By isolating and reprogramming brain cells with dementia-causing genetic mutations, a team at JAX offers a powerful new research tool.
Understanding how we use our brain to make decisions is a daunting task, given our brain’s extensive webs of neural wiring and circuitry. Now, JAX researchers Erik Bloss and Kourtney Graham are using a surprising tool to investigate goal-directed behaviors: the rabies virus.
“Working memory” is a critical cognitive process.
The “secret code” the brain uses to create a key type of memory has finally been cracked.
This type of memory, called working memory, is what allows people to temporarily hold on to and manipulate information for short periods of time. You use working memory, for example, when you look up a phone number and then briefly remember the sequence of digits in order to dial, or when you ask a friend for directions to a restaurant and then keep track of the turns as you drive there.
Summary: People with depression who responded to psilocybin therapy showed an increase in brain connectivity for up to three weeks following treatment. The increased brain connectivity was correlated with self-reported improvements in depression symptoms.
Source: Imperial College London.
Psilocybin, the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms, helps to “open up” depressed people’s brains, even after use, enabling brain regions to talk more freely to one another.
In a small trial, immune cells that fight the Epstein-Barr virus have stopped the progression of multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune condition that can lead to symptoms, such as difficulty walking, that worsen over time.
Summary: Researchers identified a genetic correlation between blood biomarkers and a range of mental health disorders. The study provides evidence some substance measures within the blood may be involved in the cause of mental illnesses. For example, immune system proteins may be involved in the development of depression, schizophrenia, and anorexia.
Source: The Conversation.
Mental health disorders including depression, schizophrenia, and anorexia show links to biological markers detected in routine blood tests, according to our new study of genetic, biochemical and psychiatric data from almost a million people.
Watch the full documentary on TUBI (free w/ads):
https://tubitv.com/movies/613341/consciousness-evolution-of-the-mind.
IMDb-accredited film, rated TV-PG
Director: Alex Vikoulov.
Narrator: Forrest Hansen.
Copyright © 2021 Ecstadelic Media Group, Burlingame, California, USA
Collective dynamics are ubiquitous in the natural world. From neural circuits to animal groups, there are countless instances in which the interactions among large numbers of elementary units bestow surprisingly complex patterns of tantalizing beauty on the collective. One of the longstanding goals of researchers in many fields is to understand behaviors of a large group of individual units by monitoring the actions of a single unit. For example, an ornithologist can learn many things about the behaviors of a flock by monitoring only a single bird.
Of greater difficulty is understanding the size of a collection of units by observing a single unit. No matter how many birds one tags with monitoring equipment, one can never be assured of having tagged the entire flock. Yet, while the ability to calculate the size of a collective from individual behaviors would be a key tool for any field, there are only a handful of recent papers trying to tackle the seemingly unsolvable problem.
In a newly published study appearing in Communications Physics, investigators led by Maurizio Porfiri, Institute Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, and a member of the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering; and Pietro De Lellis of the University of Naples, Italy, offer a paradigm to solve this problem, one that builds upon precepts that can be traced back to the work of Einstein.
The new results, taken from two combined studies, reveal that people who responded to psilocybin-assisted therapy showed increased brain connectivity not just during their treatment, but up to three weeks afterwards. This “opening up” effect was associated with self-reported improvements in their depression.
Psilocybin, the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms, helps to “open up” depressed people’s brains, even weeks after use, a study has found.
These are the findings of a new analysis of brain scans from close to 60 people receiving treatment for depression, led by Imperial College London’s Centre for Psychedelic Research. The team behind the study believes it may have untangled how psilocybin exerts its therapeutic effects on the brain.
Continue reading “Magic mushroom compound increases brain connectivity in people with depression” »
The goal of this virtual workshop is to discuss whether microbial pathogens may represent a causal component of Alzheimer’s disease, review knowledge gaps, and establish scientific priorities to address these gaps. The workshop discussed gaps in current knowledge and explored new opportunities for research in the areas intersecting infectious organisms and Alzheimer’s disease.
All comments must conform to NIA’s comments policy: https://go.usa.gov/xtqAQ
