Lifeboat Foundation

A new study conducted by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis has explored the composition of gut bacteria in individuals in the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s disease. The research, which is published in Science Translational Medicine, not only identifies potential indicators of heightened dementia risk, but also offers prospects for developing microbiome-altering preventive treatments to combat cognitive decline.

Longevity. Technology: Previously, science has noted differences in the gut microbiomes of individuals with symptomatic Alzheimer’s compared with their healthy counterparts. However, the current study delves deeper, focusing on the gut microbiomes of individuals in the crucial pre-symptomatic phase. During this phase, individuals accumulate amyloid beta and tau proteins in their brains without exhibiting neurodegeneration or cognitive decline, which can persist for over two decades. Earlier diagnosis would enable people to access support and resources, plan for the future and well as onboarding treatments that could slow the progression of the disease. An idea of future numbers of patients would also allow health care infrastructure to be better prepared.

The researchers evaluated participants who volunteered at the Charles F and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center at Washington University, specifically selecting cognitively normal individuals. These participants provided samples of stool, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid, recorded their dietary habits, and underwent PET and MRI brain scans.

The findings suggest that glucose-sensing neurons in the brain are important for whole body glucose regulation, including during diabetes.

There’s a bouncer in everyone: The blood-brain barrier, a layer of cells between blood vessels and the rest of the brain, kicks out toxins, pathogens and other undesirables that can sabotage the brain’s precious gray matter.

When the bouncer is off its guard and a rowdy element gains entry, a variety of conditions can crop up. Barrier-invading cancer cells can develop into tumors, and multiple sclerosis can occur when too many white blood cells slip pass the barrier, leading to an autoimmune attack on the protective layer of brain nerves, hindering their communication with the rest of the body.

“A leaky blood-brain barrier is a common pathway for a lot of brain diseases, so to be able to seal off the barrier has been a long sought-after goal in medicine,” said Calvin Kuo, MD, PhD, the Maureen Lyles D’Ambrogio Professor and a professor of hematology.

Brain tissue is one of the most intricate tissue specimens that scientists have arguably ever dealt with. Packed with an immeasurable amount of information, the human brain is the most sophisticated computational device with its network of around 86 billion neurons.

Understanding such complexity is a difficult task, and therefore making progress requires technologies to unravel the tiny, complex interactions taking place in the brain at microscopic scales. Imaging is therefore an enabling tool in neuroscience.

Continue reading “Large collaboration yields unprecedented ‘live’ view into the brain’s complexity” »

Summary: A novel study suggests that silence can indeed be ‘heard.’ Philosophers and psychologists, using auditory illusions, demonstrated how silence distorts our perception of time, much like sounds do.

The study indicates that the brain perceives and processes silence in a manner similar to sounds. The research establishes a novel method to study the perception of absence, broadening the scope for future exploration in the realm of sensory perception.

Summary: Deep-sleep brain waves could be a significant factor in regulating blood sugar. The research shows that a combination of sleep spindles and slow waves can predict an increase in insulin sensitivity, subsequently lowering glucose levels.

This discovery highlights sleep as a potential lifestyle adjustment to improve blood sugar control and manage diabetes. Furthermore, these deep-sleep brain waves could also be used to predict an individual’s next-day glucose levels, proving more accurate than traditional sleep metrics.

The “circuit” metaphor of the brain is as indisputable as it is familiar: Neurons forge direct physical connections to create functional networks, for instance to store memories or produce thoughts. But the metaphor is also incomplete. What drives these circuits and networks to come together? New evidence suggests that at least some of this coordination comes from electric fields.

The new study in Cerebral Cortex shows that as animals played working memory games, the information about what they were remembering was coordinated across two key brain regions by the electric field that emerged from the underlying electrical activity of all participating neurons. The field, in turn, appeared to drive the neural activity, or the fluctuations of voltage apparent across the cells’ membranes.

If the neurons are musicians in an orchestra, the brain regions are their sections, and the memory is the music they produce, the study’s authors said, then the electric field is the conductor.

A fly’s brain can tell us a lot about insect intelligence and maybe a thing or two about our own.

A team of scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has found that an existing cancer drug could be repurposed to target a subset of cancers that currently lack targeted treatment options and are often associated with poor outcomes.

This subset of cancers makes up 15% of all cancers and is especially prevalent in aggressive tumors such as osteosarcoma (bone tumor) and glioblastoma (brain tumor).

These cancerous cells stay “immortal” using a mechanism called the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT), but the team has demonstrated that ponatinib, a cancer drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, blocks key steps in the ALT mechanism that leads it to fail.