Lifeboat Foundation

Before epilepsy was understood to be a neurological condition, people believed it was caused by the moon, or by phlegm in the brain. They condemned seizures as evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession, and killed or castrated sufferers to prevent them from passing tainted blood to a new generation.

Today we know epilepsy is a disease. By and large, it’s accepted that a person who causes a fatal traffic accident while in the grip of a seizure should not be charged with murder.

That’s good, says Stanford University neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky. That’s progress. But there’s still a long way to go.

Continue reading “Stanford scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don’t have free will” »

Researchers from University of California San Diego School of Medicine have used single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to identify a pattern of gene expression that can be used to predict whether or not neurons will regenerate after an injury. Tests in mice showed that this “Regeneration Classifier” was consistently reliable in predicting the regeneration potential of neurons across the nervous system and at different developmental stages. Conditional gene deletion then validated a role for NFE2L2 (or NRF2), a master regulator of antioxidant response, in corticospinal tract regeneration.

“Single-cell sequencing technology is helping us look at the biology of neurons in much more detail than has ever been possible, and this study really demonstrates that capability,” said senior author Binhai Zheng, PhD, professor in the Department of Neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “What we’ve discovered here could be just the beginning of a new generation of sophisticated biomarkers based on single-cell data.” Zheng and colleagues reported on their findings in Neuron, in a paper titled “Deep scRNA sequencing reveals a broadly applicable Regeneration Classifier and implicates antioxidant response in corticospinal axon regeneration.” In their paper the team concluded, “Our data demonstrate a universal transcriptomic signature underlying the regenerative potential of vastly different neuronalpopulations and illustrate that deep sequencing of only hundreds of phenotypically identified neurons has the power to advance regenerative biology.”

Neurons are among the slowest cells to regenerate after an injury. While scientists have made progress in understanding neuronal regeneration, it remains unknown why some neurons regenerate and others do not.

Study finds that in worms, the HSN neuron uses multiple chemicals and connections to orchestrate egg-laying and locomotion over the course of several minutes.

A new MIT

MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1861. It is organized into five Schools: architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science. MIT’s impact includes many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. Their stated goal is to make a better world through education, research, and innovation.

High-resolution maps of biological annotations in the brain are increasingly generated and shared. In this Review, Bazinet and colleagues discuss how brain connectomes can be enriched with biological annotations to address new questions about brain network organization.

From every study they could find, including research that was never published, research by the military and private businesses, and research that had sat dormant on hard drives for decades to find out how personality and intelligence relate to each another.⁠
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Fourteen years later, the massive data catalog has dropped. It contains 79 personality traits and 97 cognitive abilities from 1,300 studies from over 50 countries including over 2 million participants. And an early meta-analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that personality and intelligence relate in some surprising ways.⁠
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Personality describes how someone generally thinks, feels, and behaves. Intelligence (termed cognitive ability by the researchers) describes how well someone can understand and apply information.⁠
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Here are 3 of the 5 findings:⁠
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1. Extraversion, a measure of sociality and enthusiasm, was only negligibly related to intelligence overall. However, the activity facet more strongly correlated, and (surprisingly) sociability had a small negative relationship with some cognitive abilities. ⁠
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2. Neuroticism encompasses negative emotionality, which can inhibit advanced thinking. Despite the trope of the moody genius, perhaps it’s no surprise that higher levels of neuroticism predicted lower levels of intelligence, albeit weakly. The uneven temper and depression facets were particularly strong predictors of decreased intelligence. ⁠
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3. Conscientiousness, a measure of self-regulation and orderliness, correlated positively with intelligence overall. But some facets, including cautiousness and routine seeking, predicted lower cognitive abilities.⁠
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For the rest of the findings, along with something interesting they learned about extraversion, click here: https://www.freethink.com/society/study-personality-intellig…jjjrtebdkm.

Article by Elizabeth Gilbert.

There is an intense, worldwide search for novel materials to build computer microchips with that are not based on classic transistors but on much more energy-saving, brain-like components. However, whereas the theoretical basis for classic transistor-based digital computers is solid, there are no real theoretical guidelines for the creation of brain-like computers.

Such a theory would be absolutely necessary to put the efforts that go into engineering new kinds of microchips on solid ground, argues Herbert Jaeger, Professor of Computing in Cognitive Materials at the University of Groningen.

Computers have, so far, relied on stable switches that can be off or on, usually transistors. These digital computers are logical machines and their programming is also based on logical reasoning. For decades, computers have become more powerful by further miniaturization of the transistors, but this process is now approaching a physical limit. That is why scientists are working to find new materials to make more versatile switches, which could use more values than just the digitals 0 or 1.

A technique based on modulating quantum processes inside human cells could improve treatment for glioblastoma.

A neuromusculoskeletal hand prosthesis grants long-term stable neural control, sensory feedback, and skeletal attachment.

Previous research has implicated fungi in chronic neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, but there is limited understanding of how these common microbes could be involved in the development of these conditions.

Working with animal models, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions discovered how the fungus Candida albicans enters the brain, activates two separate mechanisms in brain cells that promote its clearance, and, important for the understanding of Alzheimer’s disease development, generates amyloid beta (Ab)-like peptides, toxic protein fragments from the amyloid precursor protein that are considered to be at the center of the development of Alzheimer’s disease. The study appears in the journal Cell Reports.

“Our lab has years of experience studying fungi, so we embarked on the study of the connection between C. albicans and Alzheimer’s disease in animal models,” said corresponding author Dr. David Corry, Fulbright Endowed Chair in Pathology and professor of pathology and immunology and medicine at Baylor. He also is a member of Baylor’s Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center. “In 2019, we reported that C. albicans does get into the brain where it produces changes that are very similar to what is seen in Alzheimer’s disease. The current study extends that work to understand the molecular mechanisms.”