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Category: neuroscience – Page 15

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health disorder associated with persistent, intrusive thoughts (i.e., obsessions), accompanied by repetitive behaviors (i.e., compulsions) aimed at reducing the anxiety arising from obsessions. Past studies have showed that people diagnosed with OCD can present symptoms that vary significantly, as well as distinct brain abnormalities.

A team of researchers at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University recently carried out a study aimed at further exploring the well-documented differences among patients with OCD. Their findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, allowed them to identify two broad OCD subtypes, which are associated with different patterns in gray matter volumes and disease epicenters.

“OCD is a highly heterogeneous disorder, with notable variations among cases in structural brain abnormalities,” wrote Baohong Wen, Keke Fang and their colleagues in their paper. “To address this heterogeneity, our study aimed to delineate OCD subtypes based on individualized gray matter morphological differences.”

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Revolutionizing the fight against brain cancers — dr. thomas chen MD, phd, FAANS, — CEO/CSO, neonc technologies holdings inc.

Dr. Thomas Chen, MD, Ph.D. is Founder, CEO & CSO, and Board Director, of NeOnc Technologies (https://neonc.com/), a developer of a proprietary, patented platform technology that can potentially transport pharma-based therapeutics directly to the brain without the normal boundary restrictions imposed by the body’s Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB), providing patients with potentially more effective treatments.

NeOnc is developing a portfolio of treatments for brain cancer and other central nervous system (CNS) disorders.

Continue reading “Dr. Thomas Chen, MD, Ph.D. — CEO/CSO, NeOnc — Revolutionizing The Fight Against Brain Cancers” | >

The motivation behind the new study was to address these gaps in our understanding by leveraging the power of large-scale data. The researchers recognized that investigating the connection between genetic predisposition to dyslexia and brain structure in a very large sample could provide more robust and reliable insights than smaller, more traditional studies. They aimed to identify specific brain regions and white matter tracts that are associated with genetic risk for dyslexia, and to explore whether different genetic variants might influence distinct neural pathways.

“Thirty-five genetic variants that influence the chance of having dyslexia were already known from a very large study by the company 23andMe in the USA, carried out in over one million people. However, that study did not include brain MRI data. The new aspect of our study was to investigate the genetic variants in relation to brain structure in MRI data from thousands of people,” explained Clyde Francks (@clydefrancks), a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen and senior author of the study.

The researchers used two large datasets: the genetic data 23andMe and brain imaging data from over 30,000 adults in the UK Biobank. The 23andMe dataset helped identify genetic variants associated with dyslexia by comparing individuals who reported a dyslexia diagnosis to those who did not. These genetic variants were then used to calculate “polygenic scores” for individuals in the UK Biobank, reflecting their genetic predisposition to dyslexia.

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Tags; #science #neuroscience #happiness #happiness #neurodegenerativediseases #disease #health #mentalhealth #sleep #neuroscientist #disease #education #success.
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About me:
I am Shambhu Yadav, Ph.D., a research scientist at Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA, USA). I also work (for fun) as a Science Journalist, editor, and presenter on a YouTube channel. Science Communication is my passion.

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Disclaimer 1: The video content is for educational and informational purposes only, not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider regarding any medical condition. Do not disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice based on information from this video. Any reliance on the information provided is at your own risk.
Disclaimer 2: The Diary Of A Scientist (DOAS) channel does not promote or encourage any unusual activities, and all content provided by this channel is meant for EDUCATIONAL purposes only.

*Credits and thanks**
The video was recorded using iPhone and edited using Adobe Premiere Pro: a timeline-based and non-linear video editing software.
Music source: Epidemic sound.

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The ideal material for interfacing electronics with living tissue is soft, stretchable, and just as water-loving as the tissue itself—in short, a hydrogel. Semiconductors, the key materials for bioelectronics such as pacemakers, biosensors, and drug delivery devices, on the other hand, are rigid, brittle, and water-hating, impossible to dissolve in the way hydrogels have traditionally been built.

A paper published today in Science from the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) has solved this challenge that has long stymied researchers, reimagining the process of creating hydrogels to build a powerful semiconductor in hydrogel form. Led by Asst. Prof. Sihong Wang’s research group, the result is a bluish gel that flutters like a sea jelly in water but retains the immense semiconductive ability needed to transmit information between living tissue and machine.

New material from the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering can create better brain-machine interfaces, biosensors, and pacemakers.

Continue reading “A new hydrogel semiconductor represents a breakthrough for tissue-interfaced bioelectronics” | >

What if your mind could break free from the confines of space and time? A declassified CIA report from 1983 dives into a bizarre experiment known as the Gateway Experience, where scientists explored the possibility of transcending physical reality. The document hints at synchronized brainwaves, universal consciousness, and even timeless perception. But what did the CIA really uncover?

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Dr. Masayo Takahashi graduated from Kyoto University’s Faculty of Medicine in 1986. In 1992, she completed her Ph.D. in Visual Pathology at Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Medicine. She first worked as a clinician, but later became interested in research following her studies in the United States in 1995. In 2005, her lab became the first in the world to successfully differentiate neural retina from embryonic stem cells. She is currently the project leader of the Laboratory for Retinal Regeneration at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB).

Recently in Japan they restored vision of three people using puliportent stem cells.

Then, in March 2017, Dr. Takahashi and her team made another important step forward. While the 2014 surgery had used cells generated from the patient’s own tissues, Dr. Takahashi and her team succeeded this time in the world’s first transplantation of RPE cells generated from iPS cells that originated from another person (called “allogeneic transplantation”) to treat a patient with wet-type AMD. Currently, the patient is being monitored for the possibility of rejection, which is a risk of allogeneic transplantation. Regarding the significance of the operation, Dr. Takahashi explains that “allogeneic transplantation substantially reduces the time and cost required in producing RPE cells, creating opportunities for even more patients to undergo surgeries. Hearing patients’ eager expectations firsthand when working as a clinician has also been a significant motivation.”

Dr. Takahashi’s team is currently making preparations for clinical studies that will target retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary eye disease, by transplanting photoreceptor cells. “Having my mind set on wanting to see applications of iPS cells in treatments as quickly as possible, I have been actively involved in the creation of the regulations for their practical applications in regenerative medicine. In Japan, where clinical studies and clinical trials can be conducted at the same time, there is significant merit in the fact that research can be carried out by doctors who also work in medical settings. This helps ensure that they proceed with a sense of responsibility and strong ethics. Our advanced clinical studies have attracted the attention of researchers working in regenerative medicine in various countries. I intend to maintain a rapid pace of research so that we can treat the illnesses of as many patients as possible.”

Continue reading “IPS Cells Give New Hope Against Eye Diseases / The Government of Japan” | >

The problem of many-over-one asks how it can be that many properties are ever instantiated by one object. A putative solution might, for example, claim that the properties are appropriately bundled, or somehow tied to a bare particular. In this essay, the author argues that, surprisingly, an extant candidate solution to this problem is at the same time an independently developed candidate solution to the mind-body problem. Specifically, what is argued here to be the best version of the relata-specific bundle theory—the thesis that each instance of compresence has a special intrinsic nature in virtue of which it necessarily bundles its specific bundle-ees—is also a species of Russellian monism, labeled by David Chalmers as ‘constitutive Russellian panprotopsychism’. The upshot of this connection is significant for the metaphysics of the mind-body problem: a credible theory of property instantiation turns out to have a built-in account of how consciousness is grounded in certain (broadly) physical systems.

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Researchers found that lycopene enhances BDNF expression, a key protein involved in brain health, which appears to be suppressed in depression.

Lycopene’s Potential as an Antidepressant

Lycopene, a natural compound found in plants, may have antidepressant effects, according to emerging research. A new study published on January 22 in Food Science & Nutrition explores how lycopene influences brain function to counteract symptoms of depression.

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