A recent study study sheds light on how a protein called amyloid precursor protein (APP) affects the growth of nerve cells in the cortex — the human brain’s outer layer. The findings suggest that APP plays a crucial role in maintaining the delicate balance between neural stem cell proliferation and differentiation during the early stages of brain development.

The research, published in Science Advances, could have important implications for our understanding of neurodevelopmental processes and neurodegenerative diseases.

APP is a class I transmembrane protein that is widely expressed during nervous system development. It has been extensively studied due to its connection to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), where its fragmentation produces amyloid peptides that contribute to neuronal death. However, the physiological function of APP, especially in the context of human brain development, has remained unclear.

A team of scientists recently aimed to better understand consciousness and its pathologies by studying the neural activity of patients with disorders of consciousness and healthy volunteers using brain imaging technology. They identified two crucial brain circuits implicated in consciousness. The results of the study have been published in Human Brain Mapping.

Consciousness is a complex and subjective experience, and there is still much debate among scientists and philosophers about its nature and origin. However, in clinical settings, doctors treating patients with severe brain injuries and disorders of consciousness need to find ways to help their patients, regardless of the exact definition of consciousness. The authors of the new study sought to better understand the mechanisms behind the pathological loss of consciousness and its recovery, as well as to have reliable ways to assess the state of the patients.

“In recent years, many studies have tried to objectively assess levels of consciousness using various neuroimaging techniques. While these studies have improved how we diagnose patients with disorders of consciousness, they haven’t fully explained how consciousness comes about,” explained study author Jitka Annen, a postdoctoral researcher at the Coma Science Group at the University of Liege.

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Analysis of intracranial EEG from epilepsy patients suggests three neural patterns associated with spatial attention and consciousness, and implicate high-level visual areas and lateralized fronto-parietal networks in shaping human conscious experience.

Click image for animation of DBS for post-stroke rehabilitation

A first-in-human trial of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for post-stroke rehabilitation patients by Cleveland Clinic researchers has shown that using DBS to target the dentate nucleus – which regulates fine-control of voluntary movements, cognition, language, and sensory functions in the brain – is safe and feasible.

The EDEN trial (Electrical Stimulation of the Dentate Nucleus for Upper Extremity Hemiparesis Due to Ischemic Stroke) also shows that the majority of participants (nine out of 12) demonstrated improvements in both motor impairment and function. Importantly, the study found that participants with at least minimal preservation of distal motor function at enrollment showed gains that almost tripled their initial scores.