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For those with stubbornly resistant forms of severe depression, ketamine was looking more and more like a solution. Years of research has hinted at the dissociative anesthetic’s treatment potential where other medications failed, promising the benefits of electroshock therapy with far fewer risks.

For all of the excitement, separating the hope from the hype has been challenged by the drug’s strong psychoactive effects. How can you conduct a blind test for a drug that so overtly detaches the mind from the body?

By taking advantage of the unconscious state of patients under general anesthesia, researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine in the US put ketamine to the ultimate, gold standard test.

Having more pixels could advance everything from biomedical imaging to astronomical observations.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have built a superconducting camera containing 400,000 pixels — 400 times more than any other device of its type.

Superconducting cameras allow scientists to capture very weak light signals, whether from distant objects in space or parts of the human brain. Having more pixels could open up many new applications in science and biomedical research.

A meta-analysis showed improvement of neuropsychiatric symptoms with acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease, although effect sizes were small.


Neuropsychiatric symptoms are challenging to treat in patients with neurodegenerative conditions. In this meta-analysis, researchers investigated the effect of cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEI) on neuropsychiatric symptoms in those with Alzheimer disease (AD) or Parkinson disease (PD). Studies in the analysis included placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trials that included at least one ChEI — i.e., donepezil, rivastigmine, or galantamine — and applied at least one validated neuropsychiatric measure, with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) being the most used measure studied. The primary outcomes were hallucinations and delusions. Secondary outcomes included all other neuropsychiatric outcomes.

Original participant data for 6,649 individuals with AD or PD from 17 trials were available for analysis out of 34 eligible trials. In patients with AD, ChEI use was associated with significantly fewer delusions (effect size, −0.08) and hallucinations (−0.09) compared with placebo. In the PD subgroup, ChEIs also were associated with significantly fewer delusions (−0.14) and hallucinations (−0.08). These effects did not differ among ChEI types. ChEIs were associated with lower appetite scores in the AD group and with significantly improved total neuropsychiatric scores in the PD group (−0.18). Increases in baseline neuropsychiatric scores were associated with greater effect size favoring ChEIs in those with PD. Lower baseline cognitive score was associated with increased effect size favoring ChEIs in both AD and PD.

Based on this meta-analysis, ChEIs could be considered in appropriate patients, since ChEIs may reduce hallucinations and delusions in people with AD or PD. Greater effects may be possible if neuropsychiatric symptoms or lower cognitive scores are present at the time of initiation. ChEIs decreased appetite scores in AD, which should be considered in those who are underweight. Whether ChEIs also improve neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia with Lewy bodies requires further study, since data were insufficient to assess that population in this analysis.

UFMG-V4N2 proved effective in producing antibodies and making them block the passage of cocaine into the brain, which means that the vaccinated animals have a reduced perception of the drug’s effect: a very important advantage in a treatment.

This blockage occurs in the following way: we have a “protective shield” called the blood-brain barrier, which prevents toxic elements, viruses or bacteria from entering the brain, but because the cocaine molecule is very small, it manages to pass through this barrier.

The vaccine stimulates the production of antibodies, which bind to the drug molecules, increasing their weight and size and thus preventing them from getting past the protective shield. The cocaine is retained in the blood, but as it is bound to the antibody, it doesn’t act on the heart or arteries either, which means the risk of overdoses is reduced.


The most recent statistics put the number of regular cocaine or crack cocaine users in the world at 20 million. Of these, one in four will become addicted or develop use disorders.

Cocaine use continues to be a public health problem, yet despite concerted efforts, no drugs have been approved to resolve cocaine addiction. Research suggests that the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder drug methylphenidate (MPH; Ritalin) could serve as a cocaine-replacement therapy, but clinical results have been mixed. Although several labs have produced MPH derivatives for testing, parts of the molecule remained chemically inaccessible. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have cleared that hurdle.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 5 million Americans reported actively using cocaine in 2020, and almost 25,000 Americans died of a cocaine-related overdose in 2021. Although small-molecule drugs have proven effective in treating other drug addictions—for example, methadone as a therapy for heroin abuse—no such medication exists for cocaine abuse.

MPH has been considered a potential treatment because it behaves similarly to the illicit drug, increasing dopamine levels in the brain by blocking dopamine reuptake. Additionally, have shown that MPH has a lower risk of abuse than cocaine.

Bacterial diversity in the gut plays an important role in health. The human microbiome has featured prominently in research, with links being made between it and cancer, personality, memory, and diseases such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

While it’s understood that a mother’s microbiome is transferred to their baby at birth and boosted by breastfeeding, what other sources of gut bacteria are there? A new study by researchers at the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria has confirmed, for the first time, that one source is fruits and vegetables.

It’s the day after the Baltimore Orioles clinched the American League East Championship with their 100th win of the season, and lifelong fan Tim Evans is showing his pride on his sleeve.

“It’s so great,” Evans, 62, says with a huge smile, wearing his orange O’s jersey.

The last time the Orioles won the AL East was in 2014, the same year Evans was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive nervous system disease that causes muscle weakness and loss of motor and speech functions. Evans currently has severe speech and swallowing problems. He can talk slowly, but it’s hard for most people to understand him.

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Right now, billions of neurons in your brain are working together to generate a conscious experience — and not just any conscious experience, your experience of the world around you and of yourself within it. How does this happen? According to neuroscientist Anil Seth, we’re all hallucinating all the time; when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it “reality.” Join Seth for a delightfully disorienting talk that may leave you questioning the very nature of your existence.

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Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about recent discoveries about human brain and various types of neuronal cells.
Links:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03192-2
https://nemoarchive.org/
https://www.science.org/collections/brain-cell-census.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adc8810
https://news.rub.de/english/press-releases/2022-06-0…ir-neurons.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01933-6
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06502-w.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01284-w.
https://elifesciences.org/articles/76143
Previous video on major discoveries: https://youtu.be/iGdFh3ENjzc.
More about Neanderthals: https://youtu.be/BvrBl9-TbBs.
#brain #neuron #neuroscience.

0:00 Recent papers on the human brain.
1:00 Human brain atlas and 3,000 new types of cells.
2:00 What was this collaboration for?
2:40 Unexpected complexity of cells in certain brain parts.
4:00 Are there a lot of individual differences? Yes!
4:40 Physical structure appears same across species.
5:10 Genetic activity is very different though.
5:35 Human disorders are unique to humans.
6:30 Unusual layers protecting the brain — SLYM
7:38 Axons turned out to be more unusual, especially in other species.
9:35 Shape of the brain suggests apes and humans are similar only until adolescence.
12:15 Hippocampus in humans is unique focusing on vision…explaining art?
13:48 New memory cell discovered.
15:45 Limitations.

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