#Genetics overlap found between Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular risk factors The findings are published in current online issue of Circulation."
and human brain stem cells in the laboratory. The two most potent drugs--one that currently treats athlete's foot,
and results from aberrant immune cells destroying the protective coating, called myelin, around nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
These OPCS are normally found throughout the adult brain and spinal cord, and therefore inaccessible to study.
ultimately disrupting communication between the brain and the body and leading to nerve deterioration. To prevent neural degeneration requires remyelination through new oligodendrocytes,
Our research is focused on trying to repair the brain itself, to stop the disease rather than slow it,
"In fact, we observed a disruption in the connection between the spinal cord and specific brain centres,
"The result of their efforts was 144 functional gene interaction networks for organs as diverse as the kidney, the liver and the whole brain.
#Switching on one-shot learning in the brain This type of one-shot learning is more than handy
Scientists have suspected long that one-shot learning involves a different brain system than gradual learning, but could not explain what triggers this rapid learning
or how the brain decides which mode to use at any one time. Now Caltech scientists have discovered that uncertainty in terms of the causal relationship
"The researchers used a simple behavioral task paired with brain imaging to determine where in the brain this causal processing takes place.
Since the hippocampus is known to be involved in so-called episodic memory, in which the brain quickly links a particular context with an event
where their brains were monitored using functional Magnetic resonance imaging. The task consisted of multiple trials. During each trial, participants were shown a series of five images one at a time on a computer screen.
To prove that, they will need to conduct additional studies that will involve modifying the VLPFC's activity with brain stimulation
the researchers are intrigued by the fact that the VLPFC is very close to another part of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex that they previously found to be involved in helping the brain to switch between two other forms of learning--habitual and goal-directed learning,
telling other parts of the brain involved in different types of behavioral functions when they should get involved
#Cellular bubbles used to deliver Parkinson's meds directly to brain And what's the best way of getting her drug-packed exosomes to the brain?
It looks like a simple nasal spray will do the trick, say Elena Batrakova and her colleagues at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy's Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery.
This is the first time a large therapeutic protein like catalase has been delivered to the brain using exosomes. Getting drugs into the brain is extremely difficult in general
because it is protected and isolated from the rest of the body by the blood-brain barrier, which is extremely selective about
when a mind is changed Researchers studying how the brain makes decisions have recorded, for the first time the moment-by-moment fluctuations in brain signals that occur
whose Stanford lab focuses on movement control and neural prostheses--such as artificial arms--controlled by the user's brain."
"We are seeing many cognitive phenomena in the brain for the first time, "said Kaufman, who is now a postdoctoral scholar at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory."
"This deeper understanding of decision-making will help researchers to fine-tune the control algorithms of neural prostheses to enable people with paralysis to drive a brain-controlled prosthetic arm or guide a neurally-activated cursor on a computer screen.
treatment with IVM can lead to brain or other neurologic damage that can be severe or fatal.
3-D printed'tissue'to help combat disease A bench-top brain that accurately reflects actual brain tissue would be significant for researching not only the effect of drugs,
and degenerative brain disease. Researchers have completed now 3-D printing a six-layered structure similar to brain tissue, in
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.""We 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.
which convert light into electrical impulses that are transmitted to vision centers in the brain. Loss of rods and cones is the primary cause of vision loss in diseases such as macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa.
Importantly, 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's Psychology department and the lead researcher on the paper."
this complex condition evolves during brain development. The scientists thus chose to study adult olfactory stem cells as indicators of the early stages of ontogenesis
--and its role in nerve development and neurotransmission mean it is an ideal candidate for deregulation of its expression to lead to the abnormal brain development observed in ASD.
This new study should help to shed light on how the brains of ASD patients establish abnormal connections,
#Super-small needle technology for the brain However, one challenge is reducing the tissue/neuron damage associated with needle penetration, particularly for chronic insert experiment and future medical applications.
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,
the leptin-in-antibody protein effectively could not cross from the bloodstream into the brain
#How traumatic memories hide in the brain, and how to retrieve them At first, hidden memories that can't be accessed consciously may protect the individual from the emotional pain of recalling the event.
when the brain is back in that state. In a new study with mice Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered for the first time the mechanism by
The best way to access the memories in this system is to return the brain to the same state of consciousness as
and yang of the brain, directing its emotional tides and controlling whether nerve cells are excited or inhibited (calm).
benzodiazepine, activates GABA receptors in our brains. There are two kinds of GABA receptors. One kind, synaptic GABA receptors, works in tandem with glutamate receptors to balance the excitation of the brain in response to external events such as stress.
The other population extra-synaptic GABA receptors, are independent agents. They ignore the peppy glutamate.
adjusting brain waves and mental states according to the levels of internal chemicals, such as GABA, sex hormones and micro RNAS.
Extra-synaptic GABA receptors change the brain's state to make us aroused, sleepy, alert, sedated, inebriated or even psychotic.
"It's as if the brain is tuned normally to FM stations to access memories, but needs to be tuned to AM stations to access subconscious memories.
essentially tuning the brain into the AM stations.""Arrayin the experiment, scientists infused the hippocampus of mice with gaboxadol,
just enough to change their brain state, "Radulovic said. Then the mice were put in a box and given a brief, mild electric shock.
"This establishes when the mice were returned to the same brain state created by the drug,
the brain used completely different molecular pathways and neuronal circuits to store the memory.""It's an entirely different system even at the genetic and molecular level than the one that encodes normal memories,
and may be the brain's protective mechanism when an experience is overwhelmingly stressful. The findings imply that in response to traumatic stress, some individuals,
Arraymemories are stored usually in distributed brain networks including the cortex and can thus be accessed readily to consciously remember an event.
But when the mice were in a different brain state induced by gaboxadol, the stressful event primarily activated subcortical memory regions of the brain.
The drug rerouted the processing of stress-related memories within the brain circuits so that they couldn't be accessed consciously d
#Scientists discover atomic-resolution details of brain signaling"This is a very important, exciting advance that may open up possibilities for targeting new drugs to control neurotransmitter release.
SNARES play a key role in the brain's chemical signaling by joining, or"fusing,"little packets of neurotransmitters to the outer edges of neurons,
which helps to explain how they trigger brain signaling so rapidly.""The neuron is not building the'gun'as it sits there on the membrane--it's already there,
#Scientists uncover nuclear process in the brain that may affect disease Every brain cell has a nucleus,
"Unexpectedly we may have discovered a hidden pathway to understanding how astrocytes respond to injury and control brain processes.
The pathway may be common to many brain diseases and we're just starting to follow it,
Some neurological disorders are associated with higher than normal brain levels of the growth factor TGF-beta,
Hydrocephalus is a disorder that fills the brain with excess cerebral spinal fluid. Eliminating the p75ntr gene also prevented astrocytes in the brains of the mice from forming scars after injuries and restored gamma oscillations
which are patterns of neuronal activity associated with learning and memory. The cell nucleus is a ball of chromosomes wrapped in a protective fatty membrane.
"This research highlights the importance of the nuclear pore complex in the brain and raises the possibility that it may be a target for treating a wide range of neurological disorders,
"Building functional models of the complex cellular networks such as those found in the brain is probably one of the highest challenges you could aspire to,
there is a new kid on the block Alzheimer's disease is associated with the appearance of characteristic neurotoxic protein aggregates in various regions in the brain.
the LMU researchers have studied also the effects of the eta-amyloid on nerve-cell function in the brain.
akin to the misfolded proteins involved in incurable progressive brain diseases such Creutzfeldt-jakob disease (CJD), according to two new research papers led by scientists at UC San francisco. The findings suggest new approaches to developing treatments for MSA,
since work at the National institutes of health in the 1960s showed that human brain tissue infected with CJD could transmit neurodegeneration to chimpanzees.
insoluble plaques throughout the brain that kill off cells and result in the typical"spongy"appearance of CJD-affected brains.
and an international team of colleagues report that a misfolded version of a protein called alpha-synuclein seems to act in a similar way to transmit MSA from diseased human brain tissue to mice and to human cell cultures.
or deep brain stimulation used for Parkinson's symptoms. As in Parkinson's disease, neurodegeneration in MSA is accompanied by a buildup of clumps of alpha-synuclein protein within brain cells.
the Massachusetts Alzheimer's disease Research center in Boston, the Parkinson's UK Brain Bank at Imperial College London,
and the Sydney Brain Bank in Australia. The results were the same: When exposed to human MSA tissue, the mice developed neurodegeneration.
In addition, the team found that the brains of infected mice contained abnormally high levels of insoluble human alpha-synuclein,
which is treated often with deep-brain stimulation. The disease could potentially be transmitted to other patients
if deep-brain stimulation equipment is reused.""You can't kill a protein, "Giles said.""And it can stick tightly to stainless steel,
People are living longer and likely getting more brain surgeries. There could be undiagnosed neurodegenerative diseases that
Arrayin 2004, professor Petter Strømme examined a child with congenital cataract, growth delay and symptoms from the brain, the peripheral nervous system,
"The work by Karatsoreos and his colleagues--published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity--is a rare look into the circadian process,
a brain-driven clock that controls the rhythms of various biological processes, from digestion to blood pressure, heart rate to waking and sleeping.
and the pattern of electrical activity in their brains related to restorative sleep was reduced greatly d
See-through 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--a process called optical clearing--has become a goal for many researchers in life sciences because of its potential to reveal complex structural details of our bodies, organs,
"By combining sorbitol in the right proportion with urea, we could create transparent brains with minimal tissue damage,
"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."
the researchers put the technique to practical use by visualizing in 3d the mysterious"diffuse"plaques seen in the postmortem brains of Alzheimer's disease patients that are typically undetectable using 2d imaging.
and pinpointing structural changes that characterize other brain diseases
#Biodiesel made easier, cleaner with waste-recycling catalyst Researchers at Cardiff University have devised a way of increasing the yield of biodiesel by using the waste left over from its production process.
like the eyes, kidney, brain and bone. But this new research found that in certain patients with AML--a type of blood cancer that affects white blood cells
#Loss of cellular energy leads to neuronal dysfunction in neurodegenerative disease model A new study from the Gladstone Institutes shows for the first time that impairments in mitochondria--the brain's cellular power plants--can deplete cellular energy levels
the scientists created novel assays to more accurately measure the brain's energy production. Using a model of Leigh's disease,
a rare genetic disorder affecting a region of the brain involved in motor control and which leads to difficulty in coordinating complex movements,
a rare genetic disorder affecting a region of the brain involved in motor control and which leads to difficulty in coordinating complex movements,
"We could pull 12 metastatic cells out of the brain and tell you what is special about those 12 cells.
whether lymph, liver, lung or brain. In contrast, early-stage metastases and cancer cells traveling through the blood expressed genes typically active in mammary stem cells and quite distinct from primary tumor cells.
#Team links two human brains for question -and-answer experiment Researchers used a brain-to-brain interface they developed to allow pairs of participants to play a'20 question'style game by transmitting signals from one brain to another over the Internet.
Their experiment is thought to be the first to demonstrate that two brains can be linked directly to allow someone to accurately guess what is on another person's mind.
Sci-fi? Mind-reading superpowers? Not quite.""This is the most complex brain-to-brain experiment, I think,
that's been done to date in humans, "said lead author Andrea Stocco, an assistant professor of psychology and a researcher at UW's Institute for Learning & Brain sciences."
The researchers took steps to ensure participants couldn't use clues other than direct brain communication to complete the game.
"They have to interpret something they're seeing with their brains, "said co-author Chantel Prat, a faculty member at the Institute for Learning & Brain sciences and a UW associate professor of psychology."
"While the flashing lights are signals that we're putting into the brain, those parts of the brain are doing a million other things at any given time too,
"Prat said. The study builds on the UW team's initial experiment in 2013, when it was the first to demonstrate a direct brain-to-brain connection between humans.
Other scientists have connected the brains of rats and monkeys, and transmitted brain signals from a human to a rat, using electrodes inserted into animals'brains.
In the 2013 experiment, the UW team used noninvasive technology to send a person's brain signals over the Internet to control the hand motions of another person.
The first experiment evolved out of research by co-author Rajesh Rao, a UW professor of computer science and engineering,
on brain-computer interfaces that enable people to activate devices with their minds. In 2011, Rao began collaborating with Stocco
and Prat to determine how to link two human brains together. In 2014, the researchers received a $1 million grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation that allowed them to broaden their experiments to decode more complex interactions and brain processes.
They are now exploring the possibility of"brain tutoring, "transferring signals directly from healthy brains to ones that are impaired developmentally
or impacted by external factors such as a stroke or accident, or simply to transfer knowledge from teacher to pupil.
The team is also working on transmitting brain states--for example, sending signals from an alert person to a sleepy one,
or from a focused student to one who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD."
the ADHD student's brain gets put into a state of greater attention automatically.""Many technological advancements over the past century, from the telegraph to the Internet, were created to facilitate communication between people.
and other animals to take information out of our brains and communicate it to other animals in the forms of behavior, speech and so on,
We can only communicate part of whatever our brain processes.""What we are doing is kind of reversing the process a step at a time by opening up this box
and taking signals from the brain and with minimal translation, putting them back in another person's brain,
In a study published in Cell, Feng Zhang and his colleagues at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Mcgovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT,
Will brain palpation 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),
Ultimately, it could be used in the early diagnosis of brain tumours or Alzheimer's 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 and known as"noise correlation."
"They were thus able to build images of the brain's elasticity.""If 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.""This method for palpating the brain could have other areas of application,
such as for analysing the development of neurodegenerative processes, the impact of a lesion from a trauma or tumour, response to treatment, etc e
Also on the horizon is research using scorpion venom to target brain tumours with MRI scanning g
Both cardiac cells in the heart and neurons in the brain communicate by electrical signals,
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
#Some patients in a vegetative state retain awareness, despite being unable to move New insight into a vital cerebral pathway has explained how some patients in a vegetative state are aware
was observed in a case study at the imaging centre at the Brain and Mind Institute, at Western University, Canada.
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,
a therapeutic protein in testing 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.
"Brain diseases are notoriously difficult to treat due to the natural protections the body builds against intrusion,
"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."
and could be the first step in the development of brain-computer interfaces. Dr. Lingnau and her team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri)
""This opens up huge possibilities for the future including the development of technology you can control with your mind as well as enabling the development of methods for helping those with paralysis to have direct brain control to the affected areas
In the case of our eyes, the electrical impulses transmit the image to the brain.
who is also an associate member of MIT's Mcgovern Institute for Brain Research. As a starting point, the researchers used ferritin,
but also stimulates important receptors in the brain. By switching off LRRC8D, it will now be possible to specifically investigate physiological and pathological roles of taurine release by VRAC.
Mind & Brain: Men Are attracted to Nonconformist Women Space: Sun Accused of Stealing Planetary Objects from Another Star Technology:
In their proof-of-concept study, they sent light from the LED through an optical fiber to stimulate neurons in mouse brain slices.
#Memory-Boosting Devices Tested in Humans A strategy designed to improve memory by delivering brain stimulation through implanted electrodes is undergoing trials in humans.
The findings raise hopes that a euro prostheticthat automatically enhances flagging memory could aid not only brain-injured soldiers,
Because of the risks associated with surgically placing devices in the brain, both groups are studying people with epilepsy who already have implanted electrodes.
when a part of the brain called the hippo campus aggregates sensory information, as well as the perception of space and time,
and receives inputs from many connections in the brain, stimulating it with the CA3 signal alone may not be enough.
Many parts of the brain are organized in obvious ways: in the motor cortex, for example, stimulating a particular spot causes motion in a specific part of the body.
By stimulating the brain only when a person read words that were likely to be forgotten the researchers could boost performance by up to 140%.
%Penn psychologist Michael Kahana says that the team has recorded from the brains of about 80 people in total
#This Robotic Hand Wired to a Brain Implant Restored a Paralyzed Man Sense of touch In the last few years,
a paralyzed 28-year-old man reported a ear-naturalsense of touch from a sensor-laden robotic hand wired to a brain implant.
however, robotic arms wired directly to the brain via an implant have been primarily one-way devicesllowing action but not yielding sensory information.
Robotic thought-controlled prosthetic limbs for amputees are controlled by the brain indirectly using healthy nerves and muscles in the stump.
however, the only way to link up to a robotic arm is directly through the brain by way of an implant.
the hand converts physical sensations into electrical signals that are communicated to the brain through the brain implant.
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 all function.
invasive surgery and wired brain implants are not an ideal solution. And limited to pressure,
And advances in brain-machine interfaces should make implants less invasive. For now, however, it one step at a time.
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