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Category: neuroscience – Page 463

The gene-silencing complex HUSH might be involved in complex disorders affecting the brain and neurons. However, its mechanism of action remains unclear. Researchers from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA) now uncover the in vivo targets and physiological functions of a component of the HUSH gene-silencing complex and one of its associated proteins.

The work, conducted in laboratory mouse models and human organoids, links the HUSH complex to normal , neuronal individuality and connectivity, as well as mouse behavior. The findings are published in Science Advances.

The human silencing hub (HUSH) complex was recently identified to be of key importance for silencing repetitive genetic elements including transposons in mammals. The HUSH complex contains MPP8, a protein that binds the histone modification mark H3K9me3. Additionally, HUSH is known to recruit other proteins including the zinc finger protein MORC2.

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Using human brain organoids, an international team of researchers, led by scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Sanford Consortium, has shown how the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 infects cortical neurons and specifically destroys their synapses — the connections between brain cells that allow them to communicate with each other.

The findings, published in the November 3, 2022 issue of PLOS Biology, also report that the antiviral drug sofosbuvir, already an approved treatment for hepatitis C, effectively inhibited SARS-CoV-2 replication and reversed neuronal alterations in infected brain organoids.

“Vaccines and emerging treatments have reduced the health consequences of COVID-19 in most patients,” said senior study author Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, professor in departments of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “But the phenomenon of Long COVID, characterized by persisting symptoms that include neurological impairment, remains poorly understood and without any specific remedy.

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Is a Gerontologist and Clinical Social Worker on a mission to rethink aging, longevity & mental health.

Ms. Anderson was also the former lead singer of the American Rock group, The Donnas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Donnas), where she was the lead vocalist for 20 years, performing throughout the U.S., as well as internationally, and had performances / appearances on major network shows including Saturday Night Live, David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

Ms. Anderson received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Stanford University, her MSG, Gerontology from the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, and her Master of Social Work — MSW, from the.
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Now pursuing a career as a licensed geriatric social worker, Ms. Anderson hopes to integrate her creative and business experience, with her gerontological knowledge, to better meet the needs of our rapidly aging population.

Continue reading “Brett Anderson, MSG, MSW — Journey From Rock Musician To Rethinking Aging, Longevity & Mental Health” | >

A molecule found in green tea helped UCLA biochemists in the discovery of multiple molecules capable of destroying tau fibers.

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers used a molecule present in green tea to uncover more molecules that may break up protein tangles in the brain, which are known to cause Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that attacks the brain, causing a decline in mental ability that worsens over time. It is the most common form of dementia and accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. There is no current cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there are medications that can help ease the symptoms.

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Read the accompanying news item: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/follow-hbp/news/ebrains-…disorders/

Using the EBRAINS research infrastructure, scientists of the Human Brain Project have developed multi-scale simulations of the human brain that mimic hallmarks of activity during wake and deep sleep states. Such simulations can lead to a better understanding of biological mechanisms that regulate human consciousness and its disorders, which span from single neurons to whole brain scales.

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Large Language Models have the ability to store vast amounts of facts about the world. But little is known, how these models actually do this. This paper aims at discovering the mechanism and location of storage and recall of factual associations in GPT models, and then proposes a mechanism for the targeted editing of such facts, in form of a simple rank-one update to a single MLP layer. This has wide implications both for how we understand such models’ inner workings, and for our ability to gain greater control over such models in the future.

OUTLINE:
0:00 — Introduction.
1:40 — What are the main questions in this subfield?
6:55 — How causal tracing reveals where facts are stored.
18:40 — Clever experiments show the importance of MLPs.
24:30 — How do MLPs store information?
29:10 — How to edit language model knowledge with precision?
36:45 — What does it mean to know something?
39:00 — Experimental Evaluation & the CounterFact benchmark.
45:40 — How to obtain the required latent representations?
51:15 — Where is the best location in the model to perform edits?
58:00 — What do these models understand about language?
1:02:00 — Questions for the community.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.05262
Follow-up paper on Mass-Editing Memory in a Transformer: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.

Abstract:

Continue reading “ROME: Locating and Editing Factual Associations in GPT (Paper Explained & Author Interview)” | >

A major hallmark of Parkinson’s disease is the loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain, which in turn causes patients to lose motor control abilities. NYSCF – Robertson Stem Cell Investigator Alumna Malin Parmar, PhD, of Lund University, has spent a decade developing a cell therapy to replace these cells, and this revolutionary treatment (called ‘STEM-PD’) has just received approval for a Phase I/IIa clinical trial in Sweden.

“We are excited and looking forward to this clinical study of STEM-PD, hoping that it could potentially help reduce the significant burden of Parkinson’s disease. This has been a massive team effort for over a decade, and the regulatory approval is a major and important milestone,” said Dr. Parmar, who is a Professor of Developmental and Regenerative Neurobiology at Lund, in a statement.

Dr. Parmar’s innovative work towards a Parkinson’s cell therapy earned her the NYSCF – Robertson Stem Cell Investigator Award in 2016, which provided support for her lab’s research until 2021, including her work on STEM-PD.

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