Lifeboat Foundation

Reversing schizophrenia with gene therapy year 2023.

Copy-number variations in the ARHGAP10 gene encoding Rho GTPase–activating protein 10 are associated with schizophrenia. Model mice (Arhgap10 S490P/NHEJ mice) that carry “double-hit” mutations in the Arhgap10 gene mimic the schizophrenia in a Japanese patient, exhibiting altered spine density, methamphetamine-induced cognitive dysfunction, and activation of RhoA/Rho-kinase signaling. However, it remains unclear whether the activation of RhoA/Rho-kinase signaling due to schizophrenia-associated Arhgap10 mutations causes the phenotypes of these model mice. Here, we investigated the effects of fasudil, a brain permeable Rho-kinase inhibitor, on altered spine density in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and on methamphetamine-induced cognitive impairment in a touchscreen‑based visual discrimination task in Arhgap10 S490P/NHEJ mice. Fasudil (20 mg/kg, intraperitoneal) suppressed the increased phosphorylation of myosin phosphatase–targeting subunit 1, a substrate of Rho-kinase, in the striatum and mPFC of Arhgap10 S490P/NHEJ mice. In addition, daily oral administration of fasudil (20 mg/kg/day) for 7 days ameliorated the reduced spine density of layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons in the mPFC. Moreover, fasudil (3–20 mg/kg, intraperitoneal) rescued the methamphetamine (0.3 mg/kg)-induced cognitive impairment of visual discrimination in Arhgap10 S490P/NHEJ mice. Our results suggest that Rho-kinase plays significant roles in the neuropathological changes in spine morphology and in the vulnerability of cognition to methamphetamine in mice with schizophrenia-associated Arhgap10 mutations.

We flew out to Salt Lake City, Utah, to get an exclusive look at the company behind some of the most advanced implantable neurotechnologies, Blackrock Neurotech. Brain implants are here, and they’re becoming more and more advanced every day. The Utah Array and Neuroport system allows for high-quality data recording and stimulation. It has the most in-subject research hours of any brain-computer interface on the market and has been a part of the most advanced BCIs since 2004, inspiring hope in persons with movement disorders. We also saw their newly announced Neuralace interface debuted in November 2022. Learn what it takes to work at a company at the forefront of brain-computer interface development.

Thanks to Blackrock Neurotech for sponsoring this video. The opinions expressed in this video are that of The BCI Guys and should be taken as such.

Continue reading “Behind the Brain Chip: An Inside Look at Blackrock Neurotech” »

Scientists at MIT have unlocked a major breakthrough in the battle to reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s disease — one that shows “dramatic reductions” in neurodegeneration, a report stated. The exciting achievement came about after researchers were able to interfere with an enzyme typically found to be overactive in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

Finding ways to integrate electronics into living tissue could be crucial for everything from brain implants to new medical technologies. A new approach has shown that it’s possible to 3D print circuits into living worms.

There has been growing interest in finding ways to more closely integrate technology with the human body, in particular when it comes to interfacing electronics with the nervous system. This will be crucial for future brain-machine interfaces and could also be used to treat a host of neurological conditions.

But for the most part, it’s proven difficult to make these kinds of connections in ways that are non-invasive, long-lasting, and effective. The rigid nature of standard electronics means they don’t mix well with the squishy world of biology, and getting them inside the body in the first place can require risky surgical procedures.

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It was therefore shortly after the discovery of g that Spearman’s contemporary, Godfrey Thomson, proposed that the general factor represents a global network phenomenon 11, 12, 13. Thomson held that g emerges from the interaction among the many elements of the brain, which he referred to as neural arcs or bonds 14, 15. According to Thomson’s Sampling Theory of Mental Ability, each item on an achievement test samples a number of these bonds 11, 12, 13. He proposed that the degree of overlap among bonds accounted for the correlation between tests and the resulting positive manifold. Thus, Thomson’s theory was the first to show that Spearman’s discovery of the general factor of intelligence is consistent with a network perspective.

Thomson’s legacy can be found in modern psychological theories which posit that g originates from the mutual interactions among cognitive processes [16]. Individual differences in g are known to be influenced, for example, by language abilities 10, 17, which facilitate a wealth of cognitive, social, and affective processes through mutual interactions (i.e., reciprocal causation) [18]. The central idea of the Mutualism Model is that change or growth in one aspect of mental ability is (i) partially autonomous (owing to developmental maturation), and is also (ii) based on growth in other areas (owing to the mutual interaction between cognitive processes). By accounting for both the autonomous and interactive nature of cognitive processes, this model is able to explain individual differences in the general factor of intelligence – accounting for the positive manifold and the hierarchical pattern of correlations among tests [16].

Advances in network neuroscience have further sharpened Thomson’s notion of neural bonds, revealing principles of brain organization that support (i) the modularity of cognitive processes (enabling the autonomy of mental processes), and (ii) the dynamic reorganization of this modular architecture in the service of system-wide flexibility and adaptation (enabling mutual interactions between cognitive processes). The following sections review these principles of brain organization and introduce a Network Neuroscience Theory for understanding individual differences in the general factor of intelligence based on the small-world topology and network dynamics of the human brain. This framework relies upon formal concepts from network neuroscience and their application to understanding the neurobiological foundations of g.

Before undergoing surgeries and other invasive medical procedures, patients typically undergo anesthesia. Anesthesia consists in giving patients a class of drugs (i.e., anesthetics) that cause them to lose feeling in specific areas of the body (i.e., local anesthesia) or fully lose awareness during a procedure (i.e., general anesthesia). These anesthetics can be administered to patients via injection, inhalation, skin-numbing lotions, and other means.

In the past, doctors and medical researchers viewed general anesthesia as a passive process that could not be influenced or interrupted once anesthetic drugs were administered. More recently, however, studies showed that it is in fact an active brain process that can be experimentally controlled and acted on.

A research team at the Southern University of Science and Technology in China recently carried out a study investigating the processes underpinning brain states while under general anesthesia and those associated with the subsequent re-emergence of awareness. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, highlight possible strategies that could help anesthesiologists to extend and deepen or shorten periods of anesthesia.

Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles have analyzed RNA editing in postmortem brains of four schizophrenia cohorts and uncovered a significant and reproducible trend of hypo-editing in patients of European descent.

The paper “Widespread RNA hypo-editing in schizophrenia and its relevance to mitochondrial function,” published in Science Advances, details the research team’s efforts to isolate functionally impacting RNA editing sites to understand how dysregulated editing contributes to various disorders.

In the data analysis, researchers identified 26,841 unique differential editing sites. They observed a significant trend of lower than expected amounts of RNA editing in the schizophrenia groups, which was reproduced in three of the four cohorts of European individuals.

A new study has shown how the brain’s cognitive maps are used and updated for reasoning, allowing us to make decisions in unfamiliar situations.