In the new study which appears in the Oct 16 issue of the journal Neuron Tonegawa
and colleagues at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at MIT s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory recorded the electrical activity of individual neurons in the hippocampus of these knockout mice
The researchers speculate that in normal mice the role of calcineurin is to suppress the connections between neurons known as synapses in the hippocampus.
In mice without calcineurin a phenomenon known as long-term potentiation (LTP) becomes more prevalent making synapses stronger.
Mohanty lab at UTA is now using the system to study how neurons grown on a silicon wafer communicate with each other.
while electrical signals in the neurons are recorded to determine, in real time, exactly what effect the drugs are having.
Tye and Nieh first identified and characterized just the LH neurons that connect to the VTA
Electrodes recorded the activity of these identified neurons during animal behaviors. Mice naturally love sucrose similar to humans loving sugar-rich sodas
The neural recordings showed that one type of LH neurons connecting to the VTA only became active after the animal had learned to seek a sucrose reward
Another set of LH neurons, upon receiving feedback from the VTA, encoded the response to the reward or to its omission.
or silence neurons with pulses of light, a method called optogenetics. Activating the projections led to compulsive sucrose-eating
working with Matthews, a postdoc in the Tye lab, also showed that the LH neurons send a mix of excitatory (glutamate)
The researchers also characterized the heterogeneous neurons on the receiving end of these projections in the VTA.
Each subset of LH neurons connects with dopamine -and GABA-producing neurons in the VTA.
The lab is now investigating how feeding and sucrose-seeking behaviors differ based on the target neuron type.
This research was initiated as part of Tye 2013 NIH Director New Investigator Award, with the long-term goal of establishing a new paradigm for treating obesity that could be applied to other neuropsychiatric disorders.
#New findings reveal genetic brain disorders converge at the synapse Picower Institute for Learning and Memory January 12,
and intellectual disability disrupt protein synthesis at synapses, and that a treatment developed for one disease produced a cognitive benefit in the other.
Bear and others discovered that the loss of this gene results in exaggerated protein synthesis at synapses, the specialized sites of communication between neurons.
Some of the 27 affected genes play a role in protein synthesis regulation, leading Bear and colleagues to wonder if 16p11.2 microdeletion syndrome and fragile X syndrome affect synapses in the same way.
This chemical damages nerve cells and apparently plays a role in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
and can stimulate neurons more effectively said Prof. Hanein. The new prosthetic is compact unlike previous designs that used wires
In comparison with other technologies our new material is more durable flexible and efficient as well as better able to stimulate neurons said Prof.
But we have demonstrated now that this new material stimulates neurons efficiently and wirelessly with light.
#Microtubes create cozy space for neurons to grow and grow fast Tiny, thin microtubes could provide a scaffold for neuron cultures to grow
so that researchers can study neural networks, their growth and repair, yielding insights into treatment for degenerative neurological conditions or restoring nerve connections after injury.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Wisconsin-Madison created the microtube platform to study neuron growth.
They posit that the microtubes could one day be implanted like stents to promote neuron regrowth at injury sites
"This is a powerful three-dimensional platform for neuron culture, "said Xiuling Li, U. of I. professor of electrical and computer engineering who co-led the study
accelerate and measure the process of neuron growth, all at once.""The team published the results in the journal ACS Nano."
"The biggest challenge facing researchers trying to culture neurons for study is that it's very difficult to recreate the cozy, soft, three-dimensional environment of the brain.
but the nerve cells look and behave differently than they would in the body. The microtubes provide a three-dimensional, pliant scaffolding,
The neurons grow along and through the microtubes, sending out exploratory arms across the gaps to find the next tube.
so researchers can watch the live neuron cells as they grow using a conventional microscope."
but also accelerate the nerve cells'growth -and time is crucial for restoring severed connections in the case of spinal cord injury or limb reattachment.
The researchers found that the axons, the long branches the nerve cells send out to make connections,
grow through the microtubes like a sheath-and at up to 20 times the speed of growing across the gaps."
"It's not surprising that the axons like to grow within the tubes, "Williams said.""These are exactly the types of spaces where they grow in vivo.
since nerve cells vary greatly in size from small brain cells to large muscle-controlling nerves. Li and Froeter have sent already microtube arrays of various dimensions to other research groups studying neural networks for diverse applications.
since they are directly in contact with the axon, we will be able to study signal conduction much better than conventional methods,
"If we can grow lines of neurons together in a bundle, we could simulate what's going down your spine
RE-NET and subsequent DARPA programs in this field plan to leverage this new tool by simultaneously measuring the function physical motion and behavior of neurons in freely moving subjects.
or light to temporarily activate neurons. Therefore it could not only provide better observation of native functionality
and chemists itching with excitement mesmerised by the possibilities starting to take shape from flexible electronics embedded into clothing to biomedicine (imagine synthetic nerve cells) vastly superior forms of energy storage (tiny
"These disorders, such as Parkinson's, that involve malfunctioning nerve cells can lead to difficulty with the most mundane and essential movements that most of us take for granted:
ultraflexible electronics into the brain and allow them to become fully integrated with the existing biological web of neurons.
#Branch-Like Dendrites Function As Minicomputers In The Brain A new paper in Nature suggests that we've been thinking about neurons all wrong.
Namely it suggests that dendrites the treelike branches of wiring that extend out from the soma
Researchers from University college London the University of North carolina School of medicine found that in response to visual stimuli dendrites fired electrical signals in the brains of mice.
The spikes only occurred in the dendrite not in the rest of the neuron suggesting that the dendrite itself was doing the processing.
The dendrites are not passive integrators of sensory-driven input; they seem to be a computational unit as well.
whether the cell will become a neuron or a cardiac myocyte or whether it's healthy or sick.
With the help of these nanoscopes researchers have been able to visualize molecules such as those created in synapses in the brain.
because it mimics the diverse ways that neurons fire naturally. The new turning algorithm also helped the rats to overcome more complicated obstacles in the form of rodent-sized staircases
because it mimics the diverse ways that neurons fire naturally. Additionally the new controller continuously tracks the motion of the legs automatically adjusting the trajectory of each step based on that feedback.
The system was developed originally to improve the quality of life of individuals with severely impaired motor abilities such as those with motor neuron disease or cerebral palsy.
with the final challenge of nerve cells to make a working arm.""What's important is to eventually let that limb become functional again,
and muscle cells and with the ability to contract when electrically stimulated in the lab. The next challenge is to create nerve cells
#Neurologists Speed up Connectome Analysis by More than 10-Fold Unraveling the connectivity maps between nerve cells in brains is a huge scientific endeavor called connectomics.
Besides the anatomical structure of neurons this includes a reconstruction of the actual connections between the nerve cells via their synapses.
As a single neuron communicates with up to thousands of other neurons and the cells are packed extremely densely,
this is a difficult and extremely time-consuming endeavor. In comparison to the measurements, which already take thousands of hours,
Researchers at the Department of Connectomics are already working on increasing the number of participants by developing a platform where also non-qualified personnel (e g. students) can assist in the analysis of the connections between the neurons.
The most recent publication in Neuron however deals with the other strategy to reduce the analysis time.
we were able to develop a way to automatically classify brain tissue containing all the synapses. By using these Segem tools,
#New Memristors Could Usher in Bionic Brains Last month we saw researchers in the US push the envelope of nonvolatile memory devices based on resistance switching to the point where they are now capable of mimicking the neurons in the human brain.
I was able to map out a small section of a neuron through Eyewire, a company that gamifying its neuroscience research
scientists need to figure out how electrical impulses travel through its vast network of 85 billion neurons,
connected through 100 trillion synapses. And to do this, they need to map the structure and connections of all these neurons.
Enter Eyewire, a company that crowdsourcing this mapping process with a fun and addictive online game. think that exploring the brain is the greatest adventure of all time.
Players are tasked with the challenge of mapping the structure and connections of neurons by isolating individual cells from large three-dimensional microscopic image datasets.
but instead, players are tasked with the assignment of mapping out neurons from one side of a cube to the other,
by scrolling up and down through the cube and rebuilding neurons in segments. These cubes are the width of an average human hair (about 4. 5 microns per side, technically speaking.
Individual neurons were identified and encoded in this data, and we used that information to generate the surface models that you see and experience.
In this way, the neurons that you see around you in virtual space were modeled not by an artist,
I was immersed in an environment that was filled with highways of neurons sprawled out in every direction.
and submit player neuron traces. One of the developers who helped write the API William Silversmith, tells me, n time,
additional tool to manipulate neurons and other cells in the body,"informed,"Sreekanth Chalasani, assistant professor in Salk's molecular neurobiology laboratory.
In optogenetics, researchers add light-sensitive channel proteins to neurons they wish to study. By shining a focused laser on the cells,
either activating or silencing the target neurons. Chalasani and his group decided to see if they could develop an approach that
sonogenetics has only been applied to C. elegans neurons.""The real prize will be to see whether this could work in a mammalian brain,
assistant professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of medicine in St louis. White matter tracts in the brain are made of axons that connect brain regions to form networks.
#Real-time Nanoscale Images of Lithium Dendrite Structures That Degrade Batteries Scientists at the Department of energy Oak ridge National Laboratory have captured the first real-time nanoscale images of lithium dendrite structures known to degrade lithium
and growth of lithium dendrite structures known to degrade lithium-ion batteries. CREDIT: ORNL Dendrites form when metallic lithium takes root on a battery anode
and begins growing haphazardly. If the dendrites grow too large, they can puncture the divider between the electrodes
and short-circuit the cell, resulting in catastrophic battery failure. The researchers studied dendrite formation by using a miniature electrochemical cell that mimics the liquid conditions inside a lithium-ion battery.
Placing the liquid cell in a scanning transmission electron microscope and applying voltage to the cell allowed the researchers to watch as lithium depositshich start as a nanometer-size seedrew into dendritic structures. t gives us a nanoscopic view of how dendrites nucleate and grow,
said ORNL Raymond Unocic, in situ microscopy team leader. e can visualize the whole process on a glassy carbon microelectrode
and observe where the dendrites prefer to nucleate and also track morphological changes during growth.
Watch a video of the dendrite growth here: https://www. youtube. com/watch? v=rpputm u pm.
Now that we can see exactly how the dendrites are forming using our technique, we can be proactive
The ORNL team believes scientists who are experimenting with different ways to tackle the dendrite problem,
or"fusing,"little packets of neurotransmitters to the outer edges of neurons, where they are released
and then dock with chemical receptors in another neuron to trigger a response. A'Smoking Gun'for Neurotransmitter Release In this latest research
triggering a gunshot-like release of neurotransmitters from one neuron to another. They also learned that the proteins join together before they arrive at a neuron's membrane,
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,
"Brunger said. The team speculates that several of the joined protein complexes may group together
while also teaching neurons to begin making the protein for themselves. The researchers, led by Elena Batrakova, an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy's Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery,
Glial cells provide support and protection for nerve cells throughout the brain and body and GDNF can heal
and stimulate the growth of damaged neurons.""Currently, there are no treatments that can halt or reverse the course of Parkinson's disease.
"However, studies have shown that delivering neurotrophic factor to the brain not only promotes the survival of neurons
the engineered macrophages can"teach"neurons to make the protein for themselves by delivering both the tools and the instructions needed:
which then are able to deliver the proteins to neurons in the brain. The work is described in an article published online by PLOS ONE."
His team has had already success with this method in motor neurons in a rat model. f this works to stimulate motor neurons in muscles,
They used ultrasound to trigger activity in specific neurons, causing the worms to change direction.
For now, the team's research relies on the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a well-studied critter with precisely 302 neurons.
Those neurons responded to the ultrasound waves thanks to a type of channel on their surface, called TRP-4,
with the neurons only 25 micrometres beneath the surface: a quarter of the diameter of a human hair.
For the first time, a circuit of about 100 artificial synapses was proved to perform a simple version of a typical human task:
His team has had already success with this method in motor neurons in a rat model. f this works to stimulate motor neurons in muscles,
#Degenerating Neurons Respond to Gene therapy Treatment for Alzheimer Disease Degenerating neurons in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) measurably responded to an experimental gene therapy in
The affected neurons displayed heightened growth, axonal sprouting and activation of functional markers, said lead author Mark H. Tuszynski, M d.,Ph d.,professor in the Department of Neurosciences, director of the UC San diego Translational Neuroscience
researchers could introduce the protein only to surrounding degenerating neurons. The gene therapy approach has progressed since to phase II trials at multiple test sites.
The work was led by scientists at UB Hunter James Kelly Research Institute (HJKRI) who conduct research to better understand myelin,
the fatty insulator that enables communication between nerve cells. The researchers study how damage to myelin occurs
and how that damage may be repaired. The institute, part of UB New york state Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life sciences, was established in 1997 by Buffalo bills Hall of fame quarterback Jim Kelly
He died in 2005 at the age of 8. The researchers explained that cellular interactions that trigger the production of myelin are especially hard to pinpoint.
That because the crucial point of contact between two types of cells the connection between axons
which support neurons is hidden essentially. yelin is made by a glial cell wrapping around an axon cell,
explained M. Laura Feltri, M d.,senior author on the paper and an HJKRI researcher and professor of biochemistry and neurology in the Jacobs School of medicine and Biomedical sciences at UB. o study myelin,
The glial cell wraps like a spiral around the axon, so every time you try to study the region of contact between the two cells,
she added. n Krabbe, for example, the problem is not just that there isn sufficient myelin,
but that the glial cell is not providing proper support to the neuron. But to figure out exactly what going wrong, we needed a better way to study that interface.
The new technique for achieving this involves using the second cell (the neuron) as a trigger to attract the first cell (the glial cell.
are necessary for the production of myelin. The discovery will help improve the understanding of and development of new treatments for myelin diseases.
It also will make it easier to study all kinds of cellular interactions not just those in the brain. sing this method,
Feltri explained. t provides a glimpse into the social life of cells. his work has important implications for diseases of myelin such as Krabbe disease,
because the communication between glial cells and neurons is vital for neuroprotection, she said. Yannick Poitelon, Ph d.,postdoctoral research scientist at HJKRI and first author of the paper, explained that glial cells support neurons metabolically
and protect axons that can measure up to one meter in length, extending far away from the glial cell. his has profound implications for glial disease like Krabbe, Charcot-Marie Tooth, peripheral neuropathies or Multiple sclerosis,
because the dysfunction of glial cells end up impairing the interactions with neurons, which as a result suffer
and degenerate causing devastating clinical symptoms, said Poitelon. imilarly, neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington disease or Lou Gehrig's,
that were considered uniquely diseases of neurons in the past, are considered now diseases of cellular communications between neurons and glial cells.
The work was funded by the National institutes of health o
#Down syndrome Research Untangles Therapeutic Possibilities for Alzheimer More than five million Americans are living with Alzheimer disease (AD.
#Stem Cell Research Hints at Evolution of Human brain The human cerebral cortex contains 16 billion neurons,
Now, researchers at UC San francisco have succeeded in mapping the genetic signature of a unique group of stem cells in the human brain that seem to generate most of the neurons in our massive cerebral cortex.
where nearly all neurons are produced by stem cells called ventricular radial glia (vrgs) that inhabit a fertile layer of tissue deep in the brain called the ventricular zone (VZ).
most of the neuron production was happening in the osvz rather than the familiar VZ. org stem cells are extremely rare in mice,
but at first we only had circumstantial evidence that these cells even made neurons. Outsider stem cells make their own niche In the new research, Pollen and co-first author Tomasz Nowakowski, Ph d,
They identified gene expression profiles typical of different types of neurons newborn neural progenitors and radial glia,
they lose their ability to differentiate into neurons, Kriegstein explained. But the new data reveals that orgs bring a support group with them:
and showed that these cells are prolific neuron factories. In contrast to mouse vrgs, which produce 10 to 100 daughter cells during brain development,
a single human org can produce thousands of daughter neurons, as well as glial cellson-neuronal brain cells increasingly recognized as being responsible for a broad array of maintenance functions in the brain.
and form their own neural connections synapses making them readily producible testbeds for neuroscience research,
The cultures contain both inhibitory and excitatory neurons and several varieties of essential neural support cells called glia.
the neurons fire and spike and form synaptic connections, producing complex networks. -3-D: Cells connect and communicate within a realistic geometry, rather than merely across a flat plane as in a 2-D culture.
from older people are converted directly into induced neurons. his lets us keep age-related signatures in the cells
and showed that it possible to directly convert skin cells to neurons, completely bypassing the stem cell precursor state.
After, they compared the patterns of gene expression in the resulting neurons with cells taken from autopsied brains.
Patterns in the neurons resulting from the induced pluripotent stem cell technique were indistinguishable between young and old samples.
depending on the age of the person they were created from. he neurons we derived showed differences depending on donor age,
were lower in neurons derived from older patients. Researchers expect the new method will let scientists create aged heart and liver cells as well,
Both cardiac cells in the heart and neurons in the brain communicate by electrical signals,
They found that the hormone controls the volume of'social information'processed by individual neurons,
While the mice still had their own neurons-the cells that transmit and store information in the brain-the support cells were almost entirely human, according to the researchers.
Scientists hope the lumpy mass of functioning nerve cells and fibres will prove to be a valuable research tool for non-animal testing of new drugs and investigating brain disorders such as Alzheimer's.
As well as neurons and their signal-carrying projections-axons and dendrites-the'brain'also contains support and immune cells.
It has 99%of the genes present in the foetal brain a rudimentary spinal cord, and even the beginnings of an'eye'.
It uses microarrays of electrodes that can be implanted into the brains of volunteers to pick up tiny electrical pulses from the neurons.
but can transmit signals to nerve cells. They hope the proof-of-concept experiment will lead to artificial hands that allow the wearer to feel different textures
which produces biochemical signals suitable for transmission to neurons. In the tests pressure signals from the skin generated light pulses that activated a line of light-sensitive nerve cells.
Other methods of stimulating nerves were likely to be used in real prosthetic devices, said the researchers writing in the journal Science.
Both cardiac cells in the heart and neurons in the brain communicate by electrical signals,
#New field of application for versatile helper In Alzheimer's disease proteins clump together to long fibrils causing the death of nerve cells.
beta amyloids that agglomerate to form long fibrils in the nerve cells of Alzheimer's patients. Heat shock proteins are associated also with other nervous system disorders like Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.
and neuropilin-1--to keep excessive blood vessels from forming.""Although a few other anti-VEGF drugs have been approved for therapy of AMD,
while extremely rare even in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, is able to spread from one neuron to another
"It has been postulated that tangles-the abnormal accumulation of tau protein that fills neurons in Alzheimer's disease-can travel from neuron to neuron as the disease progresses,
"Our current study suggests one mechanism at play is that a unique and rare type of tau has the properties we were looking for-it is released from neurons,
taken up by other neurons, transported up and down axons, and then released again.""Previous research has shown that tau tangles first appear in a structure located deep within the brain called the entorhinal cortex,
but whether that progression reflected the movement of tau proteins through adjacent neurons or some other process was uncertain.
when brain sample from that mouse model were applied to cultured neurons, only 1 percent of the tau in those samples was taken up by the neurons.
The tau proteins that were taken up were high molecular weight-meaning that a number of smaller proteins are bound together into a larger molecule-soluble,
both in cultured neurons and in living mice. The process by which this version of tau passes between neurons was illustrated using a microfluidic device developed at the MGH Biomems Resource Center.
The device consists of three chambers, the first two containing mouse neurons, connected by microgrooves through
which axons-the fibers that carry signals from one neuron to another-can extend. The team found that applying this rare form of tau from the brains of the mouse model to neurons in the first chamber resulted in the protein's being taken up by those neurons and
within five days, being present at the ends of first-chamber-neuron axons and in neurons in the second chamber.
A few days later, tau was detected at the end of axons extending from the second to the third chamber,
which contained no neurons. Removal of tau from the first chamber did not cause it to disappear from the second chamber,
indicating that once a certain amount of the pathologic version of the protein has been taken up,
neurons can continue passing it along even after the original source has been removed. Additional experiments with tau from the brains of Alzheimer's patients confirmed that the high-molecular-weight
soluble, phosphate-bearing version was passed taken up and between neurons.""Our findings suggest that that the release
and uptake of this form of tau is an important step in the spread of disease from one brain region to another,
Targeted muscle reinnervation allow natural control through the same neurons that controlled the lost limb.
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