Scientists are still debating whether the human brain is capable of growing new cells past childhood.
Category: neuroscience – Page 28
Surgical treatment of multiple breast cancer brain metastases: clinical characteristics and factors impacting postoperative survival
Purpose Breast cancer (BC) is one of the most common primary tumor entities that develop brain metastases (BM) during disease progression. Multiple BM are associated with poorer prognosis, but various surgical, radiotherapeutic and systemic treatment approaches improve survival. We aimed to identify prognostic factors and evaluate the overall survival following BM surgery in patients with multiple BCBM. Methods All metachronous metastasized female patients with resected BCBM at our institution between 2008 and 2019 were included. Data on clinical, radiologic, and histopathologic parameters were recorded and analyzed using univariate and multivariate regression models. Results Among the 93 patients included in the final analysis, 30 individuals presented with multiple BM. Compared to patients with single BM, those with multiple BM were more likely to have infratentorial BM (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 3.35, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.03–10.83, p = 0.044), HER2(human epidermal growth factor receptor 2)-positive BC (aOR 3.93, 95% CI 1.23–12.53, p = 0.021) and hepatic metastases (aOR 5.86, 95% CI 1.34–25.61, p = 0.019). There was no significant difference in postoperative survival between individuals with multiple (median: 12.5 months) and single BM (17.0 months, p = 0.186). In the multivariate Cox regression analysis, adjuvant radiotherapy (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 5.93, 95% CI 1.06–33.26, p = 0.043) and trastuzumab treatment (aHR 4.95, 95% CI 1.72–14.25, p = 0.003) were associated with longer postoperative survival multiple BCBM patients. Conclusion BC patients with multiple BM show remarkable postoperative survival, particularly if combined with adjuvant radiotherapy. Our data justify the surgery of multiple BCBM in patients with appropriate clinical condition and feasible location of BM.
US approves first blood test for Alzheimer’s
The United States on Friday approved the first blood test for Alzheimer’s, a move that could help patients begin treatment earlier with newly approved drugs that slow the progression of the devastating neurological disease.
The test, developed by Fujirebio Diagnostics, measures the ratio of two proteins in the blood. The ratio is correlated with amyloid plaques in the brain—a hallmark of Alzheimer’s that, until now, has been detected only through brain scans or spinal fluid analysis.
“Alzheimer’s disease impacts too many people—more than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined,” said Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary.
Dual-target CAR T cell therapy slows growth of aggressive brain cancer
A dual-target CAR T cell therapy approach shows promise for slowing tumor growth in a notoriously aggressive and fast-growing brain cancer. Tumors became smaller after the experimental CAR T cell therapy in nearly two-thirds of patients.
While survival data is still accumulating, several patients lived 12 months or longer after receiving the investigational therapy, which is notable given the typical survival for this patient population is less than a year.
The findings were presented at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting (Abstract 102) and published in Nature Medicine by researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Conserved brain-wide emergence of emotional response from sensory experience in humans and mice
Emotional responses to sensory experience are central to the human condition in health and disease. We hypothesized that principles governing the emergence of emotion from sensation might be discoverable through their conservation across the mammalian lineage. We therefore designed a cross-species neural activity screen, applicable to humans and mice, combining precise affective behavioral measurements, clinical medication administration, and brain-wide intracranial electrophysiology. This screen revealed conserved biphasic dynamics in which emotionally salient sensory signals are swiftly broadcast throughout the brain and followed by a characteristic persistent activity pattern. Medication-based interventions that selectively blocked persistent dynamics while preserving fast broadcast selectively inhibited emotional responses in humans and mice.
Schrödinger’s Vat and the Evolution of Consciousness
Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment has always been deeply misunderstood. In this article I’d like to explain how, if understood properly, it might shed new light on the mechanism by which consciousness evolved.
Schrödinger’s cat and schrödinger’s hat
The purpose of Schrödinger’s thought experiment was to highlight serious problems in the (then very new) “Copenhagen Interpretation” of Quantum Mechanics (CI). The CI was a bit of a botch-job, because the founders of QM had no idea how to “interpret” the strange new physics they had discovered. The CI says quantum systems remain in a superposition (a “smeared out” state where everything than can happen is somehow happening in parallel) until measured, but does not define what counts as a “measurement”, or why. Schrödinger always rejected this idea, and his thought experiment was intended to demonstrate why. He proposes a sealed box (so no “measurements” can take place), in which has been placed a cat, and a quantum source with a 50% probability of releasing poison. According to the CI, so long as the system inside the box remains “unmeasured”, the poison has both been released and not-released and therefore that cat is both dead and alive.
What Makes Someone a Narcissist? Scientists Just Found a Big Clue
Narcissism has become the armchair diagnosis of the decade. Social media is awash with people flinging the label around. Everyone’s ex seems to be a narcissist, some of our parents are under suspicion, and that office villain? They definitely tick the box, too.
The accuracy of these rampant diagnoses warrants scepticism. But the reality is narcissists do exist. At its extreme, narcissism is a rare mental health diagnosis, known as narcissistic personality disorder. But narcissism also describes a cluster of personality traits, which we all display to varying degrees.
For those of us who have been in close quarters with someone high in narcissistic traits, we rarely walk away unscathed. And we may be left with lingering questions. For example, what made them this way?
