Lifeboat Foundation

Your Station, Your Views, Your Voice. Donate now to help keep your voice alive.

“Our study is the first to discover that stimulation of the FFAR2 sensing mechanism by these microbial metabolites (SCFAs) can be beneficial in protecting brain cells against toxic accumulation of the amyloid-beta (Aβ) protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease,” said principal investigator Hariom Yadav, PhD, professor of neurosurgery and brain repair at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, where he directs the USF Center for Microbiome Research.

Fenchol, a natural compound abundant in some plants including basil, can help protect the brain against Alzheimer’s disease pathology, a preclinical study led by University of South Florida Health (USF Health) researchers suggests.

The new study published Oct. 5 in the Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, discovered a sensing mechanism associated with the gut microbiome that explains how fenchol reduces neurotoxicity in the Alzheimer’s brain.

It’s the first study of individualized brain stimulation to treat severe depression. Sarah’s case raises the possibility the method may help people who don’t respond to other therapies.

Although the idea of having a small device implanted in our skulls might sound terrifying to some, deep brain stimulation has had a successful past in other brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.

Depression can be a frighteningly relentless condition. Luckily, researchers around the world are constantly working on new treatment options, such as a newly designed brain implant for resistant depression.

Continue reading “World-First Brain Implant Successfully Treats Resistant Depression in a Patient” »

The gene-regulatory mechanisms driving prefrontal cortex expansion.

“We are going to get so wrecked,” he added.

The kind of value systems that humans have used to structure societies over history — regardless of their success in bringing about meaningful change — may soon no longer be relevant.

“Idk, I think the broader point is just that machines might end up having a lot more flexibility on how they organize themselves than we do,” Hodak pondered in a follow-up tweet. “It takes generations to upgrade cognitive technology in human societies.”

Brains aren’t the easiest of organs to study, what with their delicate wiring and subtle whispering of neurotransmitter messages. Now, this research could be made a little easier, as we’ve learned we can swap some critical chemical systems with the host animal being none the wiser.

In a proof-of-concept study run by a team of US researchers, the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans was genetically gifted pieces of a nervous system taken from a radically different creature – a curious freshwater organism known as Hydra.

The swap wasn’t unlike teaching a specific brain circuit a foreign language, and finding it performs its job just as well as before.

A new resource profiles gene expression and the accessibility of DNA in single cells across the developing human cerebral cortex and may help scientists decipher the effects of noncoding mutations linked to autism.

Developing drugs for a range of tauopathies — dr leticia toledo-sherman, senior director, drug discovery, tau consortium, rainwater charitable foundation.

Dr. Leticia Toledo-Sherman is Senior Director of Drug Discovery of the Tau Consortium (https://tauconsortium.org/) for The Rainwater Charitable Foundation (https://rainwatercharitablefoundation.org/medical-research) and also holds an appointment as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Neurology at UCLA.

Continue reading “Dr. Leticia Toledo-Sherman — Senior Director, Drug Discovery, Tau Consortium, Rainwater Foundation” »