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Category: neuroscience – Page 390

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have used powerful new brain imaging techniques to reveal a neurochemical imbalance within regions of the frontal lobes in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The research findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

The study shows that the balance between glutamate and GABA—two major neurotransmitter chemicals—is “disrupted” in OCD patients in two frontal regions of the brain.

Researchers also found that people who do not have OCD but are prone to habitual and compulsive behavior have increased glutamate levels in one of these brain regions.

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The idea that our mind could live on in another form after our physical body dies has been a recurring theme in science fiction since the 1950s. Recent television series such as Black Mirror and Upload, as well as some games, demonstrate our continued fascination with this idea. The concept is known as mind uploading.

Recent developments in science and technology are taking us closer to a time when mind uploading could graduate from science fiction to reality.

In 2016, BBC Horizon screened a programme called The Immortalist, in which a
Russian millionaire unveiled his plans to work with neuroscientists, robot builders and other experts to create technology that would allow us to upload our minds to a computer in order to live forever.

At the time, he confidently predicted that this would be achieved by 2045. This seems unlikely, but we are making small but significant steps towards a better understanding of the human brain — and potentially the ability to emulate, or reproduce, it.

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Year 2022 😗😁

Summary: A rare genetic mutation that causes blindness also appears to be associated with above-average intelligence, a new study reports.

Source: University of Leipzig

Synapses are the contact points in the brain via which nerve cells ‘talk’ to each other. Disturbances in this communication lead to diseases of the nervous system, since altered synaptic proteins, for example, can impair this complex molecular mechanism. This can result in mild symptoms, but also very severe disabilities in those affected.

The interest of the two neurobiologists Professor Tobias Langenhan and Professor Manfred Heckmann, from Leipzig and Würzburg respectively, was aroused when they read in a scientific publication about a mutation that damages a synaptic protein.

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Most stroke patients taking the anticoagulant warfarin were no more likely than those not on the medication to experience a brain bleed when undergoing a procedure to remove a blood clot, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report in a new study. The findings, published in JAMA, could help doctors better gauge the risk of endovascular thrombectomy (EVT), potentially expanding the pool of eligible patients for this mainstay stroke treatment.

Warfarin is a type of blood thinner commonly used to prevent stroke because of heart conditions such as atrial fibrillation. Although not very common, patients taking may still experience a stroke. In , it’s very possible that some physicians may withhold an endovascular thrombectomy because patients have been treated with warfarin before their strokes.

Our study could increase the number of patients for whom this lifesaving and function-saving surgery would be appropriate, said study leader Ying Xian, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neurology and in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health at UT Southwestern. Dr. Xian is also Section Head of Research, Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases in the Department of Neurology at UTSW.

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Scientists find a protein common to flies and people is essential for supporting the structure of axons that neurons project to make circuit connections.

In a study conducted by MIT

MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1861. It is organized into five Schools: architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science. MIT’s impact includes many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. Their stated goal is to make a better world through education, research, and innovation.

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The African turquoise killifish is an emerging vertebrate model organism with great potential for aging research due to its naturally short lifespan. Thus far, turquoise killifish aging omic studies using RNA-seq have examined a single organ, single sex and/or evaluated samples from non-reference strains. Here, we describe a resource dataset of ribosomal RNA depleted RNA-seq libraries generated from the brain, heart, muscle, and spleen from both sexes, as well as young and old animals, in the reference GRZ turquoise killifish strain. We provide basic quality control steps and demonstrate the utility of our dataset by performing differential gene expression and gene ontology analyses by age and sex. Importantly, we show that age has a greater impact than sex on transcriptional landscapes across probed tissues. Finally, we confirm transcription of transposable elements (TEs), which are highly abundant and increase in expression with age in brain tissue. This dataset will be a useful resource for exploring gene and TE expression as a function of both age and sex in a powerful naturally short-lived vertebrate model.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

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Summary: Researchers mapped neural activity in an octopus’s visual system, revealing striking similarities to humans.

The team observed neural responses to light and dark spots, thereby creating a map resembling the organization of the human brain. Interestingly, octopuses and humans last shared a common ancestor around 500 million years ago, suggesting independent evolution of such complex visual systems.

These findings contribute greatly to our understanding of cephalopod vision and brain structure.

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