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Category: neuroscience – Page 354

Scientists Extend Life Span in Mice by Restoring This Brain-Body Connection

When young, these neurons signal fatty tissues to release energy fueling the brain. With age, the line breaks down. Fat cells can no longer orchestrate their many roles, and neurons struggle to pass information along their networks.

Using genetic and chemical methods, the team found a marker for these neurons—a protein called Ppp1r17 (catchy, I know). Changing the protein’s behavior in aged mice with genetic engineering extended their life span by roughly seven percent. For an average 76-year life span in humans, the increase translates to over five years.

The treatment also altered the mice’s health. Mice love to run, but their vigor plummets with age. Reactivating the neurons in elderly mice revived their motivation, transforming them from couch potatoes into impressive joggers.

The brain undergoes a great “rewiring” after age 40

In the fifth decade of life, our brains start to undergo a radical “rewiring” that results in diverse networks becoming more integrated over the ensuing decades. ⁠ https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/great-brain-rewiring-after-age-40/ Big Think.

In a systematic review published last year in the journal Psychophysiology, researchers from Monash University in Australia swept through the scientific literature, seeking to summarize how the connectivity of the human brain changes over our lifetimes. The gathered evidence suggests that in the fifth decade of life (that is, after a person turns 40), the brain starts to undergo a radical “rewiring” that results in diverse networks becoming more integrated and connected over the ensuing decades, with accompanying effects on cognition.

Since the turn of the century, neuroscientists have increasingly viewed the brain as a complex network, consisting of units broken down into regions, sub-regions, and individual neurons. These units are connected structurally, functionally, or both. With increasingly advanced scanning techniques, neuroscientists can observe the parts of subjects’ brains that “light up” in response to stimuli or when simply at rest, providing a superficial look at how our brains are synced up.

The Monash University team pored over 144 studies that used these imaging techniques to probe the brains of tens of thousands of subjects. From this analysis, the researchers gleaned a general trend in how the networked brain changes over our lifetimes.

New Research Shows Lifestyle Changes Can Prevent Dementia

Research indicates enhanced mental function in individuals who maintain an active lifestyle and engage in social interactions, alongside managing blood pressure and diabetes effectively.

As federal approval for more Alzheimer’s disease medications progresses, a recent study conducted by UC San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente Washington reveals that tailored health and lifestyle modifications can postpone or prevent memory deterioration in older adults at increased risk.

The two-year study compared cognitive scores, risk factors, and quality of life among 172 participants, of whom half had received personalized coaching to improve their health and lifestyle in areas believed to raise the risk of Alzheimer’s, such as uncontrolled diabetes and physical inactivity. These participants were found to experience a modest boost in cognitive testing, amounting to a 74% improvement over the non-intervention group.

Attention, intention, and retention in frontoparietal cortex

Cognitive neuroscientist Clayton Curtis describes an elegant experiment that leads us to ask: Does the brain honor the distinction implied in most textbooks between spatial attention, motor control, and spatial working memory?

For more info/content, please visit: https://postlab.psych.wisc.edu/cog-ne…

Relevant paper:
Jerde, T. A., Merriam, E. P., Riggall, A. C., Hedges, J. H., \& Curtis, C. E. (2012). Prioritized maps of space in human frontoparietal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(48), 17382–17390.

Why do antidepressants take so long to kick in?

Have you ever wondered why SSRIs take time to show effects? A new study has delved into why antidepressants like SSRIs take weeks to start working and how this may impact mental health care.

SSRIs, or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, belong to a category of antidepressant drugs designed to elevate serotonin levels in the brain. Notable examples of SSRIs include fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), and escitalopram (Lexapro).

These medications generally have few unpleasant side effects and can be highly effective in treating various mood disorders, including depression and certain anxiety disorders. However, one significant drawback of SSRIs is the delayed onset of their therapeutic effects — SSRIs often take several weeks to show noticeable improvements in mood.

This extended period before “kicking in” poses challenges for patients and healthcare providers. Yet, the reason behind this lag in action is not well understood.

Newly Launched GPT Store Warily Has ChatGPT-Powered Mental Health AI Chatbots That Range From Mindfully Serious To Disconcertingly Wacko

In today’s column, I will examine closely the recent launch of the OpenAI ChatGPT online GPT store that allows users to post GPTs or chatbots for ready use by others, including and somewhat alarmingly a spate of such chatbots intended for mental health advisory purposes.

OpenAI has launched their awaited GPT Store. This is great news. But there are also mental health GPTs that are less than stellar. I take a close look at the issue.

The Neuroscience of Learning and Memory

Jeanette Norden, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, Emerita, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, explores how the brain learns and remembers. This video focuses on a discussion of how the brain is organized in general.

These lectures will provide the foundation.
information necessary to the understanding.
of the lectures which will follow. A special.
emphasis will be given to systems in the brain.
that underlie learning and memory, attention.
and awareness. These introductory lectures.
will be followed by a lecture on how different.
areas of the brain encode different, specific.
types of information—from the phone number.
we need only remember for a few minutes or.
less to the childhood memories we retain for.
a lifetime. We will also address the \.