the researchers say they are now researching'brain tutoring'transferring signals directly from teacher to pupil or from the brain of a healthy person to a stroke patient.
'In the 1980s we saw the first wide scale use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (antidepressants), such as Prozac, Paxil and others.'
#Scientists discover how to'turn off'pain by altering chemistry in the brain Patients can be made more resistant to pain by altering the structure of their brains,
Scientists discovered for the first time that people left in agony by arthritis develop more receptors in the brain that respond to opiate pain relief.
They then scanned their brains with a PET SCANNER to count the number of opiate receptors.
something as simple as taking exercise could also boost opiate receptors. e know that exercise can activate the natural opiate system in the brain,
due to the addictive nature of these drugs. he notion of enhancing the natural opiates in the brain, such as endorphins,
me to be infinitely preferable to long term medication with opiate drugs. nything that can reduce reliance on strong medication must be worth pursuing. piate receptors were discovered first in the brain in 1973.
The microridges on the fingertip are designed especially to fine-tune perception of surface texture and transfer sensory information to the brain.
but can transmit signals to nerve cells. They hope the proof-of-concept experiment will lead to artificial hands that allow the wearer to feel different textures
which produces biochemical signals suitable for transmission to neurons. In the tests pressure signals from the skin generated light pulses that activated a line of light-sensitive nerve cells.
Other methods of stimulating nerves were likely to be used in real prosthetic devices, said the researchers writing in the journal Science.
and also transmit a signal to a component of the nervous system.''We have a lot of work to take this from experimental to practical applications.
Real skin transmits pressure information as short pulses of electrical signals that are sent to the brain.
Motorcycle headgear absorbs energy from a crash to protect your brain as well as your skull Experts have created a helmet with built-in suspension to protect your brain as well as your skull.
the brain is still susceptible to injuries from impacts. The 6d helmet contains a foam liner inside
which can cause the brain to spin inside the skull and lead to brain injuries. Bob Weber, cofounder of 6d helmets, said the combination of the suspension system
An array of 27 dampers work in unison to isolate impact energy from the brain. The elasticity of the dampers,
Both cardiac cells in the heart and neurons in the brain communicate by electrical signals,
which so far has been used mainly in brain science. Dr Gil Bub, from Oxford university explained:''When there is scar tissue in the heart or fibrosis,
and shape of such excitation waves would mean unprecedented direct control of organ-level function, in the heart or brain,
including those in our own brains and hearts s
#How proteins age Physiological processes in the body are in large part determined by the composition of secreted proteins found in the circulatory systems,
For small molecule detection, Tao's team used membrane proteins that detect acetylcholine--a model system that has been studied widely.
AGS is a rare genetic disorder that mainly affects the brain, while SLE can affect the skin, joints, kidneys, brain,
and other organs. Neither disease has a cure only treatments to control symptoms. Dr. Chen said cgas is likely amenable to inhibition by small-molecule drugs
which controls the wiring of the brain in fruit flies. Dscam1 has the potential of making 38,016 possible isoforms,
To study how many different isoforms of Dscam1 actually exist in a fly's brain, the researchers first had to convert Dscam1 RNA into DNA.
Rajadinakaran took a fruit fly brain, extracted the RNA, converted it into DNA, isolated the DNA copies of the Dscam1 RNAS,
A leading neuroscientist at Florida Atlantic University has developed the"Lewy Body Composite Risk Score"(LBCRS) to quickly
. one of the most prominent neuroscientists in the country who developed the LBCRS, and a professor of clinical biomedical science in FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine and a professor in FAU's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing."
the lungs, liver, brain or bones. They analysed the proteins in their exosomes, nearly a thousand proteins,
in order to improve the predictive power of the integrins--with specific analytical technologies that are yet to be developed--to identifying other'zip codes'that determine metastasis to the brain or bones.
#New field of application for versatile helper In Alzheimer's disease proteins clump together to long fibrils causing the death of nerve cells.
beta amyloids that agglomerate to form long fibrils in the nerve cells of Alzheimer's patients. Heat shock proteins are associated also with other nervous system disorders like Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.
Although it is still unclear what role these catastrophe aid workers play in the various ailments,
stealth bombs that slip past the brain's defenses to attack an incurable form of cancer.
Efstathios Karathanasis, a biomedical engineer at Case School of engineering, has developed chainlike nanoparticles that can carry drugs across the blood-brain barrier that keeps standard medicines from reaching their target--a highly aggressive brain cancer called
"Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common and most malignant tumors of glial cells, which provide structure to the brain.
The median survival rate among adults is just under 15 months, according to the American Brain Cancer Association.
The blood-brain barrier that normally protects the brain from harm becomes a deadly impediment when tumors are present,
preventing drugs from crossing from the blood stream into the diseased tissue. And"surgeons can't go in
"Brain tumor cells are often invasive and spread throughout the normal brain, and drugs--if they get in--do nothing because of resistance that develops."
Prion proteins and prions Prions are proteins that have undergone a change in structure from a physiological"good"form normally present in our brain to an aberrant
(or"bad")form capable of causing degeneration of nervous tissue and diseases, some of which very severe.
3-D cell growth opens new pathway for spinal cord repair Griffith University researchers have opened a new avenue to advance a therapy to repair the paralysed spinal cord.
when neurobiology merged with microfluidic engineering technology. Lead researcher, Griffith Phd student Mr Raja Vadivelu,
"In Australia, more than 12,000 people live with spinal cord paralysis and there is at least one new occurrence every day,
"In light of the overwhelming impact of spinal cord injury, new therapeutic interventions for drug discovery and cell therapy are needed urgently."
"The transplantation of the specialised cell type from the olfactory (sense of smell) system is a promising approach to spinal cord repair."
"Successful partial regeneration of a completely severed spinal cord in a human was achieved recently in an overseas study,
"What is needed now is to make the transplantation therapy more effective and suitable for patients with a range of different spinal cord injuries."
In turn, this will help the spinal cord to regenerate more effectively.""Liquid marbles are a remarkably simply way to culture cells in 3d,
"Burnes probably didn't think they could be used to help develop a therapy for spinal cord repair,
but combining neurobiology and engineering at Griffith University has at last found an incredible use for the'round globules,
"said the study's corresponding author Richard L. Sidman, MD, an investigator in the Department of Neurology at BIDMC and Bullard Professor of Neuropathology (Neuroscience), Emeritus, at Harvard Medical school.
Sidman is a leader in the field of mammalian brain development whose studies have focused on disease mechanisms in mouse neuro-genetic disorders,
including disorders of the retina, the light-sensitive layer of brain tissue at the inner surface of the back of the eye that transmits image information to other parts of the brain via the optic nerve.
AMD develops in approximately 14 million older individuals throughout the U s. This overgrowth of blood vessels damages the photoreceptor cells near the center of the eye's retina,
and neuropilin-1--to keep excessive blood vessels from forming.""Although a few other anti-VEGF drugs have been approved for therapy of AMD,
#Study finds how Alzheimer's-associated protein tangles spread through the brain Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have discovered a mechanism behind the spread of neurofibrillary tangles-one of the two hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease-through the brains
while extremely rare even in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, is able to spread from one neuron to another
"It has been postulated that tangles-the abnormal accumulation of tau protein that fills neurons in Alzheimer's disease-can travel from neuron to neuron as the disease progresses,
spreading dysfunction through the brain as the disease progresses. But how that happens has been uncertain,
"Our current study suggests one mechanism at play is that a unique and rare type of tau has the properties we were looking for-it is released from neurons,
taken up by other neurons, transported up and down axons, and then released again.""Previous research has shown that tau tangles first appear in a structure located deep within the brain called the entorhinal cortex,
which is a hub for signals passing between the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex. Tangles appear later in other nearby structures involved with memory and cognition,
but whether that progression reflected the movement of tau proteins through adjacent neurons or some other process was uncertain.
Several 2013 studies from Hyman's group and others showed the movement of a mutant form of tau between brain structures and resultant neurodegeneration in a mouse model.
One of Hyman's papers also suggested that the process could be halted but exactly how the cell-to-cell transport takes place still needed to be demonstrated.
when brain sample from that mouse model were applied to cultured neurons, only 1 percent of the tau in those samples was taken up by the neurons.
The tau proteins that were taken up were high molecular weight-meaning that a number of smaller proteins are bound together into a larger molecule-soluble,
Similar results were seen in experiments using brain samples from Alzheimer's patients both in cultured neurons and in living mice.
The process by which this version of tau passes between neurons was illustrated using a microfluidic device developed at the MGH Biomems Resource Center.
The device consists of three chambers, the first two containing mouse neurons, connected by microgrooves through
which axons-the fibers that carry signals from one neuron to another-can extend. The team found that applying this rare form of tau from the brains of the mouse model to neurons in the first chamber resulted in the protein's being taken up by those neurons and
within five days, being present at the ends of first-chamber-neuron axons and in neurons in the second chamber.
A few days later, tau was detected at the end of axons extending from the second to the third chamber,
which contained no neurons. Removal of tau from the first chamber did not cause it to disappear from the second chamber,
indicating that once a certain amount of the pathologic version of the protein has been taken up,
neurons can continue passing it along even after the original source has been removed. Additional experiments with tau from the brains of Alzheimer's patients confirmed that the high-molecular-weight
soluble, phosphate-bearing version was passed taken up and between neurons.""Our findings suggest that that the release
and uptake of this form of tau is an important step in the spread of disease from one brain region to another,
"says Hyman, the John Penny Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical school.""Since that spread likely underlies clinical progression of symptoms,
targeting the mechanisms of the spreading might hold promise to stabilize disease
#Manipulating cell signaling for better muscle function in muscular dystrophy Every heart beat and step in our daily lives is dependent on the integrity of muscles
In the case of our eyes, the electrical impulses transmit the image to the brain.
lend hope to patients around the world with neurological conditions that are difficult to treat due to a barrier mechanism that prevents approximately 98 percent of drugs from reaching the brain and central nervous system."
"We are developing a platform that may eventually be used to deliver a variety of drugs to the brain,
seizure disorders and many other conditions affecting the brain and nervous system down the road.""Using nasal mucosal grafting,
researchers delivered glial derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), a known therapeutic protein for treating Parkinson's disease, to the brains of mice.
They showed through behavioral and histological data capture that their delivery method was equivalent to direct injection of GDNF-the current gold standard for delivering this drug in Parkinson's disease despite its traumatic nature and high complication rates-in diffusing drugs to the brain.
The researchers chose to test their delivery method with GDNF because the therapy has been shown to delay and even reverse disease progression of Parkinson's disease.
Nasal mucosal grafting is a technique regularly used in the ENT field to reconstruct the barrier around the brain after surgery to the skull base.
ENT surgeons commonly use endoscopic approaches to remove brain tumors through the nose by making a window through the blood-brain barrier to access the brain.
with the nasal lining protecting the brain from infection just as the blood brain barrier has done. Dr. Bleier saw an opportunity to apply these techniques to the widespread clinical dilemma of delivering drugs across the barrier to the brain and central nervous system.
By functionally replacing a section of the blood-brain barrier with nasal mucosa which is more than 1, 000 times more permeable than the native barrier,
surgeons may create a"screen door"to allow for drug delivery to the brain and central nervous system. The technique has the potential to benefit a large population of patients with neurodegenerative disorders,
where there remains a specific unmet need for blood-brain penetrating therapeutic delivery strategies.""We see this expanding beyond Parkinson's disease,
as there are multiple diseases of the brain that do not have good therapeutic options, "Dr. Bleier said."
"It is a platform that opens doors for new discovery and could enable drug development for an underserved population."#
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