In 2023, the US healthcare industry is again facing several significant challenges, including ongoing high inflation rates, labor shortages, and the persistent impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite continued difficulties, leaders in the space are working to find innovative solutions to improve the current system while looking ahead at the promising future of medicine that appears to have already arrived.
From artificial intelligence-based medicine to breakthroughs in precision neuroscience, we outline key trends expected to shape the healthcare landscape in 2023 and beyond.
The 2023 Trend Report: Impactful Healthcare Innovations to Watch.
In 2021, Craig Gibbons was diagnosed with Lyme disease. His doctor prescribed him antibiotics, but the medication failed to eliminate one of his most debilitating symptoms: a lasting brain fog that made it difficult for him to focus or recall information.
So he went with a different approach: at-home brain stimulation.
Over the past few years, Gibbons had been experimenting with transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, which delivers weak electrical currents to the brain through electrodes attached to the head.
Anna Wexler, an assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, studies why and how people use brain stimulation at home. Sheโs found that people are using the devices to treat mental health disorders or to improve mental performance.
โDepression and anxiety are the top two indications for people,โ Wexler said. โBut other reasons people used it for were for enhancement, so to improve focus, to improve memory, things like that.โ
Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023
(NewMediaWire) โ February 2, 2023 โ DALLAS Among people who received more intensive treatment for high blood pressure, evaluations of MRI scans indicated a positive change in brain structures involved in its ability to clear toxins and other byproducts, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Stroke Associationโs International Stroke Conference 2023. The meeting, held in person in Dallas and virtually, Feb. 8โ10, 2023, is a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science of stroke and brain health.
The study is the first to examine whether intensive blood pressure treatment may slow, or reverse structural changes related to the volume of the brainโs perivascular spaces, areas of the brain around the blood vessels that are involved in the clearance of toxins and other byproducts. These areas tend to enlarge as people get older or have more cardiovascular risk factors.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] โ More than two decades ago, a team of Brown University researchers set out with an ambitious goal to provide people with paralysis a revolutionary neurotechnology capable of turning thoughts about movement into actual action, using a tiny device that would one day be implanted in the surface of the brain. Their work led to an ongoing, multi-institution effort to create the BrainGate brain-computer interface, designed to allow clinical trial participants with paralysis to control assistive devices like computers or robotic limbs just by thinking about the action they want to initiate.
In an important step toward a medical technology that could help restore independence of people with paralysis, researchers find the investigational BrainGate neural interface system has low rates of associated adverse events.
Although early detection of many types of cancer has contributed to the recent increases in cancer survival rates, the survival rate for brain tumors has remained almost unchanged for over 20 years. Partly this is due to their late detection. Physicians often discover brain tumors only after the onset of neurological symptoms, such as loss of movement or speech, by which time the tumor has reached a considerable size. Detecting the tumor when it is still small, and starting treatment as soon as possible, should help to save lives.
One possible sign that a person has a brain tumor is the presence of tumor-related extracellular vesicles (EVs) in their urine. EVs are nano-sized vesicles involved in a variety of functions, including cell-to-cell communication. Because those found in brain cancer patients have specific types of RNA and membrane proteins, they could be used to detect the presence of cancer and its progression.
When it comes to courtship, it is important to ensure that one is interacting with a member of the same species. Animals use multiple sensory systems to confirm that potential mates are indeed suitable, with acoustic communication playing an important role in their decision making.
Although these differences have previously been reported at the behavioral level, it is not known how the neuronal circuitry underlying this decision-making has diverged between species. Now, in a new publication in Scientific Reports, a research group at Nagoya University in Japan has investigated how the auditory processing pathway has evolved and diverged between fruit fly species.
Males of several species of Drosophila (fruit flies), which are regularly used in neuroscience research, vibrate their wings rhythmically during courtship, producing a courtship song. The temporal components of these songs differ between species, allowing female flies to distinguish between potential mates.
This article is based on accredited medical, science, and media reports. Disclaimer: I am not a scientist. I will share knowledge but will offer no personal opinion on this matter herein.
All listed theories and facts shared within this article are fully-attributed to said outlets, includingWikipedia.org, NeuroscienceNews.com, and TheDailyBrief.com.
The origins and workings of consciousness have remained among scienceโs greatest unanswered mysteries. How did it begin? What sparks it?
Neurologist Christopher Walsh discovered genes that direct cerebral cortex development. We asked him what they reveal about intelligence, psychiatric disorders, and the nature of being human.
This article was produced for The Kavli Prize by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazineโs board of editors.
Keep exploring at http://brilliant.org/ArtemKirsanov/ Get started for free, and hurryโthe first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
My name is Artem, Iโm a computational neuroscience student and researcher. In this video we will see why individual neurons essentially function like deep convolutional neural networks, equipped with insane information processing capabilities as well as some of the physiological mechanisms, that account for such computational complexity.
OUTLINE: 00:00 Introduction. 01:42 โ Perceptrons. 03:43 โ Electrical excitability and action potential. 07:12 โ Cable theory: passive dendrites. 09:03 โ Active dendritic properties. 12:10 โ Human neurons as XOR gates. 19:11 โ Single neurons as deep neural networks. 22:32 โ Brilliant. 23:57 โ Recap and outro.
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