The February edition of Journal Club, hosted by Dr. Oliver Medvedik, took a look at a recent paper that explored using gamma stimulation, accomplished through visual and auditory stimuli, to treat Alzheimer’s disease.
Hitting the Books: How getting your clock cleaned can turn your brain’s first line of immune defense into its own worst enemy.
It is part of a fly’s brain, but other brains will follow.
According to this CTV News article, survivors and families of an MK Ultra brainwashing program run by Dr. Ewen Cameron at McGill University in Montreal in the 1950s and 1960s have banded together to bring the horrors of this program more fully into the public eye.
They are planning a class action lawsuit against the provincial and federal government, an initiative which lawyer Alan Stein feels optimistic about:
“I believe we can claim moral damages as a result of the experiments when Dr. Cameron used these people as guinea pigs.”—lawyer Alan Stein
Summary: Vimentin, a cellular filament, helps neural stem cells to clear damaged and clumped proteins, assisting in neurogenesis.
Source: University of Wisconsin Madison
New research by University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists reveals how a cellular filament helps neural stem cells clear damaged and clumped proteins, an important step in eventually producing new neurons. The work provides a new cellular target for interventions that could boost neuron production when it’s needed most, such as after brain injuries. And because clumping proteins are a hallmark of many neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s, the new study could provide insight into how these toxic proteins can be cleared away. Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Darcie Moore led the work with her graduate student Christopher Morrow. Their study is available online in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
We call this PTSD. The question is whether we can reprogram our nervous system? In Stealing Fire, authors Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal discussed advances in psychology, technology, neurobiology and pharmacology — and whether they help us map healthy nervous systems? Can we then use that data and create new designer compounds to recalibrate the nervous systems of those suffering from PTSD? Can we tweak our nervous systems for human flourishing? I hope so. Recent breakthrough in MDMA psychotherapy might be only a taste of what’s to come. Filmed and toned by @j.elon.goodman ||@mapsnews @mapscanada @meetdelic @psychedelicsocietysf #psychedelics @synthesisrtrt #mentalhealth #creativity #depression #anxiety #psychotherapy #therapy #inspiration #motivation
When you see an unconscious patient in a movie, you sometimes see their thoughts onscreen (like in The 9th Life of Louis Drax, above) or at least hear a voiceover.
That may not entirely stay in science fiction. Adrian Owen, neuroscientist and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and his research team are using brain-computer interfaces with advanced technology to get answers directly from people who can’t answer for themselves any other way. Any critical decisions for patients unable to communicate are usually made for them.
For nearly 2000 years, as many as three thousand Greeks shared similar visionary experiences in the town of Eleusis while celebrating the great Eleusinian Mysteries.
In this inaugural video of “Ancient Greece Revisited” we explore the possible use of psychedelics in the Greek world. We follow a thread connecting the most sacred of rituals, the “Great Mysteries of Eleusis,” to the discovery of LSD by Albert Hofmann in the midst of WW2, and from there, to a new, psychedelic view of the entirety of Greek culture.
If you want to reduce levels of inflammation throughout your body, delay the onset of age-related diseases, and live longer—eat less food. That’s the conclusion of a new study by scientists from the US and China that provides the most detailed report to date of the cellular effects of a calorie-restricted diet in rats. While the benefits of caloric restriction have long been known, the new results show how this restriction can protect against aging in cellular pathways, as detailed in Cell on February 27, 2020.
“We already knew that calorie restriction increases life span, but now we’ve shown all the changes that occur at a single-cell level to cause that,” says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a senior author of the new paper, professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and holder of the Roger Guillemin Chair. “This gives us targets that we may eventually be able to act on with drugs to treat aging in humans.”
Aging is the highest risk factor for many human diseases, including cancer, dementia, diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Caloric restriction has been shown in animal models to be one of the most effective interventions against these age-related diseases. And although researchers know that individual cells undergo many changes as an organism ages, they have not known how caloric restriction might influence these changes.
You can improve your brain health with the right diet. Eat these 11 foods to boost your memory and focus, help prevent disease and keep sharp as you age.
