An early-life anxious temperament (AT) is a risk factor for the development of anxiety, depression, and comorbid substance abuse. We validated a nonhuman primate model of early-life AT and identified the dorsal amygdala as a core component of AT’s neural circuit. Here, we combine RNA sequencing, viral-vector gene manipulation, functional brain imaging, and behavioral phenotyping to uncover AT’s molecular substrates.
Neural development is the complex, lifelong process of forming and refining the nervous system, beginning with embryonic neurulation (neural tube formation) and continuing through maturation and remodeling.
The brain starts forming weeks after conception, with development continuing through childhood and adolescence.
Signaling molecules like Sonic hedgehog (SHH) and TGF-beta regulate this process.
Brain architecture is shaped by experiences and environmental factors.
Disruptions can cause neural tube defects like spina bifida.
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A Dartmouth study challenges the conventional view that the amygdala—the two-sided structure deep in the brain involved in emotion, learning, and decision making—is simply the brain’s primitive “fear center,” reflexively driving us to avoid the things we fear, from high places and tight spaces to spiders and large crowds. The researchers report in Nature Communications that the amygdala is far more complex, acting as a sophisticated arbiter to help the brain choose between competing strategies for learning and decision-making.
“Historically, the amygdala has been studied from the perspective of fear learning, and it has been generalized to reward learning,” says Jae Hyung Woo, a Ph.D. candidate in the psychological and brain sciences and the study’s first author. “Our main hypothesis was that it must have other functions given its extensive connections to the rest of the brain.”
As computing systems push beyond silicon limits, researchers seek materials that can do more than simply store and process data. Molecular electronics once promised ultra compact devices, but real world molecular behaviour proved unpredictable. In parallel, neuromorphic computing has aimed to build hardware that can learn and adapt like the brain. Yet most existing platforms rely on rigid materials that only imitate learning through complex circuitry.
Greater adherence to the DASH diet, plant-based dietary patterns, or diets with lower hyperinsulinemia and inflammation was associated with lower risk of subjective cognitive decline and better cognitive function in adults.
Question Are healthy dietary patterns associated with lower risk of subjective cognitive decline and better objectively measured cognitive function?
Findings In this cohort study performing a systematic evaluation of 6 dietary patterns among 159 347 participants, greater adherence to a healthy diet, exemplified by the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, was associated with lower risk of subjective cognitive decline and better objectively measured cognitive function. The associations were most pronounced when the diet was followed during midadulthood (ages 45–54 years).
Meaning Results suggest that a healthy diet, such as the DASH diet, was associated with early indicators of cognitive aging, which underscores the importance of a healthy diet for maintaining long-term cognitive health.
Researchers have conducted a neuroimaging study to investigate how the brain is organized and how that integrated system gives rise to intelligence.
Modern neuroscience understands the brain as a set of specialized systems. Aspects of brain function such as attention, perception, memory, language, and thought have been mapped onto distinct brain networks, and each has been examined largely in isolation.
While this approach has yielded major advances, it has left unresolved one of the most basic facts about human cognition: its overall unity as an integrated system.
A patch made of stem cells from donor placentas has been used to treat fetuses in the womb with a severe form of spina bifida as part of a world-first trial. The novel approach seems to have reversed a brain complication associated with the congenital condition at least as effectively as the go-to treatment, but is expected to enable more children to walk over the long term.
The mother of one of the babies, who is now 4 years old, says she expected that her son Toby would require a wheelchair when he was diagnosed with the condition in the womb. “But Toby is healthy [and] has hit all of his milestones – he’s walking, running and jumping – and has no problems with bladder control, which is rare for people with the condition,” she says.
Spina bifida – which affects about 1 in every 2,800 births in the US every year – occurs when a baby’s spine and spinal cord do not fully develop in the womb. In the most severe form of the condition, called myelomeningocele, the spinal cord and its surrounding tissue protrude out of a gap in the vertebrae, which often impairs mobility and bowel and bladder control. The cause of spina bifida is unknown, but folic acid deficiency during pregnancy raises the risk.
One of the standard treatments involves surgery in the womb that tucks the spinal cord and the surrounding tissue back into the vertebrae, before sewing up the skin to form a tight seal. “But many children still end up unable to walk and there’s [usually] no improvement in bowel or bladder control,” says Diana Farmer at the University of California, Davis.
This led Farmer and her colleagues to wonder if the addition of stem cells could help by promoting the growth and repair of spinal tissue. To find out, they recruited six pregnant women carrying fetuses with myelomeningocele.
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Gene therapy has been successfully used to treat a number of diseases, including immune deficiencies, hereditary blindness, hemophilia and, recently, Huntington’s disease, a fatal neurological disorder.
An advance reported in the journal Neuron adds to the technique’s growing track record of evidence supporting the view that it could unlock powerful, personalized therapies: researchers found that released markers of activity (RMAs) ⎯ engineered proteins designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and persist in the blood for hours at a time, providing a reliable and noninvasive way to get information about gene expression in the brain ⎯ work just as well in monkeys as they do in mice.
Alongside precision, RMA technology is also capacious and adaptable: Different serum markers can be designed to track multiple genes across different brain regions. ScienceMission sciencenewshighlights.
