The official journal of the Guarantors of Brain. Provides researchers and clinicians with original contributions in neurology by publishing a wide range of original studies in neurological science, in addition to practical clinical articles.
Category: neuroscience – Page 19
Scientists discover hidden brain cells that may stop Alzheimer’s tau buildup
Scientists have uncovered a surprising new role for little-known brain cells called tanycytes that may influence the development of Alzheimer’s disease. These specialized cells appear to help remove toxic tau protein from the brain by transporting it from the cerebrospinal fluid into the bloodstream. When tanycytes become damaged or dysfunctional, tau can accumulate in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s.
Transhumanism: the future or the world’s most dangerous idea?
For centuries we treated technology as a tool, and now a new movement insists it is becoming the future of the human species itself.
Transhumanists like Harari and Kurzweil predict the merger of humans and machines, even the rise of a “digital God.” But critics fear this proposed future, calling transhumanism “the world’s most dangerous idea.”
Is the future one where technology is not merely a source of innovation but the basis for a new account of what it is to be human, or are claims of eternal life and new forms of intelligence just fanciful nonsense?
Joining the debate are transhumanist pioneer Zoltan Istvan, physicist and consciousness researcher Àlex Gómez-Marín, philosopher of mind Susan Schneider, and Softmax co-founder Adam Goldstein.
Tap the link now to watch the full debate.
We have for centuries sought technological progress. But now some are making the radical claim that technology is the future of the human race. ‘Effective accelerationists’ have won high-profile Silicon Valley support and claim we should accelerate technology to.
Stem Cell Treatments For Parkinson’s And Heart Failure Approved in World First
Japan has approved ground-breaking stem-cell treatments for Parkinson’s and severe heart failure, one of the manufacturers and media reports said Friday, with the therapies expected to reach patients within months.
Pharmaceutical company Sumitomo Pharma said it received the green light for the manufacture and sale of Amchepry, its Parkinson’s disease treatment that transplants stem cells into a patient’s brain.
Japan’s health ministry also gave the go-ahead to ReHeart, heart muscle sheets developed by medical startup Cuorips that can help form new blood vessels and restore heart function, media reports said.
Cancer drug reduces early Alzheimer’s-like brain hyperconnectivity in lab tests
Neuroscientists at King’s College London have pinpointed a mechanism behind the increased neural connectivity observed in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Published in Translational Psychiatry, the study also demonstrated that a cancer medication has the potential to reduce this hyperconnectivity.
The research showed that low levels of the protein amyloid-beta could induce hyperconnectivity and this pattern closely resembled changes seen in the brains of people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Amyloid-beta is thought to be instrumental in Alzheimer’s disease, where it creates plaques—or sticky clumps of amyloid-beta proteins—around the neurons.
These new findings suggest that low levels of amyloid-beta alone are enough to trigger early, disease-relevant changes in how brain cells connect.
Feedback control of random networks as a model of flexible motor cortical dynamics across tasks
Kalidindi and Crevecoeur develop a computational framework linking feedback-controlled networks to limb dynamics. They demonstrate that optimal control of fixed network reproduces key motor cortical dynamics and predicts neural activity across tasks. Analytical results show low-dimensional patterns emerge from task and biomechanical complexity, thereby bridging neural dynamics with control theory.
Learning makes brain cells work together, not apart
When you get better at a skill—recognizing a familiar face in a crowd, spotting a typo at a glance, or anticipating the next move in a game—sensory neurons in your brain become more coordinated, sharing information rather than acting more independently. That’s the conclusion of a new study by researchers at the University of Rochester and its Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, published in Science, which challenges a long-held assumption in neuroscience that learning improves efficiency by minimizing repetition across neural signals.
Led by Shizhao Liu, a graduate student in the labs of Ralf Haefner and Adam Snyder, both faculty members in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the study shows that learning instead increases shared activity among neurons. The findings could provide insights into learning disorders and inspire more flexible, human-like artificial intelligence tools.
“The dominant view in neuroscience has been that learning makes the brain more efficient by pushing neurons to act more independently, so information can be read out more cleanly,” Liu says. “Our results support a different idea, that sensory areas of the brain aren’t just passively encoding the world. They’re actively performing inference by combining what’s coming in with what the brain has learned to expect.”
A new University of Rochester study could reshape how scientists think about perception, learning disorders, and artificial intelligence.
Pharmacologic reversal of advanced Alzheimer’s disease in mice and identification of potential therapeutic nodes in human brain
Here, we show that pharmacologic restoration of NAD+ homeostasis via P7C3-A20, a neuroprotective compound that restores NAD+ homeostasis without producing supraphysiologic NAD+ levels,51,52,53,54,55,56 reverses cognitive deficits and neuropathology in advanced Aβ- and tau-driven AD models. We identify conserved molecular signatures between human and mouse AD and show that the magnitude of NAD+ homeostasis disruption correlates with pathology and symptom severity in mouse and human AD. We also demonstrate that NDAN brains display transcriptional profiles compatible with preserved NAD+ homeostasis and that P7C3-A230 restores NAD+ homeostasis and prevents oxidative damage and mitochondrial dysfunction in oxidatively stressed human brain microvascular endothelial cells (HBMVECs), a key component of the BBB. We additionally identify 46 conserved protein alterations in human and mouse AD brain that are corrected by AD reversal, together with overlapping transcriptomic changes in human AD. This highlights potential mechanisms and therapeutic targets for preserving and restoring brain resilience to AD.
These findings of cognitive recovery and pathological reversal in diverse models of advanced AD support disease progression as modifiable and driven by diminished brain resilience, with early cognitive impairment resulting from processes that promote neurodegeneration rather than solely from fixed neuronal loss. We propose that therapies to restore brain resilience, such as normalization of NAD+ homeostasis, merit clinical evaluation for prevention and reversal of AD and related dementias.
Weaponising the Mind: Rethinking Trust in Times of Cognitive Warfare
🧠 Cognitive warfare is real and it’s here already.
That is why the Konrad Adenauer Foundation is putting the topic on the agenda at the Munich Security Conference.
From now on, the focus will be on the following key issues: • Cognitive warfare as a security policy reality • Resilience instead of alarmism • Strategic advantage through the ability to act • Protection of democratic decision-making processes.
Cognitive warfare is changing the logic of modern conflicts. It does not target infrastructure or territory, but rather perception, trust and decision-making ability, thereby blurring the line between war and peace.
More about #MSC2026: https://www.kas.de/de/veranstaltungsberichte/detail/-/conten…t-begonnen.
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