In the case of our eyes, the electrical impulses transmit the image to the brain.
#Researchers Develop 3d printed Brain tissue The brain is amazingly complex, with around 86 billion nerve cells. The challenge for researchers to create bench-top brain tissue from
which they can learn about how the brain functions, is an extremely difficult one. Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) have taken a step closer to meeting this challenge,
by developing a 3d printed layered structure incorporating neural cells, that mimics the structure of brain tissue.
The value of bench-top brain tissue is huge. Pharmaceutical companies spend millions of dollars testing therapeutic drugs on animals
only to discover in human trials that the drug has an altogether different level of effectiveness.
but the human brain differs distinctly from that of an animal. A bench-top brain that accurately reflects actual brain tissue would be significant for researching not only the effect of drugs,
but brain disorders like schizophrenia, and degenerative brain disease. ACES Director and research author Professor Gordon Wallace said that the breakthrough is significant progress in the quest to create a bench-top brain that will enable important insights into brain function,
in addition to providing an experimental test bed for new drugs and electroceuticals. e are still a long way from printing a brain
but the ability to arrange cells so as they form neuronal networks is a significant step forward,
Professor Wallace said. To create their six-layered structure, researchers developed a custom bio-ink containing naturally occurring carbohydrate materials.
The result is layered a structure like brain tissue, in which cells are placed accurately and remain in their designated layer. his study highlights the importance of integrating advances in 3d printing,
Professor Wallace said. his paves the way for the use of more sophisticated printers to create structures with much finer resolution. 3d printing of layered brain-like structures using peptide modified gellan gum substrates
The brain is an enormously complex organ structured into various regions of layered tissue. Researchers have attempted to study the brain by modeling the architecture using two dimensional (2d) in vitro cell culturing methods.
While those platforms attempt to mimic the in vivo environment, they do not truly resemble the three dimensional (3d) microstructure of neuronal tissues.
Development of an accurate in vitro model of the brain remains a significant obstacle to our understanding of the functioning of the brain at the tissue or organ level.
we demonstrate a new method to bioprint 3d brain-like structures consisting of discrete layers of primary neural cells encapsulated in hydrogels.
Brain-like structures were constructed using a bio-ink consisting of a novel peptide-modified biopolymer,
gellan gum-RGD (RGD-GG), combined with primary cortical neurons. The ink was optimized for a modified reactive printing process
These brain-like structures offer the opportunity to reproduce more accurate 3d in vitro microstructures with applications ranging from cell behavior studies to improving our understanding of brain injuries and neurodegenerative diseases r
Stony Brook researchers publish experimental findings in the Journal of Neuroscience that show the lateral position more efficiently rids the brain of solutes that may contribute to disease.
or stomach, may more effectively remove brain waste and prove to be an important practice to help reduce the chances of developing Alzheimer, Parkinson and other neurological diseases, according to researchers at Stony Brook University.
By using dynamic contrast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to image the brain glymphatic pathway, a complex system that clears wastes and other harmful chemical solutes from the brain,
Stony Brook University researchers Hedok Lee, Phd, Helene Benveniste, MD, Phd, and colleagues, discovered that a lateral sleeping position is the best position to most efficiently remove waste from the brain.
In humans and many animals the lateral sleeping position is the most common one. The buildup of brain waste chemicals may contribute to the development of Alzheimer disease and other neurological conditions.
Their finding is published in the Journal of Neuroscience. Dr. Benveniste, Principal investigator and a Professor in the Departments of Anesthesiology and Radiology at Stony Brook University School of medicine, has used dynamic contrast MRI for several years to examine the glymphatic pathway in rodent models.
The method enables researchers to identify and define the glymphatic pathway, where cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) filters through the brain and exchanges with interstitial fluid (ISF) to clear waste, similar to the way the body lymphatic system clears waste from organs.
It is during sleep that the glymphatic pathway is most efficient. Brain waste includes amyloid ß (amyloid) and tau proteins,
chemicals that negatively affect brain processes if they build up. In the paper, he Effect of Body Posture on Brain Glymphatic Transport, Dr. Benveniste and colleagues used a dynamic contrast MRI method
along with kinetic modeling to quantify the CSF-ISF exchange rates in anesthetized rodentsbrains in three positions lateral (side),
prone (down), and supine (up. he analysis showed us consistently that glymphatic transport was most efficient in the lateral position
and therefore the assessment of the clearance of damaging brain proteins that may contribute to or cause brain diseases. r. Benveniste and first-author Dr. Hedok Lee,
and to assess the influence of body posture on the clearance of amyloid from the brains. t is interesting that the lateral sleep position is already the most popular in human and most animals even in the wild
and it appears that we have adapted the lateral sleep position to most efficiently clear our brain of the metabolic waste products that built up
while the research team speculates that the human glymphatic pathway will clear brain waste most efficiency
#Words That Work Together Stay together How language gives your brain a break. Here a quick task:
says Richard Futrell, a Phd student in the Department of Brain and Cognitive sciences at MIT,
#Brain Structures Involved in Delayed Gratification Identified Researchers at Mcgill have identified clearly, for the first time, the specific parts of the brain involved in decisions that call for delayed gratification.
In a paper recently published in the European Journal of Neuroscience, they demonstrated that the hippocampus (associated with memory see the rotating picture below)
and the nucleus accumbens (associated with pleasure) work together in making critical decisions of this type,
where time plays a role. The researchers showed that when these two structures were effectively isconnectedin the brain,
there is a disruption of decisions related to delayed gratification. It is a discovery which has implications not only for a range of neuropsychiatric disorders such as ADHD,
eating disorders and anxiety disorders, but also for more common problems involving maladaptive daily decisions about drug or alcohol use, gambling or credit card binges.
However, following disruption of the circuit connecting the hippocampus and nucleus accumbens, the rats became impatient and unwilling to wait, even for a few seconds.
lesions to other parts of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, known to be involved in certain aspects of decision-making,
and those with brain disease, said Prof. Yogita Chudasama, of Mcgill Psychology department and the lead researcher on the paper. n some ways this relationship makes sense;
the hippocampus is thought to have a role in future planning, and the nucleus accumbens is a ewardcenter and a major recipient of dopamine,
a chemical responsible for transmitting signals related to pleasure and reward, but we couldn have imagined that the results would be so clear.
involving the hippocampus and nucleus accumbens, to be a therapeutic target in human patient groups. m
#Brain Friendly Interface Could Change the Way People with Spinal cord Injuries Lead Their Lives Recent research published in the journal Microsystems
and spinal cord injury lead their lives. Instead of using neural prosthetic deviceshich suffer from immune-system rejection
has developed a brain-friendly extracellular matrix environment of neuronal cells that contain very little foreign material.
These by design electrodes are shielded by a covering that the brain recognizes as part of its own composition.
the brain is recognized now to have its own immune system that protects it against foreign invaders. his is not by any means the device that youe going to implant into a patient,
or synthetic materials. mplantable neural prosthetic devices in the brain have been around for almost two decades,
helping people living with limb loss and spinal cord injury become more independent. However not only do neural prosthetic devices suffer from immune-system rejection,
but most are believed to eventually fail because of a mismatch between the soft brain tissue and the rigid devices.
and Mark Allen of the University of Pennsylvania, found that the extracellular matrix derived electrodes adapted to the mechanical properties of brain tissue
and were capable of acquiring neural recordings from the brain cortex. eural interface technology is literally mind boggling,
this same methodology could then be applied in getting these extracellular matrix derived electrodes to be the next wave of brain implants,
The ECM-based design minimized the introduction of nonnatural products into the brain. Further, it rendered the implants sufficiently rigid for penetration into the target brain region
and allowed them subsequently to soften to match the elastic modulus of brain tissue upon exposure to physiological conditions,
thereby reducing inflammatory strain fields in the tissue. Preliminary studies suggested that ECM-NES produce a reduced inflammatory response compared with inorganic rigid and flexible approaches.
In vivo intracortical recordings from the rat motor cortex illustrate one mode of use for these ECM-NES l
#The Brain is Not as Compact as Previously Thought Using an innovative method, EPFL scientists show that the brain is not as compact as we have thought all along.
To study the fine structure of the brain, including its connections between neurons, the synapses,
scientists must use electron microscopes. However, the tissue must first be fixed to prepare it for this high magnification imaging method.
This process causes the brain to shrink; as a result, microscope images can be distorted, e g. showing neurons to be much closer than they actually are.
EPFL scientists have solved now the problem by using a technique that rapidly freezes the brain,
preserving its true structure. The work is published in elife. The shrinking brainrecent years have seen an upsurge of brain imaging, with renewed interest in techniques like electron microscopy,
which allows us to observe and study the architecture of the brain in unprecedented detail.
But at the same time, they have revived also old problems associated with how this delicate tissue is prepared before images can be collected.
the brain is fixed with stabilizing agents, such as aldehydes, and then encased, or embedded, in a resin.
since the mid-sixties that this preparation process causes the brain to shrink by at least 30 percent.
This in turn, distorts our understanding of the brain anatomy, e g. the actual proximity of neurons, the structures of blood vessels etc.
called ryofixation to prevent brain shrinkage during the preparation for electron microscopy. The method whose roots go back to 1965,
The brain tissue here was mouse cerebral cortex. The rapid freezing method is able to prevent the water in the tissue from forming crystals,
and gently push out the glassified water from the brain. The real brainafter the brain was embedded cryofixed
and, it was observed and photographed in using 3d electron microscopy. The researchers then compared the cryofixed brain images to those taken from a brain fixed with an nly chemicalmethod.
The analysis showed that the chemically fixed brain was much smaller in volume, showing a significant loss of extracellular space the space around neurons.
In addition, supporting brain cells called strocytes seemed to be connected less with neurons and even blood vessels in the brain.
And finally the connections between neurons, the synapses, seemed significantly weaker in the chemically-fixed brain compared to the cryofixed one.
The researchers then compared their measurements of the brain to those calculated in functional studies studies that measure the time it takes for a molecule to travel across that brain region.
To the researcherssurprise, the data matched, adding even more evidence that cryofixation preserves the real anatomy of the brain. ll this shows us that high-pressure cryofixation is a very attractive method for brain imaging,
says Graham Knott. t the same time, it challenges previous imaging efforts, which we might have to reexamine in light of new evidence.
His team is now aiming to use cryofixation on other parts of the brain and even other types of tissue
#Human Emotion Could Be predicted by Brain Signatures A Dartmouth researcher and his colleagues have discovered a way to predict human emotions based on brain activity.
The study is unusual because of its accuracy more than 90 percent and the large number of participants who reflect the general adult population rather than just college students.
of decoding our emotions from brain activity, says lead author Luke Chang, an assistant professor in Psychological and Brain sciences at Dartmouth. motions are central to our daily lives
and emotional dysregulation is at the heart of many brain-and body-related disorders, but we don have a clear understanding of how emotions are processed in the brain.
Thus, understanding the neurobiological mechanisms that generate and reduce negative emotional experiences is paramount. The quest to understand the motional brainhas motivated hundreds of neuroimaging studies in recent years.
But for neuroimaging to be useful, sensitive and specific rain signaturesmust be developed that can be applied to individual people to yield information about their emotional experiences,
Thus far, the neuroscience of emotion has yielded many important results but no such indicators for emotional experiences.
In their new study, the researchersgoals were to develop a brain signature that predicts the intensity of negative emotional responses to evocative images;
the researchers identified a neural signature of negative emotion a single neural activation pattern distributed across the entire brain that accurately predicts how negative a person will feel after viewing unpleasant images. his means that brain imaging has the potential to accurately uncover how someone is feeling without knowing anything about them other than their brain activity,
and specificity of their brain model. e were surprised particularly by how well our pattern performed in predicting the magnitude and type of aversive experience,
many neuroscientists might be surprised by how well our signature performed. Another surprising finding is that our emotion brain signature using lots of people performed better at predicting how a person was feeling than their own brain data.
There is an intuition that feelings are very idiosyncratic and vary across people. However because we trained the pattern using so many participants for example,
#Can Your Brain Control How it Loses Control? Scientists find the brain works to minimize loss of vision, other functions.
A new study may have unlocked understanding of a mysterious part of the brain with implications for neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer.
The results, published in Translational Vision Science & Technology (TVST), open up new areas of research in the pursuit of neuroprotective therapies.
Glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease where patients lose seemingly random patches of vision in each eye.
or uncontrolled by the brain. Last year researchers found evidence that the progression of glaucoma is not random
and that the brain may be involved after all. Specifically, they found patients with moderate to severe glaucoma maintained vision in one eye where it was lost in the other like two puzzle pieces fitting together (a igsaw Effect. his suggests some communication between the eyes must be going on
and that can only happen in the brain, explains the study lead author, William Eric Sponsel, MD, of the University of Texas at San antonio, Department of Biomedical engineering.
In the latest TVST paper, Refined Frequency Doubling Perimetry Analysis Reaffirms Central nervous system Control of Chronic Glaucomatous Neurodegeneration
which part of the brain is responsible for optimizing vision in the face of glaucoma slow destruction of sight.
Other glaucoma experts challenged the results in a letter to the TVST editor. f the brain controls the distribution of vision loss in glaucoma,
Along with co-author Jonathan Denniss, Phd, University of Nottingham, Visual Neuroscience Group, their letter analyzed a new cohort of glaucoma patients in which hat essentially
says Sponsel. he problem with their approach was their assumption that a single brain could somehow combine information from the eyes of different human beings.
We studied individual people with naturally paired eyeballs connected to a single brain he key to finding where the brain coordinates vision loss was found in small-scale,
Center of Excellence in Vision Science, explains that these patterns mimic structures found at the very back of the brain, known as ocular dominance columns.
The new paper suggests that the narrow spaces between ocular dominance columns associated with the left and right eye are where the brain coordinates each eye working field of vision.
Depending on what the brain needs those narrow spaces can function with either eye uch like a bilingual person living near the border of two countries,
may also be mediated actively by the brain. ur work has illustrated that the brain will not let us lose control of the same function on both sides of the brain
if the brain regulates neurodegeneration that if the brain controls how it loses control then researchers will now be able to look into largely unexplored regulatory processes for opportunities to slow
or stop the progression of these diseases. ee opened up this beautiful new world; there is so much to discover here,
The Paired Eyes and Brain in One Person Are One Unitby William E. Sponsel; Matthew A. Reilly;
Abstractrefined Frequency Doubling Perimetry Analysis Reaffirms Central nervous system Control of Chronic Glaucomatous Neurodegenerationpurpose::Refined analysis of frequency doubling perimetric data was performed to assess binocular visual field conservation in patients with comparable degrees of bilateral glaucomatous damage,
The paired eyes and brain are reaffirmed to function as a unified system in the progressive age-related neurodegenerative condition chronic open angle glaucoma,
Given the extensive homology of this disorder with other age-related neurodegenerations, it is reasonable to assume that the brain will similarly resist simultaneous bilateral loss of paired functional zones in both hemispheres in diseases like
Glaucomatous eyes at all stages of the disease appear to provide a highly accessible paired-organ study model for developing therapeutics to optimize conservation of function in neurodegenerative disorders. efined Frequency Doubling Perimetry Analysis Reaffirms Central nervous system Control of Chronic
#Oxytocin Delivering Nasal Device to Treat Mental illness Researchers at the University of Oslo have tested a new device for delivering hormone treatments for mental illness through the nose.
This method was found to deliver medicine to the brain with few side effects. About one out of every hundred Norwegians develop schizophrenia or autism in the course of their lifetime.
Oxytocin is a hormone that influences social behaviour and has shown promise for the treatment of mental illness.
Researchers at Uio have discovered now that low doses of oxytocin may help patients with mental illness to better perceive social signals.
who have developed a new device designed to improve medicine delivery to the brain via the nose.
Regulates social behaviour Oxytocin has historically been known to play a crucial role in child rearing as it facilitates pregnancy, birth,
Further, oxytocin helps regulate cardiac functions and fluid levels. More recent research has revealed the importance of oxytocin for social behaviour.
Oxytocin is a neuropeptide and was discovered in 1953. Peptides are a group of molecules that consist of a chain of amino acids.
Amino acids are also known as the building blocks of proteins which we find in all types of cells.
Oxytocin is produced in the hypothalamus, which is the brain coordinating centre for the hormone system.
Medicine through the nose Because of oxytocin role in social behaviour, researchers have explored the possibility of administering the hormone for the treatment of mental illness.
As oxytocin is a relatively large molecule, it has trouble crossing the barrier between the brain and circulating blood.
Thus, researchers have administered oxytocin to patients through the nose as this route offers a direct pathway to the brain that bypasses this barrier.
However, researchers have a poor understanding of how oxytocin reaches and affects the brain. The most effective dose for treatment has received also little research attention.
Professor Ole A. Andreassen and his research team have collaborated with Optinose on a project that evaluated two different doses of oxytocin
and on how they affect the way in which social signals are perceived. Low doses work best Sixteen healthy men received two different doses of oxytocin, along with placebo.
Volunteers were given also an intravenous dose of oxytocin, for a comparison of the effects of oxytocin in circulating blood.
The research showed that only those administered a low dose of oxytocin experienced an effect on how they perceived social signals.
Professor Ole A. Andreassen explains: he results show that intranasal administration, i e. introducing oxytocin through the nose,
affects the function of the brain. As no effect was observed after intravenous treatment, this indicates that intranasally administered oxytocin travels directly to the brain,
as we have believed long. The fact that we have shown the efficacy of a low dose of oxytocin on social perception is even more important.
A dose that is lower, but that still influences behaviour, will entail a lower risk of affecting other regulatory systems in the body.
Very high doses of oxytocin could, in fact, have the opposite effect on social behaviour. The scientists also discovered that individuals with larger nasal cavities had a stronger response to a low dose of oxytocin.
Breathing helps Optinose uses a new technology to distribute medicine to the brain, making use of the user breath to propel medicine deep into the nasal cavity.
The device administers oxytocin high up into the patient nasal cavity. When the medicine is targeted deep inside the nose,
it enables brain delivery along nerve pathways from the uppermost part of the nasal cavity. Conventional nasal spray devices are suited not to consistently deliver medicine high up enough into the nose.
The device also expands the nasal cavity, facilitating nose-to-brain medicine delivery. As the user exhales into the device
this closes the soft palate and prevents the medicine from being lost down the throat. Since less medicine is lost along the way,
patients can take smaller doses and accordingly experience fewer side effects. May yield new treatments The next step in the research is to carry out the same tests on people with mental illness. e are now running tests in volunteers diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders,
says Dr Quintana. e hope that this research project is the first step in the development of a series of new medicines that may be of great help to more people with mental illness,
concludes Professor Andreassen o
#New Technology Enables Completely Paralyzed Man to Voluntarily Move His Legs Robotic step training and noninvasive spinal stimulation enable patient to take thousands of steps.
The researchers do not describe the achievement as alkingbecause no one who is paralyzed completely has walked independently in the absence of the robotic device and electrical stimulation of the spinal cord.
and suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. At UCLA, Pollock made substantial progress after receiving a few weeks of physical training without spinal stimulation
and quality of life, said V. Reggie Edgerton, senior author of the research and a UCLA distinguished professor of integrative biology and physiology, neurobiology and neurosurgery.
and the nervous system shuts down, Edgerton said. The data showed that Pollock was actively flexing his left knee and raising his left leg and that during and after the electrical stimulation,
Edgerton said. e need to expand the clinical toolbox available for people with spinal cord injury and other diseases.
which helped fund the research. iven the complexities of a spinal cord injury, there will be no one-size-fits-all cure
but rather a combination of different interventions to achieve functional recovery. hat we are seeing right now in the field of spinal cord research is a surge of momentum with new directions
his is a great example of a therapeutic approach that combines two very different modalities neuromodulation
Neurorecovery Technologies, a medical technology company Edgerton founded, designs and develops devices that help restore movement in patients with paralysis. The company provided the device used to stimulate the spinal cord in combination with the Ekso in this research.
he now believes it is possible to significantly improve quality of life for patients with severe spinal cord injuries,
as a result of a spinal cord injury has become the first person to be able to eelphysical sensations through a prosthetic hand directly connected to his brain,
or missing limbs will not only be able to manipulate objects by sending signals from their brain to robotic devices,
but without feedback from signals traveling back to the brain it can be difficult to achieve the level of control needed to perform precise movements.
By wiring a sense of touch from a mechanical hand directly into the brain, this work shows the potential for seamless biotechnological restoration of near-natural function.
The clinical work involved the placement of electrode arrays onto the paralyzed volunteer sensory cortexhe brain region responsible for identifying tactile sensations such as pressure.
the team placed arrays on the volunteer motor cortex, the part of the brain that directs body movements.
Wires were run from the arrays on the motor cortex to a mechanical hand developed by the Applied Physics laboratory (APL) at Johns hopkins university.
The team used wires to route those signals to the arrays on the volunteer brain.
The restoration of sensation with implanted neural arrays is one of several neurotechnology-based advances emerging from DARPA 18-month-old Biological Technologies Office,
ARPA investments in neurotechnologies are helping to open entirely new worlds of function and experience for individuals living with paralysis
DARPA portfolio of neurotechnology programs includes the Restoring Active Memory (RAM) and Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies (SUBNETS) programs,
which seek to develop closed-loop direct interfaces to the brain to restore function to individuals living with memory loss from traumatic brain injury or complex neuropsychiatric illness y
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