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Archive for the ‘neuroscience’ category

Mar 18, 2024

Can gut bacteria help shape newborn’s immune system? Study sheds light

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, health, neuroscience

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine have discovered that unique bacteria colonize the gut shortly after birth and make the neurotransmitter serotonin to educate gut immune cells that help in preventing allergic reactions to food and the bacteria themselves during early development.

The study published in the journal Science Immunology on March 15, 2024, revealed that bacteria abundant in the guts of newborns produce serotonin, which promotes the development of immune cells called T-regulatory cells or Tregs. These cells suppress inappropriate immune responses to help prevent autoimmune diseases and dangerous allergic reactions to harmless food items or beneficial gut microbes.

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Mar 18, 2024

New Research: Talking Faster Is Linked to Better Brain Health As We Age

Posted by in categories: life extension, neuroscience

As we age, we might begin to observe that it takes more time to recall the exact words we want to use. This situation can raise worries about cognitive deterioration and the risk of dementia.

However, a new study by Baycrest and the University of Toronto suggests that talking speed is a more important indicator of brain health than difficulty finding words, which appears to be a normal part of aging. This is one of the first studies to look at both differences in natural speech and brain health among healthy adults.

“Our results indicate that changes in general talking speed may reflect changes in the brain,” says Dr. Jed Meltzer, Baycrest’s Canada Research Chair in Interventional Cognitive Neuroscience and the lead author on this study. “This suggests that talking speed should be tested as part of standard cognitive assessments to help clinicians detect cognitive decline faster and help older adults support their brain health as they age.”

Mar 17, 2024

This soft brain implant unfurls its arms under the skull

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, neuroscience

A soft brain implant that unfurls under the skull could give doctors a less invasive way to monitor patients’ brain activity — and maybe allow people to directly control technology with their minds.

The challenge: Placing an electrode array on the surface of the brain allows scientists to see neural activity in far more detail than is possible with electrodes outside of the skull.

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Mar 17, 2024

How microbes influence our brain health

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience

Our gut microbiome has been linked to conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Anthony King reports on the connections.

Mar 17, 2024

Designer immune-cell therapy could shrink deadly brain tumors, early trials show

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Two early clinical trials that together included nine patients suggest that a treatment called CAR-T therapy could treat glioblastoma, but its long-term effects are unknown.

Mar 17, 2024

Extreme treatment for alcoholism slashes drinking by 90% in monkeys

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, neuroscience

According to the CDC, more than 140,000 Americans are dying each year from alcohol-related causes, and the rate of deaths has been rising for years, especially during the pandemic.

The idea: For occasional drinkers, alcohol causes the brain to release more dopamine, a chemical that makes you feel good. Chronic alcohol use, however, causes the brain to produce, and process, less dopamine, and this persistent dopamine deficit has been linked to alcohol relapse.

There is currently no way to reverse the changes in the brain brought about by AUD, but a team of US researchers suspected that an in-development gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease might work as a dopamine-replenishing treatment for alcoholism, too.

Mar 16, 2024

Abnormal brain structure identified in children with developmental language problems

Posted by in category: neuroscience

A rigorous analysis of numerous studies concludes that a part of the brain traditionally associated with movement is abnormal in children with developmental language impairments, according to Georgetown University Medical Center neuroscientists. The discovery has the potential to improve both the diagnosis and treatment of the language difficulties.

The researchers investigated in developmental language disorder. This condition, which impacts the development of various aspects of language, is about as common as attention-deficit/ (ADHD) and dyslexia, and more prevalent than autism. The scientists found that abnormalities occurred specifically in the anterior neostriatum within the basal ganglia, a structure found deep in the brain.

They describe their findings in Nature Human Behaviour on March 15.

Mar 16, 2024

Incredible cancer breakthrough sees woman’s brain tumor almost disappear in just five days

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

They treated three patients with recurrent glioblastoma using a variant of an existing CAR-T therapy, adding additional antibodies to the treatment — and the results were truly astounding.

According to the paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine, one patient saw their tumor decrease in size by 18.5% two days after the treatment, and by day 69, the tumor had decreased by 60.7%, while another saw their ‘tumor regress rapidly’, according to Mass General Brigham.

After the third patient was treated, an MRI showed that a single infusion had led to a ‘near-complete tumor regression’ in just five days.

Mar 16, 2024

Alzheimer’s Disease Warning Signs: When to Call a Doctor

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Here are 10 signs to look for if you suspect a loved one may have Alzheimer’s disease:


If you suspect a loved one may have Alzheimer’s disease, here are 10 signs to look for from WebMD.

Mar 15, 2024

Scientists demonstrate how individual differences in ‘whole-brain’ activity are generated in roundworms

Posted by in categories: biological, computing, neuroscience

Joint research led by Yu Toyoshima and Yuichi Iino of the University of Tokyo has demonstrated individual differences in, and successfully extracted commonalities from, the whole-brain activity of roundworms. The researchers also found that computer simulations based on the whole-brain activity of roundworms more accurately reflect real-brain activity when they include so-called “noise,” or probabilistic elements. The findings were published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.

The Caenorhabditis elegans is a favorite among neuroscientists because its 302 neurons are completely mapped. This gives a fantastic opportunity to reveal their neural mechanism at a systems level. Thus far, scientists have been making progress in revealing the different states and patterns of each neuron and the assemblies they form. However, how these states and patterns are generated has been a less explored frontier.

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