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Category: neuroscience

Before babies can hear, their brains are already wiring for sound

Long before a baby’s ears are functional, the brain is already building the circuitry needed for hearing, according to new research from Johns Hopkins University. Published in the journal Science Advances, the study in mice identifies a previously unknown neural “shortcut” that organizes the auditory system before birth, offering new insight into how the auditory system prepares to process sound and eventually learn language.

While it’s well-known that sound travels from the ear to the auditory cortex, the brain’s hub for hearing, Johns Hopkins researchers discovered a new neural circuit that bypasses the ear entirely. Their findings show that the frontal cortex—the region involved in vocalization—sends signals directly to the auditory cortex, allowing the developing brain to activate hearing-related circuits before external sounds can be heard.

“Our results provide the first direct functional evidence of this biological shortcut that doesn’t go through hearing,” says senior author Patrick Kanold, a professor of biomedical engineering and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins. “It’s a novel brain activity source that can shape the earliest development in mammals, like interpreting information and discerning complex sounds.”

Breakdown of immune cells’ interaction is key driver in aging, study finds

We may age at different rates, but none of us escapes aging. A study in mice and human cells by Stanford Medicine researchers pins much of the blame on a particular type of immune cell’s increasing inability, with advancing age, to gobble up another immune cell type.

So-called tissue-resident macrophages appear to be central coordinators of age-related organ decline. Blocking a single receptor on these cells preserved the youthfulness of multiple organs in mice, including the brain, heart, skeletal and heart muscle, liver, spleen, bone marrow, kidney and colon. The receptor binds specifically to a hormone known to cause inflammation and pain in humans as well as mice.

In mice, selectively disabling this receptor exclusively on tissue-resident macrophages prevented chronic inflammation-driven disorders of aging, including frailty, excessive fat accumulation and heart trouble. It also substantially slowed cognitive decline, said Katrin Andreasson, MD, the Edward F. and Irene Thiel Pimley professor of neurology and neurological sciences.

Can magnetic fields help fight Parkinson’s disease?

An international team has succeeded in using a magnetic field to target structures deep within the brain. The researchers injected magnetic nanoplatelets into the relevant region. By doing so, they succeeded in treating movement deficits in mice suffering from Parkinson’s-like symptoms. The new method is less invasive than standard stimulation procedures using implanted electrodes that are currently used to treat certain Parkinson’s disease patients.

The study from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), RWTH Aachen and the Universities of Maastricht (the Netherlands) and Leuven (Belgium) has been published in the journal Advanced Science.

In Parkinson’s disease, nerve cells in the brain that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine gradually deteriorate. This affects the motor circuits and leads to tremors and other movement disorders. A brain pacemaker may help some patients. This is a small device that is implanted under the collarbone. From there, it stimulates a region deep within the brain called the subthalamic nucleus (STN for short). This changes pathological activity in these neural circuits and can alleviate movement disorders.

New multiple sclerosis criteria could reveal disease before symptoms appear

The international guidelines for diagnosing multiple sclerosis (MS), called the McDonald criteria, underwent their most significant overhaul in a decade in 2024. The internationally recognized framework is used to diagnose MS by combining clinical, imaging and laboratory findings. Dr. Jiwon Oh, director of the BARLO MS Centre at St. Michael’s Hospital, was among the experts who helped write them.

Now, in a commentary published in Nature Medicine, Oh has brought together nearly 30 of the world’s leading MS clinicians to critically evaluate what those changes mean and where the field must go next to improve health outcomes for people with MS. Many of its co-authors also helped develop the revised criteria in 2024.

“This commentary looks critically at the new criteria and explains why these changes matter, what challenges may arise as they’re used, and what can be done to address them,” explains Oh. “It also takes a broader look at where the field needs to go next.”

This sugar-coated therapy boosted survival against deadly brain cancer by 50% in mice

A new experimental treatment may have found a way to outsmart glioblastoma’s toughest defense: the blood-brain barrier. Researchers used sugar-coated nanoparticles to ferry genetic instructions that restore a key tumor-suppressing protein directly into brain cancer cells. In mouse studies, the therapy increased median survival by 50% while shrinking tumors without noticeable damage to other organs.

Brain-inspired nanopore device uses current-induced heating for memory operations

Some researchers are leaning into biology for inspiration in computing. In particular, neuromorphic computing offers a brain-inspired approach to hardware that replaces traditional binary processing with systems that function more like neurons and synapses. Now, a new study, published in Nature Communications, describes an innovative design for a fluidic memristor that uses its own self-heating mechanism to induce a history-dependent memory effect.

So far, most memristor (memory resistor) devices have used solid materials with electrons or holes functioning as charge carriers. But fluidic memristors instead take advantage of the movement of ions in liquids, which more closely mimics biological signaling, like that which occurs in the brain. However, existing fluidic memristors can be difficult to fabricate and offer a limited range of memory behaviors. The authors of the new study came up with a way to overcome some of these limitations by using temperature fluctuations while also making the device more “brain-like.”

They write, The exploration of additional memristive mechanisms may be beneficial. In conventional integrated circuits, localized heating is generally regarded as an unnecessary and even harmful side effect. However, in biological neural systems, thermal signals are closely linked to essential life processes. They significantly affect neuronal functions, including ion channel activation, action potential conduction speed, and firing patterns.

Neurologic Diagnoses Before and After Traumatic Brain InjuryA Retrospective Cohort Study of Older Veterans

Background and ObjectivesTraumatic brain injury (TBI) during mid-to-late life is associated with increased risk of stroke, Parkinson disease (PD), epilepsy, and dementia. These conditions may also predispose to TBI. Thus, we investigated the incidence of…

Implant helps paralyzed man to feed himself and drink from a cup

A neuroprosthetic system has helped a man with paralysis move his hand and feel touch again following a spinal cord injury, reports research published in Nature Medicine. Some of the system’s benefits continued even when the device was turned off, suggesting that it may support longer-term recovery as well as help movement in real time.

Spinal cord injury is a leading cause of paralysis, and more than half of cases involve tetraplegia, in which movement of the arms and legs is affected. Complete spinal cord injuries, in which there is no voluntary movement or feeling below the level of the injury, are particularly difficult to treat. Previous brain–computer interface systems have helped restore some movement but have not yet restored a sense of touch or supported longer-term recovery.

Chad Bouton and colleagues developed a “double neural bypass” system that reads brain signals linked to a person’s intention to move. It then uses these signals to help control a person’s own hand by delivering targeted stimulation to the spinal cord and the part of the brain involved in touch, the primary somatosensory cortex.

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