Lifeboat Foundation

There’s a lot to like about brain-computer interfaces, those sci-fi-sounding devices that jack into your skull and turn neural signals into software commands. Experimental BCIs help paralyzed people communicate, use the internet, and move prosthetic limbs. In recent years, the devices have even gone wireless. If mind-reading computers become part of everyday life, we’ll need doctors to install the tiny electrodes and transmitters that make them work. So if you have steady hands and don’t mind a little blood, being a BCI surgeon might be a job for you.

Shahram Majidi, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, began operating in clinical trials for a BCI called the Stentrode in 2022. (That’s “stent” as in a tube that often sits inside a vein or artery.) Here he talks about a not-too-distant future where he’s performing hundreds of similar procedures a year.

Brain-computer interfaces have been around for a few decades, and there are different kinds of implants now. Some have electrodes attached to your brain with wires sticking out of your head and connecting to a computer. I think that’s great as a proof of concept, but it requires an engineer sitting there and a big computer next to you all the time. You can’t just use it in your bedroom. The beauty of a BCI like the Stentrode, which is what I’ve worked with, is that nothing is sticking out of your brain. The electrodes are in blood vessels next to the brain, and you get there by going through the patient’s jugular. The receiver is underneath the skin in their chest and connected to a device that decodes the brain signals via Bluetooth. I think that’s the future.

Only 3% to 5% of people who are diagnosed with this type of brain tumor will be alive three years later. On average, patients live about 14 months after diagnosis.

Now, an experimental therapy that reprograms a person’s own immune cells to attack these tumors is showing some exciting promise.

Three studies published within the past week have reported dramatic results with a therapy called CAR-T delivered directly to the brain. In some cases, tumors have seemingly melted away on brain scans by the next day.

Scientists are unraveling how our organs talk to the brain—and how the brain talks back.

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Studies of interoception challenge distinctions between disorders of the brain and body—and may hold clues to the basis of consciousness.

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Roger Guillemin identified the molecules in the brain that control the production of hormones in endocrine glands such as the pituitary and thyroid. His work led to a torrent of advances in neuroendocrinology, with far-reaching effects on studies of metabolism, reproduction and growth. For his discoveries on peptide-hormone production in the brain, Guillemin shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Andrew Schally and Rosalyn Yalow. He has died at the age of 100.

In the autumn of 1969, after analysing millions of sheep brains for more than a decade, Guillemin and his colleagues determined the structure of thyrotropin-releasing factor (TRF). This small peptide is produced in the hypothalamus, a small region at the base of the brain, and is transported to the anterior lobe of the nearby pituitary gland, where it triggers the release of the hormone thyrotropin. Thyrotropin, in turn, stimulates the thyroid gland to produce the hormone thyroxine, which regulates metabolic activity in nearly every tissue of the body. More than two dozen drugs use such hypothalamic hormones to treat endocrine disorders and cancers, and the worldwide market for these drugs is worth several billion dollars.

Guillemin was born in Dijon, France, and came of age at the end of the Second World War. He graduated from medical school in the University of Lyon, France, in 1949 and worked as a country doctor in the small commune of Saint-Seine-l’Abbaye in Burgundy. He found the work satisfying but intellectually limiting, noting that “in those days I could take care of all my patients with three prescriptions, including aspirin”. Fascinated by how the brain and pituitary gland control the body’s response to stress, he attended lectures in Paris by the Hungarian–Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye, after which Selye accepted Guillemin’s request to spend a year doing research in his laboratory at the University of Montreal, Canada.

Summary: Researchers provided new insights into brain development, revealing that different brain regions share a similar organizational structure in early stages rather than being pre-specialized. This finding, supported by advanced optical imaging, suggests a universal blueprint for brain development, which has significant implications for understanding neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and schizophrenia.

By observing synchronized activity in nerve cell networks across various brain regions, the study highlights a potential common foundation for brain disorders, offering a new perspective on their widespread impact. Future research will further explore how this shared developmental pattern evolves over time and across different brain areas.

High-intensity exercise induces brain-protective effects that have the potential to not just slow down but possibly reverse the neurodegeneration associated with Parkinson’s disease, a new pilot study suggests.

Prior research has shown that many forms of exercise are linked to improved symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. But there has been no evidence that hitting the gym could create changes at the brain level. Now, a small proof-of-concept study involving 10 patients showed that high-intensity aerobic exercise preserved dopamine-producing neurons, the brain cells that are most vulnerable to destruction in patients with the disease.

In fact, after six months of exercise, the neurons actually had grown healthier and produced stronger dopamine signals. Dopamine is a chemical that helps brain cells communicate with one another. The researchers published their findings in npj Parkinson’s Disease on February 9.

Knowing your “oldest organ” might also tell you more about your health trajectory — and the age-related diseases you could develop — than your biological age. The study found that individuals with accelerated heart aging, for example, have a 250% higher risk of heart failure. Every additional four years of age increased an individual’s risk of developing heart disease by almost 2.5-fold over 15 years, the study noted. It also found that accelerated brain and vascular aging in an individual can predict the progression of Alzheimer’s disease as strongly as the best biomarker test for the disease.

The technology to measure age organ-by-organ is far from ready to mainstream. Still, the concept has attracted the interest of those in longevity circles, according to The Wall Street Journal. Some researchers told the Journal that there may be a day when patients can test the age of their organs through a simple blood test. It’s not a far-off idea, given that there are already blood tests that can test for cancer.

However, some scientists believe there’s little merit in providing patients with these details before we devise interventions for them.

A groundbreaking study published in Nature Communications reveals how maternal and fetal genes, influenced by food availability, play a crucial role in the growth of a baby’s cerebral cortex, linking higher birth weight to an enlarged brain area. This research highlights the significant impact of genetics and environment on early brain development.

Stimulating gamma brain waves may protect cancer patients from memory impairment and other cognitive effects of chemotherapy.

Patients undergoing chemotherapy often experience cognitive effects such as memory impairment and difficulty concentrating — a condition commonly known as “chemo brain.”

MIT…

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