Nature of Human Consciousness

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new But the brain is a difficult place to explore, and specialized tools are needed to learn its secrets. Lex Kravitz, from Washington University, and Mark Laubach, from American University, are neuroscientists who’ve learned that sometimes you have to invent the tools of the trade on the fly. While exploring topics as wide-ranging as obesity, addiction, executive control, and decision making, they’ve come up with everything from simple jigs for brain sectioning to full feeding systems for rodent cages. They incorporate microcontrollers, IoT, and tons of 3D-printing to build what they need to get the job done, and they share these designs on OpenBehavior, a collaborative space for the open-source neuroscience community. — Hackaday, 19h ago

new Intense, ongoing stress can, at any age, contribute to disease, from psychiatric disorders to obesity and diabetes. But in the first years of life – and also in the womb – such stress can have dramatic ramifications. “The wars in Israel, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere, and the unprecedented global refugee crisis that is caused, in part, by climate change, alongside an increased understanding of the long-term harm caused by exposure to war and violence at a young age – all these highlight the need for better rehabilitation capabilities,” says Chen. “Our new study identifies a key brain mechanism that is especially sensitive to childhood trauma. But the most exciting part is the prospect of using the plasticity of the young brain to help it recover, avoiding the toll this trauma can exact in adulthood.”... — Weizmann Wonder Wander - News, Features and Discoveries from the Weizmann Institute of Science, 1d ago

new Recently, a research published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology mentions how AI-enabled imaging of the retina’s network of veins and arteries can accurately predict cardiovascular disease and death, without the need for blood tests or blood pressure measurement. The research team developed a fully automated AI-enabled algorithm―QUantitative Analysis of Retinal vessels Topology and siZe, or QUARTZ―to develop models to assess the potential of retinal vasculature imaging plus known risk factors to predict vascular health and death. “AI-enabled vasculometry risk prediction is fully automated, low cost, non-invasive and has the potential for reaching a higher proportion of the population in the community because of ‘high street’availability and because blood sampling or [blood pressure measurement] are not needed,”said the report. Another significant aspect of AI, says Pillai, is picking up systemic diseases from the retina, that is predicting the occurrence of a disease even 10 years or 20 years down the line before it has actually occurred. — theweek.in, 1d ago

new Your brain, the metabolic powerhouse nestled within your skull, plays a crucial role in daily caloric expenditure. The intricate relationship between cognitive activity and metabolism emphasizes the importance of embracing mental challenges for cognitive health and overall well-being. Understanding the brain's energy demands provides valuable insight into the profound connection between cognitive activity and metabolism, highlighting the significance of incorporating mental challenges into your daily routine. The next time you tackle a challenging problem or learn something new, recognize that your brain is not just flexing its intellectual muscles but contributing to your overall energy expenditure, reinforcing the powerful link between cognitive activity and metabolism. — Psychology Today, 1d ago

new So, while I have no substitute determined yet for the A-Fib med, replacing the blood thinner is not that difficult as I can always revert back to aspirin. And that takes us to the topic of today’s column; is aspirin really a bad thing or is it yet another victim of woke idiocy or perhaps just marketing for the much higher priced prescription pharmacy products for the benefit of someone’s bank account rather than being a much better medication in and of itself. The primary function of the blood thinner is directly related to the heart rhythm med because the primary problem associated with A-fib is the much higher risk of stroke from blood pooling in the Atrial chamber near the valve and spitting out clots that can then cause problems further on such as in the brain or other places. I can do something about that with aspirin, and if I save some Flecainide for emergency use (it has already proven to stop A-fib a couple times when I slipped back into it by just taking an extra dose once or twice) perhaps I may survive a bit longer after the SHTF. — sgtreport.com, 1d ago

new Most people who experience clinical levels of paranoia do not recognize this fact. For those living with serious mental health conditions, mental health professionals call this anosognosia. When anosognosia is present a person is likely to strongly reject any possibility that something is wrong not out of denial but because the areas of the brain responsible for this awareness are not working effectively. — Psychology Today, 1d ago

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new Researchers have uncovered that tinnitus, an incurable persistent ringing or other sounds in the ears, might result from underlying auditory nerve damage that can't be detected on conventional hearing tests. The work builds upon previous research into cochlear synaptopathy or 'hidden hearing loss,' a difficulty hearing in noisy environments despite showing normal results on hearing tests. The researchers hope these new findings into the mechanisms underlying tinnitus could lead to treatment options. — ScienceDaily, 1d ago

new One example of this is autism, once thought to be something that almost exclusively affected males. In fact, under something called the brain organization theory, it was thought that sex hormones present during fetal development permanently “masculinized” boys’ brains in ways that made them, among other things, more likely to have autism. Recently, there’s been a rethink and a huge increase in our understanding of how autism presents differently in women and girls, leading to many more diagnoses. — IFLScience, 2d ago

new Dr. Durrance has an interdisciplinary research and education program in long-term human space exploration. The hazards associated with long-term exposure to the space environment, such as radiation damage and the loss of bone mass, are not sufficiently understood to determine whether they pose acceptable risks or not. Research focused on these hazards is critical to sustained human presence outside the protective environment of the Earth ’s atmosphere and magnetosphere. This program uses the Space Life Sciences Laboratory (SLS Lab) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC); as well as labs at Florida Tech.Lunar dust physics: Enabling technologies must be developed, including systems to mitigate the damaging effects of dust contamination; technologies that use the local planetary resources to produce consumables such as oxygen, water and rocket propellant; food production systems; innovative range technologies and many more. We are currently studying the induction charging characteristics of lunar dust.Bone Loss: The objectives of the bone project are (1) to provide a dynamic model of the structure and function of bone in response to loading with sufficient precision to predict the effect of any arbitrary loading history and (2) to develop and refine new countermeasures against bone loss.Radiation damage: Solar and galactic radiation is a major hazard to space crews during long-duration flights and planetary bases beyond the Earth ’s magnetic field. Intense solar flares can induce acute radiation sickness, galactic cosmic rays can kill brain cells that the body cannot replace, and all forms of radiation can induce cancer. The only known safety measure is shielding to prevent the high-speed particles from reaching the crew.Dr. Durrance is has an interdisciplinary research and education program in astrobiology addressing three fundamental questions: How does life begin and evolve? Does life exist elsewhere in the Universe? What is the future of life on Earth and beyond? Research addressing these questions is highly interdisciplinary involving fields such as physics, biology, chemistry, geology, and planetary science.Extrasolar Planets: Most of the newly discovered planets have been found using indirect techniques, where the planet ’s effect on light emitted from the parent star is detected, not the light emitted by the planet itself. The most likely technique for detecting life on these planets is a detailed analysis of their spectra; therefore, we are developing a system that may be able to detect IR emissions from exoplanets using large, ground-based telescopes along with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) techniques developed for radio astronomy.Amyloid Fiber Formation: We are pursuing research that may shed light on a fundamental question regarding the origin of life: how did the transition from non-living to living matter occur? We are investigating the spontaneous formation of long linear fibers from a weak solution of proteins using dielectric spectroscopy. This phenomenon may be important in neurodegenerative diseases and it may help to understand the emergence of ordered biological structures that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium.Dr. Durrance Director of the Sub-Orbital Research and Training Center that utilizes flights of high performance F-104 jets from the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at KSC. In addition to the testing of prototype spaceflight hardware for NASA and commercial companies, we are developing an imaging system designed specifically for imaging Earth ’s coastal regions. The coastal zone is not only the most significant ocean area in terms of productivity, economics, recreation, and natural resources but it is also the most difficult to image. — fit.edu, 2d ago

Weizmann Wonder Wander - News, Features and Discoveries from the Weizmann Institute of Science, 1d ago

new Traces of Trauma in the Young Brain – and How to Erase Them - Weizmann Wonder Wander - News, Features and Discoveries

eLife, 3d ago

Manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging reveals light-induced brain asymmetry in embryo

Open Access Government, 4d ago

Promoting regular exercise to protect brain health

newswise.com, 3d ago

FAU Names Palm Health Foundation Computational Brain Health Graduate Fellows

eLife, 4d ago

Two human brain systems micro-structurally associated with obesity

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...• Growing Adoption of Drug Stores and High-end Use of Anti-JCV drugs are some of the factors driving Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market growth.Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy OverviewProgressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) is an uncommon and severe viral infection that targets the brain. It occurs when the JC virus, a common virus that typically remains inactive in most people, is reactivated. However, individuals with a compromised immune system, such as those with HIV/AIDS, recipients of organ transplants, or individuals undergoing certain immunosuppressive treatments, are at risk of the JC virus becoming active and causing Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy.Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy primarily affects the white matter of the brain, resulting in the deterioration of myelin, the protective covering of nerve fibers. The symptoms of Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy can vary depending on the specific brain areas affected, but they often involve progressive neurological impairments such as muscle weakness, cognitive decline, vision disturbances, and difficulties with coordination and balance. The disease can advance rapidly and has the potential to be fatal.Learn more about Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy treatment algorithms in different geographies, and patient journeys. Contact to receive a sample https://www.delveinsight.com/report-store/progressive-multifocal-leukoencephalopathy-market?utm_source=openpr&utm_medium=pressrelease&utm_campaign=aprProgressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy Market The Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market outlook of the report helps to build a detailed comprehension of the historical, current, and forecasted Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market trends by analyzing the impact of current Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy therapies on the market and unmet needs, and drivers, barriers, and demand for better technology.In this section, a comprehensive analysis is provided on the Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market trends of various drugs already on the market and late-stage pipeline therapies for Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy. This analysis takes into account factors such as the annual cost of therapy, inclusion and exclusion criteria, mechanism of action, compliance rate, the growing demand in the market, increasing number of patients, targeted patient segment, expected launch year, competition with other therapies, brand value, and the perspectives of key opinion leaders. The data on the Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market are presented in tables and graphs, which offer a clear and immediate understanding of the market dynamics.According to DelveInsight, the Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market in 7MM is expected to witness a major change in the study period 2019-2032.Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy Epidemiology The Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy epidemiology section provides insights into the historical and current Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy patient pool and forecasted trends for seven individual major countries. It helps to recognize the causes of current and forecasted trends by exploring numerous studies and views of key opinion leaders. This part of the Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market report also provides the diagnosed patient pool, trends, and assumptions. Explore more about Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy Epidemiology @ https://www.delveinsight.com/sample-request/progressive-multifocal-leukoencephalopathy-market?utm_source=openpr&utm_medium=pressrelease&utm_campaign=aprProgressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy Drugs UptakeThis section focuses on the uptake rate of the potential Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy drugs recently launched in the Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market or expected to be launched in 2019-2032. The analysis covers the Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market uptake by drugs, patient uptake by therapies, and sales of each drug. Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy Drugs Uptake helps in understanding the drugs with the most rapid uptake and the reasons behind the maximal use of new drugs and allows the comparison of the drugs based on Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy market share and size, which again will be useful in investigating factors important in market uptake and in making financial and regulatory decisions.Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy Pipeline Development ActivitiesThe Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy report provides insights into different therapeutic candidates in Phase II, and Phase III stages. It also analyses Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy key players involved in developing targeted therapeutics.Request for a sample report to understand more about the Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy pipeline development activities @ https://www.delveinsight.com/sample-request/progressive-multifocal-leukoencephalopathy-market?utm_source=openpr&utm_medium=pressrelease&utm_campaign=aprProgressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy Therapeutics AssessmentProminent companies in the Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy (PML) Therapeutics market are actively engaged in proactive efforts to develop innovative therapies. These endeavors are expected to have a significant impact on the future growth of the Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy treatment market. Key players in this field include Amgen Inc, Boehringer Ingelheim International, Ipsen Pharma, Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Biogen, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd., Apotex Inc., F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., Eli Lilly, Merck, Cellevolve Bio, Mylan N.V, AbbVie, Inc, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences, and others. Their contributions and advancements are anticipated to drive progress and expand the available treatment options for Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy in the coming years.Learn more about the emerging Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy therapies & key companies @ https://www.delveinsight.com/sample-request/progressive-multifocal-leukoencephalopathy-market?utm_source=openpr&utm_medium=pressrelease&utm_campaign=aprProgressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy Report Key Insights1. Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy Patient Population... — openPR.com, 26d ago

This approach is most apparent if we look at where money for psychiatric research flows. In the past two decades, the US National Institute of Mental Health, the largest funder of mental health research in the world, has introduced a new framework for research, the Research Domain Criteria, or RDoC. This framework is composed of domains and units of analysis. The domains include psychological phenomena like perception or a sense of acute threat, similar to symptoms, but including both positive and negative aspects. The units of analysis focus on things like genes, cells and circuits, directing researchers where to look to explain psychological phenomena like a sense of acute threat, in order to better understand both a well-functioning and a disordered response. The framework aims to do away with the issues and problems that the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is known for, including the way that many of the psychiatric categories within it include overlapping symptoms, or the many possible symptom profiles that can lead to a single diagnosis. These issues suggest that research relying on the DSM categories may not reflect real categories, which makes room for a lot more noise in the research process. The hope is that RDoC will provide more promising paths for research, particularly at the level of the brain and genes. Given this focus, it is no surprise that, within psychiatry today, experiences of hearing voices or of hallucinations are largely seen as symptoms to be managed, or ideally removed, rather than experiences that can be both challenging and meaningful. — Aeon, 17d ago

Newswise — Philadelphia, November 29, 2023 – A first-line therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) reshapes connectivity of the brain, according to a new study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier.OCD is an anxiety disorder characterized by repetitive thoughts and behaviors that can be disruptive and even disabling. The first-line treatment for OCD, a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy called exposure and response prevention (EX/RP), is effective for many people with OCD, but how it works has remained unclear. This new study shows that EX/RP training reshapes brain activity for better cognitive control.In people with OCD, functional brain activity is affected in three neural networks that participate in cognitive control. The networks are the frontoparietal network (FPN), the cingulo-opercular network (CON), and the default mode network (DMN). For the new study, 111 adolescents and adults with OCD received either EX/RP, which is designed to build coping skills for a patient through gradual exposure, or stress management training as a control treatment. Then, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while performing a cognitive task. After treatment, OCD participants who received EX/RP displayed strengthened connectivity between the cognitive control networks that was not seen in participants who had stress management.Senior author Kate Fitzgerald, MD, at Columbia University, said the study “is important because it shows how EX/RP improves brain function to treat OCD. Specifically, EX/RP improved connectivity of brain circuits underlying cognitive control, the ability to adjust the repetitive thoughts and behaviors.”Leveraging the expertise of co-author Adriene Beltz, PhD, at the University of Michigan, the researchers used a sophisticated new analysis technique. Dr. Fitzgerald explained, “This allowed us to ‘see’ patient-specific brain changes with EX/RP that we were not able to uncover previously when using an older type of analysis that averages out brain differences between patients.”In an upcoming study, Dr. Fitzgerald is using a cognitive training video game to exercise brain circuits for cognitive control before patients even begin EX/RP therapy. “We hope this pre-therapy training will exercise the brain to help children respond more fully to EX/RP so they can overcome OCD.”Cameron Carter, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, said of the work, “This study provides an important and clear example of how our increasing understanding of the functional organization of brain circuits can be harnessed to develop highly targeted therapies and to measure their impact both on the distressing symptoms of having OCD as well as the underlying brain circuits affected by the disorder.”... — newswise.com, 5d ago

Newswise — Researchers have succeeded in restoring lost brain function in mouse models of stroke using small molecules that in the future could potentially be developed into a stroke recovery therapy. “Communication between nerve cells in large parts of the brain changes after a stroke and we show that it can be partially restored with the treatment”, says Tadeusz Wieloch, senior professor of neurobiology at Lund University in Sweden.“Concomitantly, the rodents regain lost somatosensory functions, something that around 60 per cent of all stroke patients experience today. The most remarkable result is that the treatment began several days after a stroke,” Wieloch continues.In an ischemic stroke, lack of blood flow to the brain causes damage, which rapidly leads to nerve cell loss that affects large parts of the the vast network of nerve cells in the brain. This may lead to loss of function such as paralysis, sensorimotor impairment and vision and speech difficulties, but also to pain and depression. There are currently no approved drugs that improve or restore the functions after a stroke, apart from clot-dissolving treatment in the acute phase (within 4.5 hours of the stroke). Some spontaneous improvements occur, but many stroke patients suffer chronic loss of function. For example, about 60 per cent of stroke sufferers, experience lost somatosensori functions such as touch and position sense.An international study published recently in the journal Brain and led by a research team from Lund University in collaboration with University of Rome La Sapeinza and Washington University at St. Louis, shows promising results in mice and rats that were treated with a class of substances that inhibit the metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR5), a receptor that regulates communication in the brain’s nerve cell network.“Rodents treated with the GluR5 inhibitor regained their somatosensori functions,” says Tadeusz Wieloch, who led the study published in BRAIN.Two days after the stroke, i.e. when the damage had developed and function impairment was most prominent, the researchers started treating the rodents that exhibited the greatest impaired function.“A temporary treatment effect was seen after just 30 minutes, but treatment for several weeks is needed to achieve a permanent recovery effect. Some function improvement was observed even when the treatment started 10 days after a stroke,” says Tadeusz Wieloch.Importantly, sensorimotor functions improved, even though the extent of the brain damage was not diminished. This, explains Tadeusz Wieloch, is due to the intricate network of nerve cells in the brain, known as the connectome, i.e. how various areas of the brain are connected and communicate with each to form the basis for various brain functions.“Impaired function after a stroke is due to cell loss, but also because of reduced activity in large parts of the connectome in the undamaged brain. The receptor mGluR5 is apparently an important factor in the reduced activity in the connectome, which is prevented by the inhibitor which therefore restores the lost brain function,” says Tadeusz Wieloch.The results also showed that sensorimotor function was further improved if treatment with the mGluR5 inhibitor is combined with somatosensory training by housing several rodents in cages enriched with toys, chains, grids, and plastic tubes.The researchers hope that in the future their results could lead to a clinical treatment that could be initiated a few days after an ischemic stroke.“Combined with rehabilitation training, it could eventually be a new promising treatment. However, more studies are needed. The study was conducted on mice and rats, and of course needs to be repeated in humans. This should be possible since several mGluR5 inhibitors have been studied in humans for the treatment of neurological diseases other than stroke, and shown to be tolerated by humans,” says Tadeusz Wieloch.The research is conducted with support from the Swedish Research Council, Alborada Trust, Hans-Gabriel and Alice Wachtmeister Foundation, and Multipark Strategic Research Area. — newswise.com, 3d ago

Neither of the brain atlas projects fulfills Markram's fantasy, but that fantasy is a reminder that science is a social endeavor. As neuroscientists all over the world pursue medical and scientific goals made possible by brain atlases, we should all keep in mind the philosophical and social implications of the projects. We can't yet explain the relationship between brain and self, and we lack definitive explanations of brain-related conditions like schizophrenia, autism, or depression. In fact, we're not even sure these conditions arise from similar causes between one person and another. As the saying goes, "If you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person."... — Psychology Today, 22d ago

Many people around the world, including those in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, Israel, Romania, Brazil, Kenya, Guam, Nigeria, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Spain, Austria, Colombia, and Germany, believe Silencil.How well does Silenci work? If not, is it just another over-the-top noise supplement? For more information on Silencil, read this study.Silencil ReviewsSilencil is a new hope in the long and winding road of tinnitus treatments in Australia and NZ. This groundbreaking method may induce a paradigm change in our understanding and management of tinnitus since it gets to the heart of the matter. This Supplement is leading the charge as people look for ways to alleviate their symptoms, encouraging them to stop keeping quiet and instead welcome a future when their ears are not only made to ring less, but completely hushed.To combat tinnitus at its source, Silencil UK employs a proprietary combination of 28 all-natural ingredients. Inflammation and the health of the auditory nerves are both addressed by the various ingredients, including hawthorn berry, skullcap, and GABA. Supplemental relief isn't the only goal here; long-term health is the ultimate goal.Rather than relying on short-term remedies like drugs, Silencil promotes a holistic approach to tinnitus treatment. In order to combat tinnitus for good, the supplement promotes brain health and provides continuous protection, making it an ally in the long run.The believe that Silencil can be a game-changer for tinnitus sufferers inspires optimism and enthusiasm. As scientists get closer to unraveling the mysteries of the illness, Silencil emerges as a promising candidate to revolutionize the field.How Does Silencil Work?The main goal of Silencil is to improve mental health by reducing inflammation in the brain. Its efficacy is based on the fact that it gets to the root of tinnitus.According to research, tinnitus ringing could be caused by inflammation in the brain, which can cause abnormal electrical impulses and vibrations that were previously unnoticed. To eliminate tinnitus, Silencil focuses on reducing inflammation, which is thought to be its origin.To alleviate tinnitus symptoms, Silencil works by progressively lowering brain inflammation. There may be hope for those who suffer from chronic tinnitus thanks to this systematic approach, which demonstrates a dedication to getting to the bottom of things and enhancing brain health in general.👉 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝟓𝟎% - "𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐖𝐄𝐁𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐄": - https://bestprice24x7.com/silencil-official-websiteSilencil Ingredients ListSilencil USA is made up of about 28 different ingredients. Each one was carefully chosen based on how well it works and how safe it is. Another great thing about Silencil is that it is all natural. It doesn't use strong chemicals or extraneous bits to do its job. So, most people can take it without any problems.Here are some of the formula's most important parts.Hawthorn Berry... — openPR.com, 3d ago

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new The other research is from Mattia Veronese, PhD, a scientist from King’s College in London and associate professor at the University of Padua in Italy, who studied human PET imaging data of participants of the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) to look for brain network changes and disease progression using the network neuroscience approach developed by Sporns. Veronese is also a co-author on the Alzheimer’s & Dementia journal article. “Those two pieces of work led our team to develop tools that would extract additional meaning from images of MODEL-AD mouse models, with the goal of not only providing similar whole brain metrics observed in the previous clinical studies, but to also dive deeper and possibly understand how subnetworks within the brain of these models might shed light on the mechanisms of the underlying biology,” Territo said. Chumin helped develop the tools and resources from the network neuroscience approach of human clinical research to preclinical animal models of MODEL-AD. The investigators analyzed the brain as a whole and also looked at subnetworks within the brain to see how those areas communicate and interact as the disease progresses. “Using this approach, the research team’s analysis of metabolism changes in animal models confirmed previous clinical findings of disease progression in patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” Territo said. The animal models showed age-related changes in glucose uptake as well as differences between males and females—similar to findings from Alzheimer’s disease human data. Territo said MODEL-AD plans to use these network neuroscience tools in their investigations of other preclinical data, including models of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, potential therapeutics for the disease and multi-modal analyses that combine neuroimaging data from PET and MRI. About IU School of Medicine IU School of Medicine is the largest medical school in the U.S. and is annually ranked among the top medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. The school offers high-quality medical education, access to leading medical research and rich campus life in nine Indiana cities, including rural and urban locations consistently recognized for livability. — newswise.com, 2d ago

new Peripheral neuropathy affects over 3 million people annually in the United States, causing pain and loss of sensation due to nerve damage outside the brain and spinal cord. This condition can result from various causes including diabetes, injury, genetic disorders, and infections. Salk Institute scientists have made a significant discovery in mice regarding the repair of damaged nerves in peripheral neuropathy. They found that the protein Mitf activates the repair function in specialized Schwann cells of the nervous system. — SciTechDaily, 2d ago

new ...“That dopamine is also involved in teaching our brain about punishing experiences is an important discovery and may provide new directions in research to help us better understand the mechanisms underlying depression, addiction, and related psychiatric and neurological disorders.”... — Neuroscience News, 2d ago

new According to Feng, current progress in AI research is "exciting and encouraging," and there is much more to do to accurately duplicate the neurological and psychological processes of the human brain. Feng leads one research group aiming to simulate the whole human brain with 86 billion neurons simultaneously—a massive task across computer science, mathematics and biology. — phys.org, 2d ago

new Chronic exposure to alcohol has been shown to produce profound neuroadaptations in specific brain regions, including the recruitment of key stress neurotransmitters, ultimately causing changes in the body that sustain excessive drinking. The area of the brain known as the "bed nucleus of the stria terminalis" (BNST) is critically involved in the behavioral response to stress as well as in chronic, pathological alcohol use. — medicalxpress.com, 2d ago

new Chronic exposure to alcohol has been shown to produce profound neuroadaptations in specific brain regions, including the recruitment of key stress neurotransmitters, ultimately causing changes in the body that sustain excessive drinking. The area of the brain known as the “bed nucleus of the stria terminalis” (BNST) is critically involved in the behavioral response to stress as well as in chronic, pathological alcohol use. — Neuroscience News, 2d ago

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Fitzgerald has nothing against nature — he enjoys a trek in the wilderness about as much as anyone. He just believes that it is not a panacea for the most serious problems that the modern city encounters. “From the most avant-garde science fiction to the most banal planning documents,” he writes, “a shared agenda has emerged: for the good of humanity, the future of the city must be woody and green. … It’s as if, all of a sudden, there is no problem of the built or physical or social environment that cannot be fixed by leaning into a sturdy yew or beech.” In Fitzgerald’s view, this is a fantasy without hard evidence to back it up.THE NOTION THAT CITIES ARE INEVITABLY CHAOTIC, STRESSFUL PLACES goes back to the early years of the American republic, to Thomas Jefferson and Henry David Thoreau, and to Frederick Law Olmsted, who in the mid-1800s designed Manhattan’s Central Park as a green refuge where overburdened, overstressed urban workers could escape for refreshment and renewal.Urban disrespect reached a sort of peak in the 1920s. The prominent financier Simon Straus declared that “in our great cities, people break down in health or reach premature senility because of late hours, loss of sleep, fast pleasures, and headlong, nerve-racking methods of existence.” A popular advertisement portrayed urban life as “24 hours of noisy crowded streets. Of dust and gas-ridden air. Of machine-made speed. Of strain. Of nervous tension.”But the urban pessimism that Fitzgerald chronicles is largely a product of the 1970s, when big cities were in the midst of a crisis of rising crime, dirty streets and annoying congestion. Neuroscientists began connecting crowded cities to actual human depression and anxiety. They are still doing it. “Today,” Fitzgerald writes, “a lot of urban thinking derives from this notion that the city is a space that produces mental illness, not only because of its hectic or worrisome social life but because of its actual physical structure.”A study conducted in Mannheim, Germany, for example, concluded that growing up in an urban environment changes the human brain, generating fearfulness in the stress-driven amygdala and areas of the cerebral cortex. Research from the city of Aarhus, in Denmark, found that the more vegetation one experiences as a child, the smaller the risk of mental problems in adulthood. And a study at Stanford University reported that excessive walking in a crowded urban corridor increases dangerous rumination and activates a part of the brain linked to emotional problems.The conclusions drawn from these studies have led to a neurological idea called “attention restoration theory,” which posits, essentially, that simply looking upon nature boosts human concentration powers in a positive way.IT’S QUITE A MOUND OF DATA. How seriously should we take it? Fitzgerald believes that there is a placebo effect at work here, that we are told so often as young people that nature gives us a lasting sense of well-being that we are programmed to tell researchers that it does that. In truth, placebos aren’t worthless. If we are trained to believe that cities make us depressed but that nature makes us permanently and biologically happy, and we continue to feel that way, perhaps something good has been accomplished.But are these feelings permanent or transitory? I am no scientist, but I live across the street from a very nice park, and I walk through it a couple of times a week. It’s a pleasant experience. Does it make me a happier person over a significant length of time? I have trouble accepting that notion, as does Fitzgerald. “We’re overinvesting in nature,” he writes, “as a panacea for what are actually fairly mundane urban problems — that we have mistaken what is really … a sideshow to the wider sense of melancholy that has often accompanied the modern world.”If cities were as toxic as much of modern neuroscience is telling us, then we ought to be seeing some bad numbers in our biggest places. But they are not that easy to find. The opioid addiction crisis is a more serious problem in many depressed small towns than it is in the largest cities. In 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic reached us, life expectancy in New York City was 82.6 years, compared to the national average of 78.9. Once COVID-19 took hold, rural residents were more than 35 percent more likely than urban residents to die within 90 days after hospitalization for the virus. Urban death rates were higher for minorities and lower-income people, but this, however regrettable, is a different issue.Moreover, as Fitzgerald argues, to portray cities as totally deprived of greenery is a bit of an overstatement. “The truth,” he writes, “is that urban spaces are festooned with vegetation. Wanted and unwanted, useful and annoying, pretty and ugly. Once you start looking there’s green stuff everywhere in cities.”IN ANY CASE, THERE IS NO SIGN the urban greenery onslaught is slowing down, in the United States or overseas. New York’s Nature Conservancy wants to classify the city’s 7 million trees as a single forest system, “to sustain New York City for decades to come.” Madrid has plans to construct a “green wall” around the city featuring 500,000 new trees. And perhaps most consequentially, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has declared her intention to make half the city’s surface area “vegetative” by the year 2050.Fitzgerald seems rather dismissive of these efforts. I wouldn’t go that far. I think a major tree-planting campaign in Paris would add to the iconic beauty the city has long possessed. What I agree with is his skepticism that thousands of acres of new vegetation would make the inhabitants permanently calmer, saner or healthier. “I just wasn’t at all convinced,” Fitzgerald explains, “that the simple presence of grass and trees could truly have what sounds like, in all truth, a quasi-religious, even transcendental effect on nearby humans.”Fitzgerald’s amiable contrarianism will earn him his fair share of detractors, but that is what Jane Jacobs faced when she blew the whistle on city planners in the 1960s. In challenging the conventional wisdom of nature-based urban panaceas, while confessing to his “resolutely affirmative view of city life,” Fitzgerald has placed himself quite firmly in the Jacobs tradition. — Governing, 14d ago

These findings suggest a potential for developing novel meditation-based therapies to enhance well-being and address psychiatric disorders. The study provides a detailed view of the brain’s response to jhana, illuminating its impact on attention, joy, equanimity, and self-perception. — Neuroscience News, 26d ago

Rubino notes that at present, the only way to confirm that someone is in the early stages of the disease is to use biomarkers that are assessed by imaging and lumbar puncture—expensive, invasive technologies that are not widely available. This is why there is significant interest in identifying reliable blood biomarkers as an objective measure for screening more patients and gaining insights into what’s going on in the brain much sooner. — GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, 19d ago

eLife, 13d ago

Against cortical reorganisation

eLife, 19d ago

Conscious processing of global and local auditory irregularities causes differentiated heartbeat-evoked responses

eLife, 20d ago

Homeostatic control of deep sleep and molecular correlates of sleep pressure in Drosophila

elifesciences.org, 17d ago

Novel Cyclic Homogeneous Oscillation Detection Method for High Accuracy and Specific Characterization of Neural Dynamics

elifesciences.org, 12d ago

Species -Shared and -Unique Gyral Peaks on Human and Macaque Brains

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new As a physician-scientist, Perlmutter is internationally recognized for his research on alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (ATD), a genetic disorder in which accumulations of a misfolded protein can cause severe liver damage. His work has led to advances in the understanding of how cells dispose of misfolded proteins that cause cellular dysfunction as well as the development of a pipeline of ATD drugs that could eliminate the need for liver transplantation in those with the disorder. Since drugs in this pipeline target and enhance autophagy, a cellular degradation pathway that is critical for the functioning of all cells and declines with age, they also represent exciting candidates for prevention of cognitive decline and other degenerative diseases of aging. Perlmutter and his collaborators recently discovered that a drug currently used for Type 2 diabetes may slow age-dependent degeneration in the nervous system and in the liver. — Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, 2d ago

Published in Nature Communications and conducted in collaboration with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, the research employed electroencephalogram (EEG) scans to monitor brain activity in 25 patients with focal epilepsy. These individuals, who experience seizures originating from specific areas of the brain, participated in an associative memory task while researchers observed the real-time impact on brain function. — Inside Precision Medicine, 3d ago

new A team at Johns Hopkins surgically implanted the BCI on the brain of an ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) patient. They published their results, which showed the accurate translation of computer commands from brain activity, in Advanced Science. The team demonstrated this translation over a three-month period without requiring retraining or recalibrating of the BCI algorithm. — Medical Design and Outsourcing, 2d ago

In June 2017, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Gleolan, an optical imaging agent indicated in patients with grade 3 or 4 gliomas, to aid in the visualization of malignant tissue during surgery.4 When Gleolan is administered, it causes an accumulation of the metabolite protoporphyrin IX (PPIX) in tumor cells.4 Using the proper operating microscope containing a blue light source and filters that lead to excitation light of wavelength 375-440 nm, and observation at 620-710 nm, tumor tissue is able to be visualized as red fluorescence. Brain tissue that does not have adequate PPIX concentrations will appear blue (Figure). The color differentiation gives surgeons the ability to identify tissue to be excised, better estimate tumor margins, and increase the capability of preserving as much healthy brain tissue as possible. — Clinical Advisor, 3d ago

Scientists are continuing to uncover the role that AQP4 plays in acute cerebral events, such as stroke or traumatic injuries. While our understanding in this regard is still limited, available evidence suggests that AQPs play a pivotal role in curtailing water channel activity, facilitating the reduction of edema in brain injuries and allowing water clearance from the brain into blood vessels. The presence of edema is a key warning sign in many brain diseases, ranging from stroke to brain injuries to brain tumors. — Rare Disease Advisor, 3d ago

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelic substances. This webinar will explore the intersection of neuroscience and psychedelics, highlighting their potential therapeutic benefits for mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction.Dr. Reichelt will delve into the neurobiology of psychedelics, emphasizing their role in promoting neuroplasticity, which allows for the rewiring of the brain. Ongoing clinical research will also be discussed, including the use of these substances in controlled settings to address trauma, reduce symptoms, and tackle substance dependence. Finally, Dr. Reichelt will explore next-generation psychedelics without hallucinatory effects and the potential of psychedelics as innovative therapeutic tools in psychiatry and neurology. — Technology Networks, 3d ago

Latest

ScienceDaily, 5d ago

New study reveals the critical role of microglia in human brain development

Drug Discovery News, 5d ago

Rapidly reversing sensory and motor problems after stroke

Open Access Government, 6d ago

Reducing non-human primate sacrifice for brain research in the virtual era

SciTechDaily, 7d ago

Brain Imaging Redefined: NexGen 7T MRI Achieves 10x Better Resolution

Inside Precision Medicine, 3d ago

Slow Brain Waves: A Natural Shield against Epileptic Activity

livescience.com, 9d ago

Human brains aren't as plastic as you might think

theweek.in, 1d ago

new How artificial intelligence is redefining health care in India – Techregister

elifesciences.org, 5d ago

The Importance of Individual Beliefs in Assessing Treatment Efficacy: Insights from Neurostimulation Studies

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I have always been interested in healthcare and how the brain works, going back to my time at Nestlé and researching the impact of coffee on brain function, and even earlier. My fascination with the brain and the impact of neurodegeneration has really driven me to apply my scientific curiosity to create something in a space where until recently, no treatment was available. We also have different perspectives as women. If we look back at our traditional role as caregivers, I think that brings a new point of view in how we develop medicines with more of a focus on the point of view of patients and their experience. Having people involved from a variety of backgrounds – whether that be gender, nationality, ethnicity or anything else – will always provide a greater diversity of views. Debate, discussion and investigation are the core of what we do as scientists and the diversity of views and ideas will only enhance our work, if we allow it. — Drug Target Review, 6d ago

Overall, developing a reliable neural oscillation detection method is crucial for advancing our understanding of brain function and cognition. The presented CHO method opens up new avenues of research by contributing to the investigation of temporal dynamics, spatial distribution, brain states, underlying mechanisms, functional purpose, and pathologies of neural oscillations. Ultimately, a comprehensive understanding of neural oscillations will deepen our knowledge of the brain’s complexity and pave the way for innovative approaches to treating neurological and psychiatric disorders. — elifesciences.org, 17d ago

...“This study is meant to raise awareness of the problem,” says Soeren Mattke, director of the Brain Health Observatory at USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social Research, who led the investigations. “We want to say, ‘Pay attention to early changes in cognition, and tell your doctor about them. Ask for an evaluation.’ We want to reach physicians to say, ‘There’s a measurable difference between aging and pathologic cognitive decline, and detecting the latter early might identify those patients who would benefit from recently approved Alzheimer’s treatments. — SciTechDaily, 9d ago

Decades' worth of data show that berries have the capacity to help maintain our memory and cognitive function as we age. Berries are one of the core food components of the MIND Diet, the diet that has been shown to reduce the risk for neurological declines. The MIND diet recommends berries at least twice a week. Berries are thought to improve brain health by improving the vascular function of the brain and reducing inflammation. A review article published in Neural Regeneration Research reported that berries offer neuroprotection through numerous biological pathways. — Eat This Not That, 27d ago

The team hope that future studies will be able to increase such activity as a potential novel treatment for people with epilepsy.“The parallel between the function of slow waves during sleep and, here, their beneficial impact in a pathological condition, is particularly interesting. Our study suggests that a naturally occurring activity is employed by the brain to offset pathological activities; however, this comes with a price, since ‘wake’ slow waves are shown to impact on memory performance,” says lead author, Laurent Sheybani, MD, PhD, University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology, in a release. “From a purely neurobiological perspective, the research also reinforces the idea that sleep activity can happen in specific areas of the brain, rather than occurring evenly throughout the brain.”... — Sleep Review, 3d ago

In studying the areas of the brain affected by TMS, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital found that some of those same areas also “lit up” for the placebo effect, publishing their findings in Molecular Psychiatry. The researchers believed that this overlap could account for some of the puzzling results of previous depression studies that included a placebo. According to lead researcher Emiliano Santarnecchi, director of the Precision Neuroscience and Neuromodulation Program at the hospital: “There is a significant effect when you do any form of brain stimulation intervention.” Because TMS is directly applied to a patient’s head, with loud clicks heard for each pulse, it’s easy for a patient to believe they are receiving treatment. Santarnechi added that the patient thinks: “‘Wow, they are really activating my brain,’ so you get a lot of expectation.”... — The Debrief, 8d ago

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The future of medicine is shifting to cloud computing, where health care providers can access patient information from anywhere at any time. This transformative shift will facilitate rapid and efficient treatment decisions, which can be crucial in emergency situations. As the fields of AI and neuroscience advance, the development of methods to interpret brain activity becomes increasingly imminent. Recent studies have already demonstrated the feasibility of such interpretation for specific brain regions. Decoding patterns of neural activity will unlock insights into the underlying mechanisms of cognitive function and behavior, potentially revolutionizing medical treatments. However, these developments also present challenges to HIPAA regulation and raise additional privacy concerns for intellectual property derived from this information. Moreover, a basic goal of integrating AI into the medical field is to train agents to identify abnormal brain scans. To do this, datasets must be expanded by several orders of magnitude, because medical diagnoses often are highly individualized with significant variability in symptom characteristics. Ensuring data security is crucial in protecting patients’ privacy and encouraging participation in neuroimaging studies. Ultimately, the integration of AI and cloud computing has the potential to revolutionize various aspects of health care. Giordano’s research will help address a vital step toward this goal: the creation of a secure encryption method capable of handling large medical imaging file formats while preserving the content and patient privacy. — newswise.com, 3d ago

A variety of space biology investigations were also underway aboard the station seeking to improve life on Earth and in space. NASA Flight Engineer Loral O’Hara kicked off her day configuring the Advanced Plant Habitat for an upcoming botany study to explore how the plant immune system is affected by spaceflight conditions. Commander Andreas Mogensen peered at brain cell-like samples in a microscope for the Cerebral Aging study seeking a deeper understanding of ageing processes and neurodegenerative conditions. Afterward, Mogensen from ESA (European Space Agency) printed cardiac cells using the BioFabrication Facility which is demonstrating printing organ-like tissues in microgravity. — SciTechDaily, 3d ago

With the emergence of advanced ICP monitoring devices, the limitations of earlier devices like leveling and de-bubbling of fluid-filled systems and shift in baseline pressure have been eliminated. Advanced monitors enable surgeons to monitor a patient closely and offer effective treatment. The non-invasive ICP monitoring methods do not measure absolute ICP. Therefore, the validation and development of non-invasive intracranial pressure which is capable of measuring absolute ICP device will create great opportunities for the growth of the ICP monitor market. The rising prevalence of stroke and traumatic surgeries has highly influenced the intracranial pressure monitoring market across the globe. Moreover, the upswing in cases of brain surgeries in adults as well as children has triggered the demand for ICP monitors. — WriteUpCafe.com, 3d ago

Psychology Today, 5d ago

Pharmacokinetics and Addiction

medicalxpress.com, 5d ago

New strategies generate more accurate pediatric brain organoids

harvard.edu, 10d ago

Mind Mapper

Drug Discovery News, 5d ago

Hope for prion diseases

ScienceDaily, 1d ago

new Loss of auditory nerve fibers uncovered in individuals with tinnitus

Latest

The connection between the gut microbiome and the brain has emerged as an area of focus for research into psychological disorders. Studies have shown that disruption of the gut’s microbial community is associated with stress and mood disorders, with Lactobacillus found to be one of the primary bacterial families diminished in such disorders. Lactobacillus can be found in fermented foods, such as yogurt, fermented vegetables (olives, pickles, sauerkraut), salami, and sourdough bread. — New Atlas, 3d ago

Many individuals with hearing loss report a buzzing, humming, ringing, or even roaring sound in their ears. It’s been a longstanding idea that these symptoms, known as tinnitus, arise as a result of a maladaptive plasticity of the brain. In other words, the brain tries to compensate for the loss of hearing by increasing its activity, resulting in the perception of a phantom sound, tinnitus. Until recently though, this idea was disputed as some tinnitus sufferers have normal hearing tests. — SciTechDaily, 3d ago

But an increasing body of research suggests that the awe-inducing skill isn’t safe. There is mounting evidence on the risks to brain health caused by heading. A new study that builds on the research is the first to follow players for a multiyear period, and the first to find a measurable decline in the health of brain structure and function among players who frequently perform headers. The data doesn’t prove long-term effects, but the authors express concern that regular heading could lead to degenerative disorders later in life. — Fast Company, 3d ago

To understand addiction, researchers typically look at neurons firing or molecular signatures across the brain, but these tools cannot nail down specific addiction-related molecules in different cell types. To get a more detailed understanding of addiction’s molecular underpinnings, in a study recently published in Nature Genetics Telese and her collaborators used single cell resolution technologies to better understand cocaine addiction in a diverse pool of rats.2 Focusing on the amygdala, the part of the brain involved in emotions and memories, they found that many molecular markers of addiction relate to how cells generate and use energy, which may point to a treatment for addiction-related behaviors. — The Scientist Magazine®, 3d ago

According to Feng, current progress in AI research is “exciting and encouraging,” and there is much more to do to accurately duplicate the neurological and psychological processes of the human brain. Feng leads one research group aiming to simulate the whole human brain with 86 billion neurons simultaneously — a massive task across computer science, mathematics and biology. — SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News, 3d ago

In light of these challenges, many research teams are investigating molecular methods to coax HIV out of hiding and into view of the immune system. Driving expression of HIV is desirable because it makes the virus a target for destruction by normal immunological mechanisms, and the hope is that doing so will result in clearance of the latent reservoir. Many trials using latency reversal agents (LRAs) have been pursued in recent years. These methods must walk the tricky balance of causing enough immune activation to release the entirety of the hiding proviral reservoir without over activating the immune system and causing inflammation in fragile sites, such as the brain. Unfortunately, one in vitro study showed that even if 100% of a subset of T cells are activated, some perfectly competent proviruses remain tucked away. This suggests that cellular activation alone as a latency reversal strategy may not be sufficient to clear the viral reservoir. — ASM.org, 3d ago

Top

SciTechDaily, 15d ago

Microglia's Key Function in Brain Development Uncovered

elifesciences.org, 25d ago

Functional ultrasound imaging of stroke in awake rats

Psychology Today, 22d ago

New Brain Maps Advance Understanding, With Limitations

elifesciences.org, 19d ago

Imaging Microglia Surveillance during Sleep-wake Cycles in Freely Behaving Mice

eLife, 26d ago

A mechanistic insight into sources of error of visual working memory in multiple sclerosis

eLife, 18d ago

Selective transduction and photoinhibition of pre-Bötzinger complex neurons that project to the facial nucleus in rats affects nasofacial activity

elifesciences.org, 25d ago

Reconfigurations of cortical manifold structure during reward-based motor learning

Psychology Today, 24d ago

The Crisis in Veterans' Mental Health and New Solutions

Latest

The Human Brain Project (HBP) is the largest brain science project in Europe and stands among the biggest research projects ever funded by the European Union. It is one of the three FET Flagship Projects of the EU. At the interface of neuroscience and information technology, the HBP investigates the brain and its diseases with the help of highly advanced methods from computing, neuroinformatics, and artificial intelligence and drives innovation in fields like brain-inspired computing and neurorobotics. As a lasting contribution to the global science community, the HBP created EBRAINS, an open European research infrastructure that allows scientists and technology experts to collaborate seamlessly, accelerating advancements in the fields of neuroscience, computing, and brain-related medicine. — HPCwire, 3d ago

...“Traditionally, dopamine is often referred to as ‘the pleasure neurotransmitter,”’ said research lead Kenneth T. Kishida, PhD, associate professor of physiology and pharmacology and neurosurgery at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. “However, our work provides evidence that this is not the way to think about dopamine. Instead, dopamine is a crucial part of a sophisticated system that teaches our brain and guides our behavior. That dopamine is also involved in teaching our brain about punishing experiences is an important discovery and may provide new directions in research to help us better understand the mechanisms underlying depression, addiction, and related psychiatric and neurological disorders.”... — GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, 3d ago

...“Finding this ability was one of the first things we looked at,” Levin says. “That tells me there are probably many other things that are possible, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. This opens up the possibility of using these constructs to affect other cells [in living organisms or in a lab dish] in many other ways.” Gumuskaya hopes to look for similar “healing” behavior in models of human neurodegenerative disease, such as neuronal organoids that mimic the brain; Levin suggests that anthrobots might be used to help repair damaged retinas or spinal cords. But such ideas remain wholly speculative for now. — Scientific American, 3d ago

The research, published in Nature Communications and involving the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, examined electroencephalogram (EEG) scans from electrodes in the brains of 25 patients with focal epilepsy (a type of epilepsy characterized by seizures arising from a specific part of the brain), while they carried out an associative memory task. — medicalxpress.com, 3d ago

..."Those two pieces of work led our team to develop tools that would extract additional meaning from images of MODEL-AD mouse models, with the goal of not only providing similar whole brain metrics observed in the previous clinical studies, but to also dive deeper and possibly understand how subnetworks within the brain of these models might shed light on the mechanisms of the underlying biology," Territo said. — ScienceDaily, 3d ago

..."Those two pieces of work led our team to develop tools that would extract additional meaning from images of MODEL-AD mouse models, with the goal of not only providing similar whole brain metrics observed in the previous clinical studies but to also dive deeper and possibly understand how subnetworks within the brain of these models might shed light on the mechanisms of the underlying biology," Territo said. — medicalxpress.com, 3d ago

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..."This study has shown us that the AIS is a key site in the early stages of ALS pathology and requires further investigation. We now need to expand our investigation across other spinal cord and brain regions and different genetic mutations. It will be important to examine whether these structural and molecular changes of the AIS destabilize the neurons somehow, rendering them vulnerable to further pathological insults," says co-author Professor Juan Burrone. — medicalxpress.com, 3d ago

The idea that sensory stimulation to the embryo (in utero or in ovo) may be crucial for brain development is widespread. Unfortunately, up to now evidence was only indirect because mapping of embryonic brain activity in vivo is challenging. Here, we applied for the first time manganese enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI), a functional imaging method, to the eggs of domestic chicks. We revealed light-induced brain asymmetry by comparing embryonic brain activity in vivo of eggs that were stimulated by light or maintained in the darkness. Our protocol paves the way to investigation of the effects of a variety of sensory stimulations on brain activity in embryo. — eLife, 3d ago

Currently, rodents and songbirds are the dominant animal models of vocal communication in the field of animal psychophysiology – there are very few animal psychophysiological studies using bats as a model animal. In this study, we applied a psychological paradigm, the auditory oddball task, to bats for the first time. We found that their heart rate varied more in response to the context of the social call than to the surprise effect of the acoustic presentation. It would be very significant if this approach could be used not only in conventional animal models but also in bats, which have a decision-making mechanism based on sound information. We hope that animal psychophysiological research using vocal communication in bats will continue to develop. — The Company of Biologists, 3d ago

The Company of Biologists, 3d ago

Gravisensation and modulation of gravitactic responses by other sensory cues in the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus)

GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, 3d ago

How Subsecond Changes in Brain Dopamine Levels Impact Human Behavior

medicalxpress.com, 3d ago

Specialized motor neuron region affected in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, new study finds

Gizmodo, 11d ago

What Happens When Your Body Becomes a Sensory Deprivation Chamber?

SciTechDaily, 6d ago

Brain Mimics in a Dish: The Dawn of Next-Gen Organoids to Model Pediatric Brain Tumors

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...“As we get older, our neurologic health becomes more tenuous. When it comes to the brain, the solutions aren’t always as straightforward as doing surgery. It was the wisdom of my colleague, Michael Brant-Zawadzki, M.D., F.A.C.R., the Ron & Sandi Simon Executive Medical Director Endowed Chair of the Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute and Senior Physician Executive at Hoag, to anticipate the changing demographics and address the community’s needs and demands for the next decade,” Dr. Ritter said. “There has been progress in treatments of heart disease and cancer, but the medical community as a whole hasn’t made the same degree of improvements in treating brain related issues. The concept of approaching the brain from multiple angles and multiple approaches is innovative. We have a unique position at Hoag, with the support and resources from the community, to take a multifaceted approach to brain issues.”... — Healthcare Business Today, 27d ago

While further research is needed to translate these findings into clinical applications for human patients, the study marks a significant step toward understanding the brain’s response to hormonal changes during menopause and offers hope for potential treatments in the future. — SciTechDaily, 5d ago

In this study we address the sleep-independent behavioral effects of the most commonly used form of sleep deprivation in the fly and develop a method of accounting for them. We also attempt to address the extent to which the treatment of sleep as a single unitary state in the fly might explain the apparently modest and brief nature of sleep rebound in the fly compared to such rebound in mammalian species. We present evidence that the extent of mechanical perturbation employed during sleep deprivation has significant effects on the amount of subsequent sleep displayed by deprived flies. We describe the development of a yoked control paradigm for flies, based on previous work in rats (Rechtschaffen et al., 1983), that allows us to produce two sets of flies that have experienced identical levels of mechanical perturbation while suffering significantly different amounts of sleep restriction. Furthermore, by differentiating between long bouts of sleep from the traditional unitary definition of sleep, we show that flies display significant and lasting homeostatic sleep increases following sleep deprivation that are only detectable when controlling for the sleep-independent effects of mechanical deprivation. Finally, we illustrate the importance of yoked controls for examining the molecular correlates of sleep pressure and identify serotonin as a molecule that is increased within the brain in proportion to sleep loss but not mechanical perturbation. Our work introduces methodological approaches that are likely to support the discovery of new mechanisms of sleep regulation in the fly, calls for the reevaluation of previous work identifying the molecular, physiological, and cellular correlates of sleep pressure, and suggests that serotonin may act as a sleep substance within the central brain. — eLife, 20d ago

Clinically, it is used as a final step for medication-resistant epilepsy patients, as it can determine the exact source of epilepsy. But while the medical team waits for epileptic seizures to occur, these patients have a period in which they have to stay in their hospital bed and have nothing to do but wait—researchers used this period as an opportunity to peek into the working of the brain with unprecedented temporal and spatial accuracy. — medicalxpress.com, 19d ago

The advantage of this technique is that it is the only technique that allows to directly measure the electrical activity the brain uses to work. Clinically, it is used as a final step for medication-resistant epilepsy patients, as it can determine the exact source of epilepsy. But while the medical team waits for epileptic seizures to occur, these patients have a period in which they have to stay in their hospital bed and have nothing to do but wait -- researchers used this period as an opportunity to peak into the working of the brain with unprecedented temporal and spatial accuracy. — ScienceDaily, 19d ago

The advantage of this technique is that it is the only technique that allows to directly measure the electrical activity the brain uses to work. Clinically, it is used as a final step for medication-resistant epilepsy patients, as it can determine the exact source of epilepsy. But while the medical team waits for epileptic seizures to occur, these patients have a period in which they have to stay in their hospital bed and have nothing to do but wait – researchers used this period as an opportunity to peak into the working of the brain with unprecedented temporal and spatial accuracy. — SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News, 20d ago

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A Connectivity Signature Predicting Response to Antipsychotic Therapy is Identified in First-Episode Psychosis Patients | Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, 4d ago

A Connectivity Signature Predicting Response to Antipsychotic Therapy is Identified in First-Episode Psychosis Patients

Neuroscience News, 8d ago

Brain Brew: How Daily Coffee Habits May Affect Brain Plasticity and Learning - Neuroscience News

eLife, 11d ago

Cross-movie prediction of individualized functional topography

Open Access Government, 4d ago

Advanced brain injury detection and protection

elifesciences.org, 6d ago

Asymmetric cortical projections to striatal direct and indirect pathways distinctly control actions

Popular Science, 10d ago

A brief 200-year history of synesthesia

Drug Discovery News, 13d ago

Early life adversity leaves marks in the brain

Aeon, 14d ago

Are we ready to study consciousness in crabs and the like? | Aeon Essays

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Karam, McInnis and Arms along with Michael Kaller (Louisiana State University) then scrutinised the fish's brains to see whether they could identify differences between the two groups of fish and discovered several brain regions – involved in making social decisions – that were activated differently in the confident and bullied males. These included a region that processes sensory information – which could help a male to assess the social circumstances – and triggers a second brain area, a part of the social decision-making network, which controls the fish's behaviour. Wayne says, ‘The unique pattern of brain activation in the social decision-making network of susceptible males suggests an important role in regulating vulnerability to repeated social defeat stress’. The team adds that understanding the simpler brain circuits that underpin how fish struggle with difficult social situations could also help us to unravel the mysteries of some human mental health conditions, which share many of the same basic brain circuits. — The Company of Biologists, 3d ago

Currently, we understand elements of the function of individual organs and systems, but one of the biggest challenges is understanding the integration across systems and organizational scales: linking laboratory-based studies of form, function and biomechanics to how animals behave in much more complex real-world environments. For example, how does muscle–tendon stiffness determine economy of movement, which then determines how an animal evaluates risks and rewards in its environment and then decides to navigate that environment. We have a big gap in our understanding at the organism/environment scale. There are people who study animal behaviour in their environment and the environmental factors that influence behaviour, but we don't have many approaches that directly link, in a mechanistic way, how the physiological systems in the body and the biomechanics of those systems influence the capacity to move in the environment and how animals choose to move depending on their own individual capacity. I think there's a rich opportunity to integrate between comparative biomechanics and animal behaviour, and between comparative biomechanics and wildlife ecology. New sensor and data logging technologies are now allowing scientists to do this, but this integration remains in the early stages. We now have miniaturized accelerometers with relatively long battery lives that can track animal movements, but we need physiological measures as well – measurements of heart rate, heat production and other physiological variables as animals move. Data storage and battery life are often limiting factors. It's really exciting to see how far the technology has come in the past 10 years, so I'm hopeful that we will get to the point where we have rich datasets from animals moving in natural environments that will inform our laboratory studies. We need to know what behaviours are most relevant to animals in the real world so we can investigate them in more mechanistic detail in the lab. — The Company of Biologists, 3d ago

Whereas the BrainHealth Index is derived from self-reported assessments, neural biomarkers provide an objective, physical measure of what is happening in the brain. Just as cholesterol levels are a common biomarker for heart health and heart disease, neural biomarkers can serve not only as early warning systems of brain pathology, but also as markers of improved brain health—as this study demonstrates. — medicalxpress.com, 3d ago

In contrast to that in other species (e.g. fruit flies – Fedele et al., 2014; Toma et al., 2002), gravisensation in monarchs appears to be a light-independent process, as they were able to right themselves in complete darkness in our study. Gravity cues appear to be sufficient for oriented behavior (righting behavior), as monarchs do not have access to other cues in darkness that can provide directional information, such as the vertical component and vector of the magnetic field (Putman et al., 2018). Our results therefore suggest that gravisensation in monarchs is potentially based on a mechanosensory system. We found that the antennae act as important morphological structures for sensing gravity, with intact antennae necessary for upwards orientation and negative gravitaxis. For example, in our experiments in which monarchs had their antennae removed (righting response trials), monarchs no longer shifted their orientation and movement upwards (0 deg) but instead displayed positive phototaxis as they directed their movement towards the position of a directional light source (light source coming from the left, and perpendicular to the vertical plane; Fig. 7). In monarchs, gravity might be sensed by the antennae, as they possess organs that are responsible for gravisensation, as found in other insects (Johnston's organ: fruit flies – Armstrong et al., 2006; Sun et al., 2009; ants – Vowles, 1954; mosquitoes – Boo and Richards, 1975) and are involved in maintaining proper body positioning during movement in other Lepidoptera (Bohm's bristles: flight stabilization in Lepidoptera – Sane et al., 2007). As gravity acts on the antennae, the movement and position of the antennae themselves might enable monarchs to determine upwards and downwards. For instance, the Bohm's bristles are hair plates located at the base of the antennae, which are capable of providing gross localization information about where the antennae are in relation to the head of the butterfly (Sant and Sane, 2018). Additionally, as the antennae are physically separated paired sensory organs that can move independently of one another, monarchs might be comparing the information provided by them for upwards directionality, in a similar manner to the way in which they use independent timing information from each of the antennae during time-compensated sun compass use (Guerra et al., 2012). Given the role of the antennae for gravisensation and their overall morphology (a long, thin flagellum with a much larger club-like section at the distal end), future studies with monarchs might focus on determining the relative torque experienced by the antennae during body orientation positioning, and investigate the electrophysiological responses of neurons downstream from antennal structures. These studies would help elucidate how the brain encodes body orientation and directionality and provide a promising route for understanding how this information is encoded. — The Company of Biologists, 3d ago

These findings have the potential to transform migraine treatment and provide hope for migraine sufferers. This research adds valuable insights to the field, contributing to our understanding of this debilitating condition.How can the results of your doctoral research be utilised in practice?The results of this migraine research offer a wealth of practical applications that could revolutionise the treatment of this common disorder. This doctoral research has identified innovative potential targets within the endocannabinoid system, which may lead to new therapies. By focusing on the specific endocannabinoid degrading enzymes MAGL and FAAH, this study holds the promise of developing drugs with fewer side effects, bringing new hope to migraine patients. Moreover, this research paves the way for practical applications in clinical settings, including experiments on human tissues. This project outcome inspires further exploration of endocannabinoid-based treatments in clinical studies. A novel application of the fluorescent dye FM1-43, to monitor and identify the function of Piezo1 channels in specific cell types involved in migraine pain has emerged from this study. In summary, these findings offer new solutions for more effective treatments of migraine pain and suggest an innovative monitoring tool, ultimately improving the quality of care for migraine patients.What are the key research methods and materials used in your doctoral research?A multidisciplinary approach was used in this doctoral research, including live calcium imaging to investigate the role of Piezo1 channels in trigeminal neurons and glial cells and innovative chemoproteomic method of Activity-Based Protein Profiling, providing valuable insights into the activities of endocannabinoid degrading enzymes across various regions of the central nervous system linked to migraines. This was complemented by electrophysiological recordings to directly assess action of endocannabinoids on nociceptive spiking in the meninges, where migraine pain originates. Various animal models and tissues were used along with unique human samples available via collaboration with Kuopio University Hospital. — University of Eastern Finland, 3d ago

Sharing her family story at the conference began Garay-Serratos’ journey to confirm her suspicion that her mother suffered from CTE, which can only be definitively diagnosed after death by examination of the brain. CTE differs from other traumatic brain injury in that it comes from repeated sub-concussive, asymptomatic blows to the head, so the recipient often does not realize they are injured. This may also mean that the injured individual fails to adhere to the suggested protocol of rest following a known concussion. Because victims of domestic violence do not have control over when the next violent episode will occur, they may suffer multiple brain traumas within a short period of time. — USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, 3d ago

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The advantage of this technique is that it is the only technique that allows to directly measure the electrical activity the brain uses to work. Clinically, it is used as a final step for medication-resistant epilepsy patients, as it can determine the exact source of epilepsy. But while the medical team waits for epileptic seizures to occur, these patients have a period in which they have to stay in their hospital bed and have nothing to do but wait - researchers used this period as an opportunity to peak into the working of the brain with unprecedented temporal and spatial accuracy. — Technology Networks, 19d ago

First author Dr Ryan Wee (UCL Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology) said: "Being able to make decisions based on how hungry we are is very important. If this goes wrong it can lead to serious health problems. We hope that by improving our understanding of how this works in the brain, we might be able to aid in the prevention and treatment of eating disorders."... — ScienceDaily, 18d ago

First author Dr. Ryan Wee (UCL Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology) said: “Being able to make decisions based on how hungry we are is very important. If this goes wrong it can lead to serious health problems. We hope that by improving our understanding of how this works in the brain, we might be able to aid in the prevention and treatment of eating disorders.”... — SciTechDaily, 5d ago

elifesciences.org, 20d ago

Post-Mating Inhibition of Female Sexual Drive via Heterogeneous Neuronal Ensembles in the Medial Preoptic Area

elifesciences.org, 20d ago

Separating the control of moving and holding still in post-stroke arm paresis

CNRS News, 14d ago

Understanding vertigo

elifesciences.org, 19d ago

Causal role of the angular gyrus in insight-driven memory reconfiguration

elifesciences.org, 21d ago

Associative memory neurons of encoding multi-modal signals are recruited by neuroligin-3 mediated new synapse formation

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In 2021, SFARI launched the Autism Rat Models Consortium (ARC) RFA. Grants supported through this RFA use SFARI autism rat models to investigate the biology of autism risk genes, with a particular focus on complex behaviors and their underlying neural circuits. Although researchers have studied ASD risk genes in diverse experimental systems from fruit flies to mice, recent advances in gene editing technology have allowed for the manipulation of genes of interest in an increasing catalog of species. The SFARI rat models were generated at the Medical College of Wisconsin. These models and others are undergoing a behavioral phenotyping battery at the Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain (SIDB) at the University of Edinburgh. — SFARI, 3d ago

To clear this immense hurdle, a team at UK’s University of Birmingham set out to design a tool capable of quickly and accurately assessing potential TBI incidents. Their resulting prototype, that fits in the palm of a hand, has detected TBI issues within postmortem animal samples. As detailed in a new paper published in Science Advances, a new, lightweight tool developed by the team combines a smartphone, a safe-to-use laser dubbed EyeD, and a Raman spectroscopy system to assess the structural and biochemical health of an eye—specifically the area housing the optical nerve and neuroretina. Both optic nerve and brain biomarkers function within an extremely intricate, precise balance, so even the subtlest changes within an eye’s molecular makeup can indicate telltale signs of TBI. — Popular Science, 4d ago

Many individuals with hearing loss report a buzzing, humming, ringing or even roaring sound in their ears. It’s been a longstanding idea that these symptoms, known as tinnitus, arise as a result of a maladaptive plasticity of the brain. In other words, the brain tries to compensate for the loss of hearing by increasing its activity, resulting in the perception of a phantom sound, tinnitus. Until recently though, this idea was disputed as some tinnitus sufferers have normal hearing tests. — The Hearing Review, 3d ago

...“Those two pieces of work led our team to develop tools that would extract additional meaning from images of MODEL-AD mouse models, with the goal of not only providing similar whole brain metrics observed in the previous clinical studies, but to also dive deeper and possibly understand how subnetworks within the brain of these models might shed light on the mechanisms of the underlying biology,” Territo said. — SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News, 4d ago

Now, new research has found that visceral fat may heighten an individual’s risk of developing this disease. Visceral fat is fat buried within the belly that surrounds internal organs. The study, which was carried out by the Radiological Society of North America, reported its findings in the “Aging and Disease” journal. A press release from the radiological society stated that they had observed links between visceral fat and changes in the brain that could point to future dementia. — BioMedWire (BMW), 4d ago

Tardive dyskinesia (TD) is an involuntary neurological movement disorder caused by the use of dopamine receptor blocking drugs which are prescribed to treat certain psychiatric or gastrointestinal conditions. Long-term use of these drugs may produce biochemical abnormalities in the area of the brain known as the striatum. — openPR.com, 4d ago

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phys.org, 2d ago

new Can artificial intelligence improve life science? As much as life science can improve AI, researchers say

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The Organoid Odyssey: A Leap Forward in Understanding Pediatric Brain Tumors - SynBioBeta

Drug Discovery News, 5d ago

The science of forgetting

Psychology Today, 13d ago

Stroke

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Managing ADHD: Symptoms, diagnosis and treatment

Drug Target Review, 14d ago

Documenting the mammalian brain using machine learning

elifesciences.org, 6d ago

Prothoracicotropic hormone controls female sexual receptivity through the function of ecdysone in pC1 neurons of Drosophila

The Company of Biologists, 6d ago

Pax3 lineage-specific deletion of Gpr161 is associated with spinal neural tube and craniofacial malformations during embryonic development

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First author Dr. Ryan Wee (UCL Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology) said, "Being able to make decisions based on how hungry we are is very important. If this goes wrong it can lead to serious health problems. We hope that by improving our understanding of how this works in the brain, we might be able to aid in the prevention and treatment of eating disorders."... — medicalxpress.com, 17d ago

For over two decades there has been a growing interest and activity to explore the use of Virtual Reality (VR) and robots in rehabilitation and clinical (surgical) training. In rehabilitation, the model is to incorporate robotic assistance designed to enhance recovery following injury. In this model it is expected that the robotic system will be made available possibly during the patient’s hospital stay or in the months that follow. In surgical training, the model is to optimise personalised clinical procedures by facilitating co-development of new surgical techniques and the tailoring of difficult patient-specific interventions. Today VR technology is applied to advanced fields of medicine, engineering, education, design, training, and entertainment. VR uses computer interfaces to mimic real world beyond the flat monitor to give immersive 3D (Three Dimensional) visual experiences. Often it is hard to reconstruct the scales and distances between objects in static 2D images. Thus, the third dimension helps bringing depth to objects. In this talk will look at new ways of using VR and Robots through a gamification paradigm for clinical training and will demonstrate how strategies that aim to ‘trick’ the brain can have a positive impact on the recovery of cognitive and physical injuries and in reducing pain. — UCL Faculty of Medical Sciences, 18d ago

According to the latest research by InsightAce Analytic, the Global Learning Disabilities Treatment Market is valued at US$ 4.18 Bn in 2022, and it is expected to reach US$ 7.80 Bn by 2031, with a CAGR of 7.30% during a forecast period of 2023-2031. Request for Sample Pages: https://www.insightaceanalytic.com/request-sample/1958A learning disability is a biological condition that makes it hard for the brain to receive, send, and process information. A person with learning challenges may find it challenging to communicate, write, read, listen, understand mathematical concepts, and comprehend broad concepts. Learning disabilities (ADHD) include, for example, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Each disease could develop concurrently with another. A specific learning impairment, on the other hand, is a difficulty with one or more of the psychological processes that are essential for understanding or using language, whether spoken or written, and presents itself in a person's incapacity to listen, talk, read, spell, or perform mathematical operations. This Global Learning Disability Treatment category covers brain injury, moderate brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and emerging aphasia. List of Prominent Players in the Learning Disabilities Treatment Market:... — openPR.com, 23d ago

Further, we discovered that disrupting brain-spleen communication alters myeloid cell fate and cognitive performance in 5xFAD mice. These insights demonstrate the profound and reciprocal influence between the brain and the immune system. They underscore the importance of these interactions in understanding not only AD but also a wider array of neurological conditions, suggesting that this interplay is crucial for comprehending the complexities of such diseases. — Weizmann Institute of Science, 18d ago

Alterations in the brain associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are thought to arise very early in development, especially during fetal and infant stages (Hazlett et al., Nature, 2017; Willsey et al., Cell, 2013). Analyses of postmortem brain tissue, genomic variations and neuroimaging data have all contributed crucial information to our understanding of human brain development and how it can go awry. However, questions surrounding the earliest periods of brain development in ASD have been difficult to answer in those types of studies. Over the last decade, studies using brain organoids — small self-organizing three-dimensional models of the brain tissue grown in vitro — have been able to recreate at least some of the cellular diversity of the early developing human brain under controlled conditions. Using organoids as an in vitro proxy, researchers can now investigate the differences in molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie typical and atypical early brain development. In recent noteworthy examples of this approach, two different studies led by SFARI investigators created brain organoids derived from stem cells of people with ASD and neurotypical individuals and identified transcriptional changes that may be associated with ASD during early brain development at the level of single cell types (Jourdon et al., Nat. Neurosci., 2023; Li et al., Nature, 2023). — SFARI, 24d ago

Here, we critically evaluate whether cortical map changes really indicate that a region has undergone reorganisation, and, regardless of whether it has or not, are such changes causally relevant to behaviour. These are two different questions, and we will address the scientific evidence through their two lenses. Rather than attempting to be exhaustive in our review of the literature, which would be impossible given the widespread acceptance of the notion of reorganisation, we will instead present, and critically discuss, a carefully chosen subset of examples. The examples chosen, in our view, home in on key methodological, empirical, and conceptual pitfalls that have led to contemporary confusion over the notion of reorganisation. We will begin by reviewing examples from early post-natal experience, as critical periods of development are widely assumed to offer a unique opportunity for reorganisation. We will next consider extreme circumstances of input loss, due to blindness, deafness, and amputation, as well as increased input due to extended practice or rehabilitation. We will also consider changes triggered by abrupt alterations to our body, such as hand transplantation and tool-use, as well as injuries occurring to the brain itself. — eLife, 13d ago

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The team combined multiple fMRI paradigms with the hope of identifying neural traits most predictive of response to antipsychotic treatment—across the entire brain, not just in one specific region of interest. Provided such connectivity traits were identified, the team hoped to be able to predict, using modeling based on machine learning, the degree to which an individual patient’s symptoms would be reduced when they were put for the first time on a regimen of antipsychotic medicine. — A Connectivity Signature Predicting Response to Antipsychotic Therapy is Identified in First-Episode Psychosis Patients | Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, 4d ago

Defining the cellular injury threshold, the foundation of PANTHER’s approach to mTBI, has taken a tenacious investment. Animal brain cells are grown in a 3D transparent medium and then deformed at a carefully controlled rate and magnitude. Results have shown that depending on the experienced deformation rate, distinct pathologies (primary/secondary) can emerge with profound implications for injury classification and diagnosis. The threshold of injury is used in finite element models of the head. — Open Access Government, 4d ago

Immunity and inflammation: Growing evidence suggests that neurogenic-derived inflammatory processes in peripheral tissues, the spinal cord, and the brain contribute to the pathophysiology of fibromyalgia. This involves the release of biologically active agents like chemokines and cytokines, which activate the immune system. These processes underlie several clinical symptoms in fibromyalgia, including swelling, cognitive changes, and fatigue. Studies on patients have also confirmed the involvement of inflammation in fibromyalgia. People with this condition exhibit elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines in their circulation, including those released by immune cells. Stress and emotions are believed to be key triggers of neurogenic inflammation in fibromyalgia. — Principia Scientific Intl. | A science-based community, 4d ago

SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News, 3d ago

Can artificial intelligence improve life science? As much as life science

The New York Review of Books, 18d ago

Gut Instincts | Nitin K. Ahuja

medicalxpress.com, 3d ago

Brain waves usually found in sleep can protect against epileptic activity

USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, 3d ago

Alumna brings connection between domestic violence and traumatic brain injury to light in documentary

The Company of Biologists, 3d ago

ECR Spotlight – Kazuki Yoshino-Hashizawa

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Cell death also occurs in specific areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, that are critical for areas of cognition like memory and spatial navigation. Therapeutic interventions that can preserve cognitive function in AD are therefore of substantial importance, particularly because the incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease diagnoses is expected to grow as a function of the increase in elderly populations. — Open Access Government, 4d ago

...“While we know HDL cholesterol is important for cardiovascular health, this study suggests that we need further research to understand the role of very high HDL cholesterol in the context of brain health,” said first author and Monash University School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine senior research fellow Monira Hussain. “It may be beneficial to consider very high HDL cholesterol levels in prediction algorithms for dementia risk.”... — New Atlas, 4d ago

Newswise — TAMPA, Fla. — Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer because of its ability to quickly grow and spread throughout the body. More than half of those with advanced melanoma will see the disease spread to the brain, where it rapidly progresses, often leading to death in only three to four months. Researchers in Moffitt Cancer Center’s Donald A. Adam Melanoma and Skin Cancer Center of Excellence have been working to better understand what drives melanoma brain metastasis. In a new study published in Nature Communications, they report on the identification of a cell signaling pathway that regulates the metastatic spread of melanoma cells to the brain. — newswise.com, 4d ago

The research, published today (November 30) in the journal Nature Communications and involving the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, examined electroencephalogram (EEG) scans from electrodes in the brains of 25 patients with focal epilepsy (a type of epilepsy characterized by seizures arising from a specific part of the brain), while they carried out an associative memory task. — SciTechDaily, 4d ago

My research focuses on how children and adolescents learn about their environment, how brain circuitry involved with learning may be impacted by early life stress, and how these brain changes may confer risks for negative outcomes. Through the use of structural and functional MRI, my research aims to learn about the impact of stress on neurobiology through a focus on two different forms of behavior. First, I have explored how early life stress may increase risk for disruptive behavioral problems through alterations in the brain. Second, I have focused on how early life stress may convey risk for depression. Through a series of studies, I have found that the risks for different forms of psychopathology associated with early life stress are conveyed by specific alterations in brain circuitry responsible for reward and socio-emotional information processing. This research program includes longitudinal assessments of individuals at multiple levels of analysis, including neurobiology, family functioning, and developmental history. — EconoTimes, 4d ago

Cameron Carter, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, said of the work, "This study provides an important and clear example of how our increasing understanding of the functional organization of brain circuits can be harnessed to develop highly targeted therapies and to measure their impact both on the distressing symptoms of having OCD as well as the underlying brain circuits affected by the disorder."... — medicalxpress.com, 4d ago

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Single cell RNA-seq analysis of spinal locomotor circuitry in larval zebrafish

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Four Individually Identified Paired Dopamine Neurons Signal Taste Punishment in Larval Drosophila

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Researchers building ‘bionic breast’ to restore sensation for cancer survivors

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Birth Control Pills May Influence Brain Areas Involved in Fear Regulation

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The Brain on Opioids: Metabolic Disruptions in Addiction

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Genetic Screen Identified Prmt5 as a Neuroprotection Target against Cerebral Ischemia

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Anesthesia: Putting early sensory neurons to sleep

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Pluripotent stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells can be used to model effects of IL-6 on human neurodevelopment

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Concerning the question whether both brain systems are in operation in the same individual at the same time, we are not aware of any currently available tools that would allow us to actually test this assumption, but it could be an interesting avenue for future work. Another limitation of our study is that it is based on a cross-sectional dataset, and it is therefore impossible to disentangle causally directed relationships with certainty from correlations between MRI and transcriptional phenotypes. We also approached this question by using GWAS data on obesity and each of the two MRI metrics to estimate and test genetic correlations between obesity and ISOVF or ICVF. We found that ICVF was genetically correlated with obesity, but not ISOVF. This result is consistent with the bidirectional mechanistic model, whereby changes in neurite density (but not brain water) cause obesity, but it does not prove it. There are many other possible interpretations of a genetic correlation between phenotypes, that is pleiotropic genetic effects on both phenotypes, which do not entail a causal relationship between phenotypes. Further work will be needed to validate this and other causal models of the directional relationships between obesity and the brain, which could be important for future prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of obesity. — eLife, 4d ago

Raman spectrometry is a highly specific analytical technique that can provide real-time, quantitative diagnostic information by measuring subtle molecular responses to scattered light and accurately identifying changes in disease-specific diagnostic biomarkers. Previous research has demonstrated that the tech can accurately detect changes in animal brains and eye tissues with different levels of brain injuries, picking up the slightest changes. — New Atlas, 4d ago

...“We found that the same genes were involved in both experiments, but in opposite directions – genes turned on in one condition were turned off in the other. This idea that the brain might be using the same molecular machinery, but in opposite ways, could have major implications for the evolution of decision making.”... — Neuroscience News, 4d ago

Understanding persistent internal states like aggression could help researchers better uncover how the brain makes decisions—for instance, whether to stay mad or move on—and the individual circuits involved in these choices. Figuring out the underlying mechanisms behind aggression could also help scientists better understand aggressive behavior in humans, including behaviors that can occur alongside neurodegenerative or psychiatric diseases. — medicalxpress.com, 4d ago

Jan. 28, 2019 A study has shed light on the neurocomputational contributions to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans. The findings revealed distinct patterns for how the brain and ... — ScienceDaily, 4d ago

Their pre-clinical experiments found that increased HDAC8 expression and activity enhanced the ability of melanoma cells to metastasize to the brain, while no significant impact was observed in the number of metastatic tumors to other organs, such as the liver or lung. The researchers further investigated the molecular pathways of HDAC8-mediated brain metastasis and discovered that HDAC8 chemically modified the protein EP300, which subsequently caused cells to develop invasive characteristics. — medicalxpress.com, 4d ago

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..."This study was inspired by an experiment where we looked at brain gene expression in male three-spined stickleback during parental care or when defending their territory," explained Bell. "We found that the same genes were involved in both experiments, but in opposite directions—genes turned on in one condition were turned off in the other. This idea that the brain might be using the same molecular machinery, but in opposite ways, could have major implications for the evolution of decision making."... — phys.org, 4d ago

This study has shown us that the AIS is a key site in the early stages of ALS pathology and requires further investigation. We now need to expand our investigation across other spinal cord and brain regions and different genetic mutations. It will be important to examine whether these structural and molecular changes of the AIS destabilise the neurons somehow, rendering them vulnerable to further pathological insults”... — King's College London, 4d ago

Yet more data is gathered on top. One hundred thousand volunteers wore smartwatches for a week to record their physical activity. Based on the measurements, researchers made the remarkable discovery that data from wearables could predict Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before onset. Another 100,000 are taking part in the world’s largest multi-organ imaging project, receiving MRI scans of the brain and heart, along with bone density, retina and carotid artery scans. The images are driving new research into dementia, heart disease, arthritis and diabetes. — the Guardian, 4d ago

Sleep Review, 3d ago

Sleep-Like Brain Waves Detected in Awake Epilepsy Patients May Be Protective

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Hidden Belly Fat Could Be a Precursor of Alzheimer's Onset Years Later - BioMedWire (BMW)

Technology Networks, 7d ago

Your Lack of Sleep Is Hurting You

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Eye-safe laser device provides rapid, on-site diagnosis of concussion

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New Research Suggests the Cure for Depression Could All Be in Your Head - The Debrief

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According to Dr Kandraju Sai Satish, Consultant Neurologist & Epileptologist, Yashoda Hospital, Hyderabad, age is immune to seizures. Though the incidence of seizures is higher during the early and late stages of life, they can be seen for the first time at any age. While a cause can be found in many people with seizures, in a few cause remains unknown. Seizures can be classified as focal when they start from one small part of the brain on one side, and generalized, when seizures start from the whole of the brain simultaneously. This segregation is of vital importance as the medications which are used to treat focal and generalised seizures differ. Taking medications religiously without missing any single dose, having adequate sleep and avoiding recreational drug abuse are paramount to good control of seizures. — indiatvnews.com, 17d ago

The PhotoTheraPorts will subsequently be applied to photopharmacological neuromodulation therapies. For this purpose, photoswitchable drugs designed to synergize with the light emitter platform will be developed. These drugs activate only when exposed to a specific color of light. This second technology will undergo testing to mitigate neuropathic pain by illuminating specific regions of the spine. Additionally, an effort will be made to inhibit the neuronal hyperactivity characteristic of focal epilepsy, which affects a limited region of the brain and is untreatable in 30% of epileptic patients. — Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, 13d ago

In a collaboration between the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Catholic University, Rome, and the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, neuroscientists have achieved a significant breakthrough in understanding and manipulating memory-related processes in the brain. This effort, led by Claudio Grassi, Professor of Physiology and Director of the Department of Neuroscience, holds vast potential for advancing our comprehension of memory processes and, crucially, for identifying innovative solutions for neuropsychiatric disorders such as dementia. — synbiobeta.com, 19d ago

Nevertheless, scientific research throughout the last decade has demonstrated that being transgender can have a lot to do with the health of the brain and the rest of the nervous system. A complex interplay of factors are at play, including stress and discrimination as well as the nuanced effects of hormonal medications that many, though not all, transgender people use as part of their medical transition process. Simply put, transgender people have both distinct risks and treatment needs that the neurological community needs to better understand. — Scientific American, 17d ago

..."Given how revolutionary it is for humanity, imagine a technology like that being released with no prior testing, no deliberative democracy, no oversight, no premarket clearance, very little discussion or even safety testing," she said.Artificial intelligence could make it easier for social media companies to exploit the human brain for profit, Ms. Farahany said. But it can also be used for good.AI-assisted work can reduce burnout and increase worker safety, she said, citing studies by Pennsylvania State University and Microsoft."We're entering into an age of partnership with technology," Ms. Farahany said. "That's threatening for many people, but it doesn't have to undermine human thinking, if we invest in the right way."CMU's Block Center for Technology and Society expects to release a report this week on operationalizing AI across various business sectors.Even the controversial idea of computers building psychological profiles for humans isn't inherently harmful, Ms. Farahany said. Duolingo's AI-powered understanding of human learning helps people learn languages faster. Personalized dieting software could similarly help people lose weight."I don't think addiction is necessarily in and of itself bad," she said.But when the addiction overrides humans' ability to act in their own self-interest, then there's a problem.AI has already infiltrated daily life in ways that can be hard to detect. Ms. Farahany showed statistics that suggest 77 percent of people are using an AI-powered device, but only 33 percent of people are aware they are.One way to overcome the gap in understanding is through education, she said.In Finland, public school children are learning how to discern between content that was manipulated with AI. That awareness could become more important as deepfakes infiltrate political races and pornography.Her strongest example of AI being used for good was in the early detection of seizures. By training computers on epilepsy data, researchers in Israel and Spain can now identify warning signs of a potential seizure before it occurs."This is the kind of insight where we're designing technology for human flourishing and we can imagine a really different world," Ms. Farahany said.Her talk was part of CMU's fall lecture series. Duquesne University is hosting its annual tech ethics convention on Friday, focused on generative AI.Global leaders met in Britain last week to discuss the responsible development of AI. The summit came days after President Joe Biden signed an executive order demanding safety testing from AI developers and assigning federal agencies to oversee the explosive technology.©2023 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. — GovTech, 24d ago

Anesthesia is a major confounding factor in preclinical stroke research as stroke rarely occurs in sedated patients. Moreover, anesthesia affects both brain functions and the stroke outcome acting as neurotoxic or protective agent. So far, no approaches were well suited to induce stroke while imaging hemodynamics along with simultaneous large-scale recording of brain functions in awake animals. For this reason, the first critical hours following the stroke insult and associated functional alteration remain poorly understood. Here, we present a strategy to investigate both stroke hemodynamics and stroke-induced functional alterations without the confounding effect of anesthesia, i.e., under awake condition. Functional ultrasound (fUS) imaging was used to continuously monitor variations in cerebral blood volume (CBV) in +65 brain regions/hemisphere for up to 3hrs after stroke onset. The focal cortical ischemia was induced using a chemo-thrombotic agent suited for permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion in awake rats, and followed by ipsi- and contralesional whiskers stimulation to investigate on the dynamic of the thalamo-cortical functions. Early (0-3hrs) and delayed (day 5) fUS recording enabled to characterize the features of the ischemia (location, CBV loss), spreading depolarizations (occurrence, amplitude) and functional alteration of the somatosensory thalamo-cortical circuits. Post-stroke thalamo-cortical functions were affected not only early after the stroke onset but were also altered secondarly and remotely from the initial insult. Overall, our procedure enables early, continuous, and chronic evaluations of hemodynamics and brain functions which, combined to stroke or other pathologies, aims to better understand physiopathologies toward the development of clinically relevant therapeutic strategies. — elifesciences.org, 25d ago

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Although the team’s work represents the most comprehensive analysis of INPP5D in the AD brain, it remains to be determined whether INPP5D should be targeted with therapeutics. The team noted that their findings suggest INPP5D activity in AD brains is complex and future studies are needed to understand if INPP5D can be targeted to prevent cognitive decline in patients with AD. “A key question surrounds whether INPP5D is a feasible target for therapeutic development in AD,” they wrote. “Selective agonists and antagonists have been developed for INPP5D but the biology of INPP5D in the AD brain is complex and it is not immediately apparent whether INPP5D activity should be enhanced or inhibited for therapeutic benefit.”... — GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, 4d ago

These findings could aid understanding of human aggression and related neurological conditions, highlighting the need for revised models of aggression in the brain. — Neuroscience News, 4d ago

Erin Crown, MHS, PA-C: I think I hit on that a little bit earlier. Again, just thinking about the severity of the illness and the implications in the life of the human being. I don’t talk about depressed patients. I don’t talk about schizophrenic patients or bipolar patients. I talk about people living with major depressive disorder and living with schizophrenia and living with bipolar disorder because I think it’s really important to place that emphasis on their life and to destigmatize that labeling situation that so often occurs and hinders sometimes the seeking of treatment because of that concern for the labeling. And so I think that as we consider the relationship implications, the financial implications, the personal implications that can even potentially, due to the stress of the self-imposed perspective of the illness and the stigma around it and how it’s impacting them, can even deepen and darken the depressive episode for some people. Thinking about the urgency—again, not to be a broken record—but the urgency to get them on a path to wellness and to sum up what these gentlemen said a few moments ago. When we are acting at NMDA [N-methyl-D-aspartate] and AMPA [α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid], essentially we have release of BDNF [brain-derived neurotrophic factor], activation of kinases, anti-inflammatory effects, neuroplasticity, neurogenesis. That is the recipe. If we’re baking cookies here, that is the recipe for improving depressive symptoms. — Psychiatric Times, 4d ago

The device works by scanning the back of the eye where the optic nerve sits. Because the optic nerve is so closely linked to the brain, it carries the same biological information in the form of protein and lipid biomarkers. These biomarkers exist in a very tightly regulated balance, meaning even the slightest change may have serious effects on the "brain-health." TBI causes these biomarkers to change, indicating that something is wrong. — medicalxpress.com, 4d ago

Coughlin notes that TSPO is a protein associated with immune cells in the brain known as microglia. This protein is always present at relatively low levels. When a person experiences a traumatic brain injury (TBI) of any kind, TSPO levels are significantly increased as part of the immune response. Past studies have shown the presence of elevated levels of TSPO up to 17 years after injury, which, researchers say, indicates the brain remains in a heightened state of injury and repair long after the traumatic event. — medicalxpress.com, 4d ago

...“Leveraging neuromorphic hardware to provide portable, power-efficient solutions for use in the identification of sensory data is a game-changer for a plethora of practical applications, such as e-nose systems,” said Anup Vanarse, Research Scientist at BrainChip. “This latest research paper shows how Akida’s olfactory analysis technology allows for efficient and accurate detection of various strains of bacteria in blood to help with important disease diagnosis. Incorporating beneficial AI within sensory devices will provide the means for massive breakthroughs in the healthcare industry.”... — BrainChip, 4d ago

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Connectivity between particular default mode network areas of the brain has been linked to higher levels of rumination in depressed individuals. The depressive among us ruminate about their regrets, failures, shame, and anger. Further links with default mode network dysregulation have been made to autism, schizophrenia, and other conditions. — Psychology Today, 15d ago

Ultrafine particles (UFP) with a diameter of ≤0.1 μm, are contributors to ambient air pollution and derived mainly from traffic emissions, yet their health effects remain poorly characterized. The olfactory mucosa (OM) is located at the rooftop of the nasal cavity and directly exposed to both the environment and the brain. Mounting evidence suggests that pollutant particles affect the brain through the olfactory tract, however, the exact cellular mechanisms of how the OM responds to air pollutants remain poorly known. Here we show that the responses of primary human OM cells are altered upon exposure to UFPs and that different fuels and engines elicit different adverse effects. We used UFPs collected from exhausts of a heavy-duty-engine run with renewable diesel (A0) and fossil diesel (A20), and from a modern diesel vehicle run with renewable diesel (Euro6) and compared their health effects on the OM cells by assessing cellular processes on the functional and transcriptomic levels. Quantification revealed all samples as UFPs with the majority of particles being ≤0.1 μm by an aerodynamic diameter. Exposure to A0 and A20 induced substantial alterations in processes associated with inflammatory response, xenobiotic metabolism, olfactory signaling, and epithelial integrity. Euro6 caused only negligible changes, demonstrating the efficacy of aftertreatment devices. Furthermore, when compared to A20, A0 elicited less pronounced effects on OM cells, suggesting renewable diesel induces less adverse effects in OM cells. Prior studies and these results suggest that PAHs may disturb the inflammatory process and xenobiotic metabolism in the OM and that UFPs might mediate harmful effects on the brain through the olfactory route. This study provides important information on the adverse effects of UFPs in a human-based in vitro model, therefore providing new insight to form the basis for mitigation and preventive actions against the possible toxicological impairments caused by UFP exposure. — interestingengineering.com, 14d ago

...“Mental disorders have an enormous impact on individuals, families and society. Together they represent about 10% of the U.S. GDP. Mental disorders are fundamentally disorders of brain function, but functional measures are not used currently to diagnose most brain disorders or to look to see if a treatment’s working. Instead, these disorders are diagnosed behaviorally. This is a weak approach, because there are a lot of different mental brain states that can lead to exactly the same behavior,” Gallant said. “What we need is more powerful MRI machines like this so that we can map, at high resolution, how information is represented in the brain. To me this is the big potential clinical benefit of ultra-high resolution MRI.”... — SciTechDaily, 7d ago

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Study reveals the critical role of microglia in human brain development