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Category: neuroscience – Page 138

Dormant no more: Brain protein’s hidden role may reshape psychiatric and neurological treatments

In a new research report, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have identified a potential target for drugs that could dial up or down the activity of certain brain proteins in efforts to treat psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety and schizophrenia, and a neurological condition that affects movement.

The proteins, called delta-type ionotropic glutamate receptors, or GluDs, have long been understood to play a major role in signaling between neurons. Mutations in GluD proteins are thought to drive psychiatric conditions, including anxiety and schizophrenia, the scientists say. Yet, scientists had few clues as to how GluDs function, hampering the ability to find treatments to regulate them.

“This class of protein has long been thought to be sitting dormant in the brain,” says Edward Twomey, Ph.D., assistant professor of biophysics and at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Our findings indicate they are very much active and offer a potential channel to develop new therapies.”

‘Drop-printing’ shows potential for constructing bioelectronic interfaces that conform to complex surfaces

With the rapid development of wearable electronics, neurorehabilitation, and brain-machine interfaces in recent years, there has been an urgent need for methods to conformally wrap thin-film electronic devices onto biological tissues to enable precise acquisition and regulation of physiological signals.

Conventional methods typically rely on external pressure to force devices onto conformal contact. However, when applied to uneven three-dimensional surfaces such as skin, brain, or nerves, they generate significant internal stress which can easily damage fragile metal circuits and inorganic chips. This is an obstacle to the advancement of flexible electronics.

In a study published in Science, Prof. Song Yanlin’s team from the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with collaborators from Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Nanyang Technological University, and Tianjin University, propose a new film transfer strategy named as drop-printing, which has potential applications in bioelectronics, flexible displays, and micro-/nano-manufacturing.

This deadly brain disorder can develop a decade after you get the measles — and it just killed a child

A school-aged child in L.A. recently died after developing a rare neurological disease years after contracting the measles.

Authorities didn’t reveal many details about the case, except that the child was infected with measles as an infant, before they were eligible for the vaccine.

Measles is a respiratory disease that spreads easily from person to person. The first dose of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is routinely recommended for kids between 12 and 15 months old. A second dose is given before kindergarten or first grade.

The Muscle-Brain Axis and Neurodegenerative Diseases: The Key Role of Mitochondria in Exercise-Induced Neuroprotection

Regular exercise is associated with pronounced health benefits. The molecular processes involved in physiological adaptations to exercise are best understood in skeletal muscle. Enhanced mitochondrial functions in muscle are central to exercise-induced adaptations. However, regular exercise also benefits the brain and is a major protective factor against neurodegenerative diseases, such as the most common age-related form of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or the most common neurodegenerative motor disorder, Parkinson’s disease. While there is evidence that exercise induces signalling from skeletal muscle to the brain, the mechanistic understanding of the crosstalk along the muscle–brain axis is incompletely understood. Mitochondria in both organs, however, seem to be central players.

‘Rhythm beats volume’: How the brain keeps the world looking familiar

The brain is famously plastic: Neurons’ ability to change their behavior in response to new stimuli is what makes learning possible. And even neurons’ response to the same stimuli changes over time—a phenomenon known as representational drift. Yet our day-to-day perception of the world is relatively stable. How so?

Resolving such puzzles matters for future brain-computer interfaces, sensory prostheses and therapies for neurological disease. On a quest for an answer, Rice University scientists have built ultraflexible probes thousands of times thinner than a and used them to track neurons in the visual cortex of mice for 15 consecutive days as the animals viewed thousands of images—from line patterns to pictures of the natural world.

The devices, called nanoelectronic threads (NETs), embed seamlessly with , allowing for high-fidelity chronic recordings of .

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