#Super-small needle technology for the brain Microscale needle-electrode array technology has enhanced brain science and engineering applications, such as electrophysiological studies, drug and chemical delivery systems, and optogenetics.
However, such physically limited needles cannot penetrate the brain and other biological tissues because of needle buckling
and evaluated the penetration capability by using mouse brains in vitro/in vivo. In addition, as an actual needle application, we demonstrated fluorescenctce particle depth injection into the brain in vivo,
and confirm that by observing fluorescenctce confocal microscope"explained the first author, master's degree student Satoshi Yagi,
but they are much closer to natural networks like the human brain. The findings promise a new generation of powerful, energy-efficient electronics,
Natural evolution has led to powerful omputerslike the human brain, which can solve complex problems in an energy-efficient way.
Our technology might also eventually be used to reproduce in computers the neural-type processing that is carried out by the human brain.
and animals that helps in the transmission of signals in the brain and other vital areas.
Place cells become active in the brain when we recognize familiar places, while grid cells provide us with an absolute reference system,
The human brain uses grid cells, which provide a virtual reference frame for spatial awareness to handle this type of relative navigation.
and pass one of the virtual grid points that the brain has set up, the respective grid cell becomes active,
using computer programs that simulate the activity of place and grid cells in the brain. Crucial to the computational algorithm is the strength of the feedback mechanism between the grid cells and place cells,
The new resistance-based storage devices could even simulate brain structures. Rapid pattern recognition and a low energy consumption in connection with enormous parallel data processing would enable revolutionary computer architectures."
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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),
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)
when these two structures were effectively isconnectedin the brain, there is a disruption of decisions related to delayed gratification.
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;
#Brain Friendly Interface Could Change the Way People with Spinal cord Injuries Lead Their Lives Recent research published in the journal Microsystems
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,
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
#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,
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,
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.
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.
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,
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.
#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.
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.
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,
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;
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
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.
who have developed a new device designed to improve medicine delivery to the brain via the nose.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 team placed arrays on the volunteer motor cortex, the part of the brain that directs body movements.
The team used wires to route those signals to the arrays on the volunteer brain.
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
Transparent Brains Ready for Study Researchers at the RIKEN Brain science Institute in Japan have developed a new technique for creating transparent tissue that can be used to illuminate 3d brain anatomy at very high resolutions.
called Scales, is a real and practical way to see through brain and body tissue. In recent years, generating see-through tissue process called optical clearingas become a goal for many researchers in life sciences because of its potential to reveal complex structural details of our bodies, organs,
we could create transparent brains with minimal tissue damage, that can handle both florescent and immunohistochemical labeling techniques,
The new technique creates transparent brain samples that can be stored in Scales solution for more than a year without damage.
and brains are firm enough to permit the micron-thick slicing necessary for more detailed analyses. he real challenge with optical clearing is at the microscopic level,
the researchers put the technique to practical use by visualizing in 3d the mysterious iffuseplaques seen in the postmortem brains of Alzheimer disease patients that are typically undetectable using 2d imaging.
and pinpointing structural changes that characterize other brain diseases. t
#Researchers Identify Three Distinct Subtypes of Alzheimer Disease Alzheimer disease, long thought to be a single disease,
and appears more widely distributed across the brain than the other subtypes of Alzheimer. It typically does not seem to cause memory loss at first,
Using genetically modified animal models lacking a particular RGS PROTEIN called RGS7, a protein abundant in the brain,
In the brain, calcium is used to communicate information within and between neurons and it activates a host of other cell functions,
The brains of people who have autism show signs of hyperexcitability, which is seen also in epilepsy,
and to be involved in brain formation, but has now been identified as a key part of photoreceptor proteins the structures that allow organisms to sense
Researchers at USC and Wake Forest Baptist Medical center have developed a brain prosthesis that is designed to help individuals suffering from memory loss.
which includes a small array of electrodes implanted into the brain, has performed well in laboratory testing in animals
Signals and sensory input When your brain receives sensory input, it creates a memory in the form of a complex electrical signal that travels through multiple regions of the hippocampus,
the memory center of the brain. At each region, the signal is encoded re until it reaches the final region as a wholly different signal that is sent off for long-term storage.
Drawing of a brain with a lightening bolt inside it. In hundreds of trials conducted with nine patients,
or replace the function of a damaged part of the brain, Hampson said. In its next step, the team will attempt to send the translated signal back into the brain of a patient with damage at one of the regions
in order to try to bypass the damage and enable the formation of an accurate long-term memory
#Uncovering Clues About Abnormal Embryo Development with Artificial intelligence Melanoma-like cells in tadpoles may mimic variability in human responses to cancer stimuli.
#Noninvasive Brain Palpation May Soon Be Possible If there is one technique used by the physician to explore the human body during every medical examination
however, the brain cannot be palpated without using a highly invasive procedure (craniotomy, or opening the skull),
it could be used in the early diagnosis of brain tumours or Alzheimer disease. This work is published in PNAS.
However, this method cannot be applied to the brain, which, doubly protected by the cranium and cerebrospinal fluid, is difficult for externally applied waves to access.
or indirectly palpate the brain, something that greatly complicates the work of neurosurgeons. On the other hand, the brain is the seat of natural vibrations created by the blood pulsating in the arteries and the circulating cerebrospinal fluid.
There remained a significant unprecedented challenge: how to capture this complex field of natural shear waves,
have succeeded in detecting natural shear waves in the brain using computational techniques borrowed from seismologists
thus able to build images of the brain elasticity. f this method can be developed for clinical use,
since making the brain vibrate is quite painful at the moment. Of course, this method will be complementary to those that already exist
and could be used to avoid brain biopsies. his method for palpating the brain could have other areas of application,
The experimental demonstration is conducted in a calibrated phantom and in vivo in the brain of two healthy volunteers.
Potential applications of this rain palpationapproach for characterizing brain anomalies and diseases are foreseen. o
#Single Drop of Blood in Brain Can Trigger Immune response Akin to Multiple sclerosis Disruption of the blood-brain barrier triggers a cascade of events that results in autoimmunity and brain damage characteristic of multiple sclerosis.
A new study from the Gladstone Institutes shows that a single drop of blood in the brain is sufficient to activate an autoimmune response akin to multiple sclerosis (MS). This is the first demonstration that introduction of blood in the healthy brain
is sufficient to cause peripheral immune cells to enter the brain, which then go on to cause brain damage.
A break in the blood-brain barrier (BBB) allows blood proteins to leak into the brain and is a key characteristic of MS,
a disabling autoimmune disease of the brain and spinal cord. However, it was unclear whether the BBB disruption caused the autoimmune response
They discovered that injecting just one drop of blood into the brain set off the brain immune response,
Myelin is the protective sheath that insulates nerve fibers in the brain, and it is the primary site of injury in MS. What more,
Fibrinogen activated the brain immune cells called microglia, and caused them to send out signals summoning peripheral immune cells from other parts of the body to the brain.
When these peripheral immune cellsacrophages and T cellsntered the brain, they attacked myelin. ur results provide the first evidence that blood promotes T cell responses against the brain,
says first author Jae Kyu Ryu, Phd, a staff research scientist at the Gladstone Institutes. ot only did we confirm that the presence of blood in the brain recruits peripheral immune cells to the area,
which is sufficient to cause myelin destruction, we also identified fibrinogen as the critical protein driving this process.
The researchers are now attempting to block fibrinogen using biological and small-molecule approaches as potential new therapies to suppress autoimmunity directed against the brain,
Researchers discovered that injecting just one drop of blood into the brain set off the brain immune response,
Myelin is the protective sheath that insulates nerve fibers in the brain and it is the primary site of injury in MS. Image is for illustrative purposes only. hese findings question a long-held paradigm that myelin-specific T cells initiate inflammation in the brain through activation of microglia
and brain macrophages, says Scott Zamvil, MD, Phd, a professor of neurology at the University of California,
San francisco and co-author on the paper. his study demonstrates that the original paradigm may also occur in reverse.
Namely, initial activation of microglia and brain macrophages may activate T cells. The scientists say that having a model of blood-induced brain inflammation is a valuable tool
as it can be used to screen new drugs. These mechanisms may occur not only in autoimmune disorders,
but also in other brain diseases that involve inflammation or a break in the BBB, including traumatic brain injury, stroke, Alzheimer disease,
As blood vessels in the brain weaken or become brittle with age, they begin to leak,
which allows plasma components including brain-reactive autoantibodies into the brain. There, the autoantibodies can bind to neurons
In Alzheimer, the brain begins to change years before symptoms emerge. Detecting Alzheimer antibodies at the preclinical stage would give patients an opportunity to work with their physician to make lifestyle changes
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