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Category: neuroscience – Page 1,255

Study finds targeting biological clock in cells slows cancer

Nice. My friend Alex Zhavoronkov will appreciate this article.

Feb. 16 (UPI) — Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have found that targeting the internal circadian or biological clock of cancer cells can affect growth.

Most cells in the human body have an internal clock that sets a rhythm for activities of organs depending on the time of day. However, this internal clock in cancer cells does not function at all or malfunctions.

“There were indications suggesting that the malfunctioning clock contributed to rapid tumor growth, but this had never been demonstrated,” Nicolas Cermakian, a professor in the department of psychiatry at McGill University, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Chronobiology at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and author of the study, said in a press release. “Thanks to the use of a chemical or a thermic treatment, we succeeded in ‘repairing’ these cells’ clock and restoring it to its normal functioning. In these conditions, tumor growth drops nearly in half.”

Company Claims Brain Transplants Could Bring Back the Dead by 2045

Not too shock by this given other transplant patient’s stories of memories, etc.

1 brains
There are a lot of outrageous claims being made within the halls of neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Whether exaggerations, wishful thinking, the dreams of the egocentric and megalomaniacal to be immortal, or just drumming up funding for a never-ending round of “scientific investigation,” the year 2045 seems to always be cited as a target date.

Ray Kurzweil popularized the notion of The Singularity – the threshold when computing power would match or exceed the human brain and human biological systems – in his 2006 book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. In that book, and subsequent articles, he theorized that 2045 would be the far end of when we could expect full integration of human and machine that would create immortality.

So far there have been indications that we are indeed proceeding in this direction. Beyond the gadgets we all use to augment our intelligence, each day seems to offer a new medical development that reads more like science fiction than reality. Just the other day there was an article in The Seattle Times that a new type of flexible brain implant could enable the paralyzed to walk again. We have robotic prostheses, humanoid robots, artificial human skin, and a range of nanotechnology applications used in medicine and the military that are quickly redefining life and nature itself. In fact, it’s been proclaimed by scientists that the era of cyborgs has begun.

The small molecule AUTEN-99 (autophagy enhancer-99) prevents the progression of neurodegenerative symptoms

New research on Parkinson and holds additional insights in cell & neuro technology.

Autophagy functions as a main route for the degradation of superfluous and damaged constituents of the cytoplasm. Defects in autophagy are implicated in the development of various age-dependent degenerative disorders such as cancer, neurodegeneration and tissue atrophy, and in accelerated aging. To promote basal levels of the process in pathological settings, we previously screened a small molecule library for novel autophagy-enhancing factors that inhibit the myotubularin-related phosphatase MTMR14/Jumpy, a negative regulator of autophagic membrane formation. Here we identify AUTEN-99 (autophagy enhancer-99), which activates autophagy in cell cultures and animal models. AUTEN-99 appears to effectively penetrate through the blood-brain barrier, and impedes the progression of neurodegenerative symptoms in Drosophila models of Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases. Furthermore, the molecule increases the survival of isolated neurons under normal and oxidative stress-induced conditions. Thus, AUTEN-99 serves as a potent neuroprotective drug candidate for preventing and treating diverse neurodegenerative pathologies, and may promote healthy aging.

Nanoelectronic thread probes form reliable, scar-free integration with the brain

Another new interface method.

Engineering researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have designed ultra-flexible, nanoelectronic thread (NET) brain probes that can achieve more reliable long-term neural recording than existing probes and don’t elicit scar formation when implanted.

The researchers described their findings in a research article published in Science Advances (“Ultraflexible nanoelectronic probes form reliable, glial scar–free neural integration”).

ultra-flexible probe in neural tissue

This is a rendering of the ultra-flexible probe in neural tissue gives viewers a sense of the device’s tiny size and footprint in the brain.

The strange link between the human mind and quantum physics

The problems that I have seen when limiting the topic of quantum mechanics to the human mind topic is that the relationship around Quantum Mechanics to biology is missed completely. For example, it has only be in the recent few years that scientists began to understand Quantum Mechanics Action of ELF electromagnetic fields and its relationship to human cells. And, this find has open valuable research in how cells can (through electromagnetic fields can spin a low temperatures) mimic telepathy communicating between the human cells.

Nobody understands what consciousness is or how it works. Nobody understands quantum mechanics either. Could that be more than coincidence?

Combination immunotherapies kill brain cancer in mice – study

Scientists have discovered a groundbreaking immunotherapy combination that kills brain cancer, promotes long-term immunity and is highly effective against breast cancer and myeloma.

Researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) in Ottawa had the promising findings published Wednesday in the journal ‘Nature Communications’.

The study outlines how the team developed a unique combination of drugs known as SMAC Mimetics and immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) that produce high kill rates for cancer tumor cells in mice.

How Soon Will Genetic Enhancement Create Smarter Humans?

This video is part of a series on genius, in proud collaboration with 92Y’s 7 Days of Genius Festival.

In the late 1990s, scientists thought they were close to locating specific genes that controlled for human intelligence in all its manifestations: musical genius, analytical acumen, physical prowess, etc. But the truth turns out to be more complicated, says Harvard psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker. There are many genes — perhaps thousands — that affect human intelligence, and while manipulating them may have predictable benefits, the adverse consequences remain unpredictable. Thus experimenting with our so-called intelligence genes will likely be met with high levels of skepticism in caution. It’s proof, says Pinker, that technological advancement doesn’t always march to the drum beat of inexorable forward progress.

Brain contains many networks of interconnected neurons that send signals with a rhythmic pattern

Nice write up on the physical sensory parts of the brain and central nervous system. However, everyone is proving and continues to prove that with the electromagnetic spin properties tied to human cells is showing that there is the additional layer of cell to cell communication occurring within the human body as well as these cells which are charged are also able to connect with other charged particles in a room or location. My guess is we will need all to effectively enable meaningful/ useful system intelligence to provide real pragmatic value.

Not everyone is Fred Astaire or Michael Jackson, but even those of us who seem to have two left feet have got rhythm–in our brains. From breathing to walking to chewing, our days are filled with repetitive actions that depend on the rhythmic firing of neurons. Yet the neural circuitry underpinning such seemingly ordinary behaviors is not fully understood, even though better insights could lead to new therapies for disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, ALS and autism.

Recently, neuroscientists at the Salk Institute used stem cells to generate diverse networks of self-contained spinal cord systems in a dish, dubbed circuitoids, to study this rhythmic pattern in neurons. The work, which appears online in the February 14, 2017, issue of eLife, reveals that some of the circuitoids–with no external prompting–exhibited spontaneous, coordinated rhythmic activity of the kind known to drive repetitive movements.

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