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. e 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,
a therapeutic protein in testing for treating Parkinson disease, to the brains of mice. They showed through behavioral
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 disease in preclinical models.
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. Illustration of a brain.
Drugs used to treat a variety of central nervous system diseases may be administered through the nose and diffused through an implanted mucosal graft (A,
in red) to gain access to the brain. Under normal circumstances, there are multiple layers within the nose that block the access of pharmaceutical agents from getting to the brain including bone and the dura/arachnoid membrane
which represents part of the blood-brain barrier (B). After endoscopic skull base surgery (C), all of these layers are removed
Garyfallia Pagonis and Benjamin S. Bleier, M d. 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.
surgeons may create a creen doorto 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. e see this expanding beyond Parkinson disease,
as there are multiple diseases of the brain that do not have good therapeutic options, Dr. Bleier said. t is a platform that opens doors for new discovery
#Step Closer to Prosthetic Limbs That Recreate Sense of touch A new study led by neuroscientists from the University of Chicago brings us one step closer to building prosthetic limbs for humans that re-create a sense of touch through a direct interface with the brain.
and what tools are at our disposal to create artificial sensations by stimulating the brain.
had implanted electrodes into the area of the brain that processes touch information from the hand.
Bensmaia and his colleagues have provided the otesscientists can play to produce the usicof the sense of touch in the brain. hen you grasp an object, for example,
However, Bensmaia research shows that, with electrical stimulation of the brain, Weber Law does not applyhe JND remains nearly constant,
no matter the size of the stimulus. This means that the brain responds to electrical stimulation in a much more repeatable,
consistent way than through natural stimulation. t shows that there is something fundamentally different about the way the brain responds to electrical stimulation than it does to natural stimulation,
#ipstickin the brain could predict damage just in time A dipstick inserted into the brain can check its energy levels,
Last month, Rostami and 47 others published guidelines about how and when to use the technique, known as brain microdialysis,
1-centimetre-long probe directly into the brain. It measures levels of chemicals in the fluid that bathes brain cells
including glucose, the brain main energy source. When used to monitor the brains of people in intensive care after a stroke or head injury,
it warns doctors if glucose starts to dip which can cause brain damage. The probe can theoretically monitor almost any molecule,
The woman was in intensive care after a stroke involving bleeding on the surface of her brain.
the woman brain glucose levels had fallen, probably caused by other blood vessels constricting. In response, Rostami team administered a drug to boost her heart rate
and send more blood to the brain. The probe then showed glucose levels beginning to rise,
but for seriously ill people it might provide vital clues for spotting that their brain is about to suffer damage.
An electroencephalogram (EEG) can give a read-out of the brain electrical activity, while various kinds of scan can give a snapshot of its health,
what going on in the brain after injury is a good thing, says Karim Brohi a trauma specialist at the Royal London Hospital.
but to minimise potential problems it is placed generally on the right side of the brain.
#ipstickin the brain could predict damage just in time TO CHECK a car oil levels, use a dipstick.
To check the brain has enough energy, we might be able to do the same, using a probe that can monitor fluid in the brain. he goal is to save brain tissue,
says Elham Rostami of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Last month, Rostami and 47 others published guidelines on how and when to use the technique, known as brain microdialysis,
in the hope that more hospitals would adopt it. The approach involves inserting a 1-centimetre-long probe directly into the brain.
It measures levels of chemicals in the fluid that bathes cells including glucose, the brain main energy source.
When used on people in intensive care after a stroke or head injury, it warns doctors
The woman was in intensive care after a stroke that involved bleeding on the surface of her brain.
the woman brain glucose levels were falling, probably because other blood vessels had constricted. In response, Rostami team administered a drug to boost her heart rate
and send more blood to the brain. The probe then showed glucose levels beginning to rise,
but for seriously ill people it might provide vital clues that their brain is about to suffer damage.
An electroencephalogram (EEG) can give a read-out of the brain electrical activity, while various kinds of scan can give a snapshot of its health,
what going on in the brain after injury is a good thing, says Karim Brohi, a trauma specialist at the Royal London Hospital.
but to minimise potential problems it is placed generally on the right side of the brain.
and the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, as well as usually being more important for language r
and use a few hundred watts, says Wilfred van der Wiel of the University of Twente in The netherlands. he human brain can do orders of magnitude more and uses only 10 to 20 watts.
then they are operating in parallel much like neurons in the human brain, which is especially good at such tasks.
and use a few hundred watts, says Wilfred van der Wiel of the University of Twente in The netherlands. he human brain can do orders of magnitude more and uses only 10 to 20 watts.
That because the gold grains work in parallel much like neurons in the human brain which is especially good at these tasks c
and made a replica of a colleague brain in the soft, tissue-like consistency of hydrogel to test it out.
so they based the brain on detailed images of the professor grey matter. e could foresee a future in which, before brain surgery,
the surgeon 3d prints a brain out of hydrogel and then practises on it, says Angelini. hen the surgeon knows exactly how that surgery is going to happen. heye made,
#Earthquake algorithm picks up the brain vibrations Your brain is buzzing. Analysing those natural vibrations might help spot tumours and other abnormalities,
for example, can show up cirrhosis. It is more difficult to measure the elasticity of the brain.
Doctors are limited to touching the brain directly when a section of the skull has been removed during surgery. octors can only feel a few centimetres deep,
so only have information about the elasticity of the surface of the brain, says Stefan Catheline at INSERM in Paris, France.
and others around the world, have been working on a way to use modified MRI SCANNERS to measure brain elasticity.
why not simply take advantage of the brain natural vibrations? e tend to think of the brain as a static organ,
but there is a lot of movement, he says. hen blood is pumped into the brain it pulsates, and induces vibrations.
The idea came to Catheline after he spent time working with seismologists, who study how to extract information from the seismic waves created by earthquakes.
As a result, his team were able to measure the natural vibrations in the brains of two healthy volunteers information normally dismissed as oise The body noise t is an intriguing approach
what going on in the brain than traditional MRI scans, says Neil Roberts at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
hardness or gloopiness. eing able to essentially touch inside the brain is going to be much more discriminatory than conventional MRI,
#Migraines triggered by protein deep in the brain It can start with flashing lights, a tingling sensation and a feeling of unease, followed by excruciating pain.
Now researchers have found that a migraine may be triggered by a protein deep in the brain that stimulates the neurons controlling facial sensations.
These protein-like molecules, called VIP and PACAP, first raised suspicion after they were found to be elevated in blood drained from the brains of people having a migraine attack.
In fact, the only drugs specifically developed for migraine that are in use today triptans were designed to shrink blood vessels in the brain.
but when they were injected directly into the brain, the neurons responsible for a headache no longer surged with activity. hese receptors could genuinely represent a new therapeutic target for migraine,
#Old rat brains rejuvenated and new neurons grown by asthma drug IT as good as new. An asthma drug has rejuvenated rat brains,
making old rats perform as well as young ones in tests of memory and cognition. Our brains slowly degenerate as we age.
Typically, we lose the ability to make new neurons. And age-related inflammation of the brain is implicated in many brain disorders.
To tackle both problems in one go, Ludwig Aigner at Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg in Austria and his colleagues targeted a set of receptors in the brain that, when activated,
trigger inflammation. These receptors are thought also to be involved in the birth of neurons. A drug called montelukast (Singulair), regularly prescribed for asthma and allergic rhinitis, blocks these receptors,
Old rats that had been given montelukast had 80 per cent less brain inflammation than old rats that hadn been given the drug.
The team also found that the blood-brain barrier which stops infectious agents reaching the brain but weakens with age was treated stronger in old rats. tructurally,
the brain had rejuvenated, says Aigner. The drug had no effect on young animals, probably because it targets inflammation associated with age,
and degenerated brain, he says. think the drug reverses the damage associated with ageing. Because montelukast is used widely
"What's more, they saw a massive expansion in a family of genes that's involved in setting up brain circuits.
researchers have gained new insight into how the spinal cord mediates commands from the brain to get the body moving.
The CPG is where relatively simple signals from the brain are translated into more complex instructions for motor neurons to control muscles.
including the brain, ventral nerve cord and peripheral nervous system. Courtesy of the Keller Lab, HHMI/Janelia Research Campus. Rather than collecting a single image of a sample with a single objective,
"The scientists also performed high-resolution functional imaging of activity in the entire brain of a larval zebrafish,
least accessible regions of the brain could be seen clearly, separate from their neighbors. Finally, they used the Isoview to track cells in a developing fruit fly embryo.
#Brain-Implanted Compasses Let Blind Rats Navigate A Maze Some animals--such as pigeons--come with built-in compasses.
like the one in your smartphone, to the brains of blind rats. The rats learned to use the compass to find treats in a maze nearly as well as rats who could see.
and used microelectrodes to plug tiny digital compasses into their brains visual cortices. The electrodes sent electrical pulses to the rats neurons when their heads pointed north and south.
"Perhaps you do not yet make full use of your brain, "said Ikegaya in a press release.""The limitation does not come from your lack of effort,
your brain has to send signals down through your spinal cord to the nerves that operate your fingers.
But a number of conditions might slow the signal from the brain to the fingers, such as sleep deprivation
The researchers called it a"window into the brain"(metaphorically, of course. Right now, the algorithm they've developed is refined not enough to distinguish Parkinson's patients from people who are sleep deprived,
#Glowing Tumor Paint Shows Surgeons Where To Cut Brain surgery is complicated notoriously. Before surgeons go in to remove a tumor,
which protects the brain from harmful chemicals that might be in the blood. The first few test subjects had tumors that were deep in the brain
so the surgeons had to remove a piece of the tissue before shining a light on it.
#A New Kind of Brain Scan Can See Your Pain, Literally Nothing hurts Americans more than chronic pain.
The good news, finally, is that scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston have unveiled a new brain-scanning method that allows doctors to see chronic pain in exquisite detail for the first time.
ramping up the transmission of pain signals to the brain. ver the past few years,
and they propagate throughout the brain. Prions can form sporadically or be transmitted through exposure, including through food (this is how mad cow disease spreads).
In the study, the researchers looked at the brains of eight patients who, as children, received a medical procedure that was later found to transmit prions.
And yet the researchers were surprised to find that six of their brains contained the protein amyloid beta,
was able to feel a physical sensation thanks to a hand prosthetic attached to his brain,
DARPA program manager Justin Sanchez said in a press release. y wiring a sense of touch from a mechanical hand directly into the brain,
If someone hands you an unknown object, individual nerve pathways transmit different pieces of information--an object weight, temperature, smoothness--up the arm and spinal cord and into the brain,
what youe holding (researchers still aren quite sure how the brain does this). But researchers have had a hard time replicating this sensory ability with prosthetics.
In some experiments, patients have been able to move prosthetic limbs just by thinking about it--a chip implanted in the brain translates the electricity in the brain motor cortex into instructions for the prosthetic to move.
But engineering prosthetics so that they can transmit information to the brain had so far proven elusive.
and sensory cortex, where the brain compiles sensory information. The prosthetic hand contains torque sensors that can detect minute changes in pressure.
Once the brain and arm were hooked up the researchers blindfolded the patient, then gently touched each of the prosthetic fingers.
#DARPA Taps Into the Brain To Give Patients Robo-Touch and Better Memory ST LOUIS By hardwiring into the brains of people with traumatic injuries,
scientists have been able to restore the feeling of touch and to improve memories, according to researchers at DARPA.
In another breakthrough, volunteers who got electrical arrays implanted in their brains are seeing improvements in their memory,
said program manager Justin Sanchez. ithout feedback from signals traveling back to the brain, it can be difficult to achieve the level of control needed to perform precise movements,
and converts this pressure into electrical signals that the brain implant reads. In a series of tests, the team touched each of the prosthetic hand fingers
people who were undergoing brain surgery and volunteered to get electrode implants saw improvement in their scores on memory tests,
Researchers were able to capture signals coming from the brain during the process of memory formation and recall.
and as we learn more about how to stimulate the brain ever more precisely to achieve the most therapeutic effects,
the brain. ince the average human has about 100 trillon bacteria in or on them it seems there certainly would be room to put your social security number in the genome of some bacteria or virus. However,
or MEG, is a noninvasive technique for investigating human brain activity for surgical planning or research,
#Brain training app could help people with schizophrenia Scientists at Cambridge university said tests on a small number of patients who played the game over four weeks found they had improvements in memory and learning.
Essentially, the new nerve network reintroduces conversation between the brain and the muscles that allows patients, once again,
which acts as the body's control tower by communicating to the brain physical activities both large and small.
because their brains can't talk to the nerves in the lower body, and they often can't feel the need to go to the bathroom,
patients undergo extensive physical therapy to train the brain to recognize the new nerve signals, a process that takes about 6-18 months."
temperature and pain signals to the brain. Ultimately she wants to create a flexible electronic fabric embedded with sensors that could cover a prosthetic limb
which transmits pressure information as short pulses of electricity, similar to Morse code, to the brain.
This results in seizures and such synchronous discharges in the brain occur most frequently in the temporal lobe.
So-called ion channels are involved in the transfer of signals in the brain; these channels act like a doorman to regulate the entry of calcium ions in the nerve cells.
The hippocampus, located in the temporal lobe, is a central switching station in the brain. MTF1 acts like a switch in the brain The team of Prof.
Becker, together with scientists from the departments of Experimental Epileptology and Neuroradiology of the University of Bonn Hospital as well as from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Israel
New technology enables observations of the living brain The scientists used a novel method during their examinations.
With the help of viruses, the researchers introduced fluorescing molecules in the brains of mice
when a fatty deposit or blood clot blocks an artery that supplies blood to the brain.
The longer the brain or heart are oxygenated without blood the greater the risk that vital tissues will begin to die,
#US government develops mind-controlled prosthetic arm with the sense of touch The US defence force announced last week that it has given a paralysed man the ability to'feel'physical sensations through a prosthetic robotic hand that been connected directly to his brain.
but without feedback from signals travelling 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."
using nothing but his brain power. Now the team behind the technology has demonstrated how the battery-powered device can impart the feeling of touch on top of grip, movement,
They did this by placing electrode arrays onto a paralysed volunteer sensory cortex-a region in the brain that responsible for identifying
and this was converted into electrical signals that were fed into the volunteer brain. When testing the arm in the lab,
This neural network approach adapts over time and mimics the human brain. Essentially, modern day chess programs use'brute force'to beat human players,
so Giraffe could help point the way towards artificial intelligence that operates more like our own brains do.
Paralysed man walks again via brain waves rerouted to his legs A paraplegic man who was paralysed for five years has walked again on his own two feet,
thanks to a new kind of brain-computer interface that can reroute his thoughts to his legs, bypassing his spinal cord entirely.
The anonymous man, who experiences complete paralysis in both legs due to a severe spinal cord injury (SCI), is the first such patient to demonstrate that brain-controlled overground walking after paraplegia due to
the brain can still generate robust brain waves that can be harnessed to enable basic walking,
one of the researchers, Zoran Nenadic from the University of California, Irvine in the US, said in a press release. e showed that you can restore intuitive, brain-controlled walking after a complete spinal cord injury."
"The system works via noninvasive electroencephalography (EEG), where the participant wears a cap that captures electrical signals generated by the brain.
The volunteer had to undergo months of mental training to reactivate his brain conceptual walking ability,
The mental training consisted of the man wearing an EEG cap that would read his brain waves as he was being instructed to think about walking.
and isolated the brain waves associated with leg movement. This progressed to the man using his thoughts to control the walking of a virtual reality avatar,
and his particular brain waves the team behind the research says further research will be needed if they want to achieve similar results for others. nce wee confirmed the usability of this noninvasive system,
such as brain implants, said co-author An Do, an assistant clinical professor of neurology. e hope that an implant could achieve an even greater level of prosthesis control
because brain waves are recorded with higher quality. In addition, such an implant could deliver sensation back to the brain,
enabling the user to feel his legs. r
#A 16-year-old has devised a faster and cheaper way to detect Ebola Oliva Hallisey,
Older adults and Alzheimer's patients who are carrying a specific variant of the IL1RAP gene were found to have higher rates of amyloid plaque accumulation in the brain,
But when Saykin and his team imaged the brains of almost 500 volunteers via PET (positron emission tomography) scans,
and assessed the levels of brain amyloid deposits at the time and then two years later,
It also influences the activity of the microglia-a specific type of cell found in the brain and the spinal cord that acts as the first and main line of immune defence in the central nervous system.
The study, published in the journal Brain found that over the two-year period, people carrying the IL1RAP variant had a lower level of microglial activity,
which means the brain is less able to clear out protein build up; a faster degeneration of the temporal cortex,
which is the region of the brain involved with memory; and faster cognitive decline.""This was an intriguing finding
the immune system cells that act as the brain's'garbage disposal system 'and the focus of heavy investigation in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases,"said one of the researchers, Vijay K. Ramanan.
But there is good news. The researchers think that treatments specifically targeting the IL1RAP immune pathway could increase the brain's ability to clear out amyloid deposits in patients carrying the gene variant.
and brain tumours, plus a number of congenital diseases that affect a person growth.""Our findings bring us one step closer to understanding the chemistry of how PRC2 functions in normal cells
is caused by a depletion of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain. Current treatments include medications and electrical implants in the brain
which causes severe adverse effects over time and fail to prevent disease progression. Several studies have indicated that the transplantation of embryonic stem cells improves motor functions in animal models.
Many of these disorders specifically affect brain development; the most common of these is marked phenylketonuria
which causes glycine to build up in the brain and can lead to severe mental retardation. GLDC is also often overactive in certain cells of glioblastoma,
including cancers of the colon, prostate, breast, brain, ovaries, pancreas and lung.""Hur inhibitors may be useful for many types of cancer,
More specifically, CACNA1S senses electrical signals from the brain and enables muscles to contract.""To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of severe congenital myopathy with ophthalmoplegia resulting from pathogenic variants in CACNA1S,
When the brain sends an electrical signal, CACNA1S opens the RYR1 calcium channel flooding muscles with calcium
It is involved in tumors of various organs (prostate, breast, lung, head and neck, large intestine, brain, etc.
#Electronic micropump to deliver treatments deep within the brain Drugs constitute the most widely used approach for treating brain disorders.
During an epileptic seizure, the nerve cells in a specific area of the brain are activated suddenly in an excessive manner.
have developed a biocompatible micropump that makes it possible to deliver therapeutic substances directly to the relevant areas of the brain.
the researchers reproduced the hyperexcitability of epileptic neurons in mouse brains in vitro. They then injected GABA,
a compound naturally produced in the brain and that inhibits neurons, into this hyperactive region using the micropump.
by allowing very localised action, directly in the brain and without peripheral toxicity.""By combining electrodes,
offers new opportunities for many brain diseases that remain difficult to treat at this time e
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