Lifeboat Foundation

Optogenetic approaches are widely used to manipulate neural activity and assess the consequences for brain function. Here, a technique is outlined that upon in vivo expression of the optical activator Channelrhodopsin, allows for ex vivo analysis of synaptic properties of specific long range and local neural connections in fear-related circuits.

‘It is a real message of hope – I feel within my lifetime we can restore functional sight to the blind’, expert says of successful study.

Medical experts hail ‘paradigm shift’ of implant that transmits video images directly to the visual cortex, bypassing the eye and optic nerve.

We all have things we’d rather forget. But for over four million people in the US who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), that need becomes very real.

Erasing memories has always been the stuff of science fiction and wishful thinking. After all, what happened, happened—your experiences are solidified in your head as part of your past, perhaps even molding your personality.

But does it have to be this way?

The past decade of Alzheimer’s disease research has been fraught with disappointment.

Years of focus on one hallmark of the disease ultimately resulted in no progress toward treatment or prevention.

But next week, when top scientists gather in Los Angeles at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, an annual meeting, many will present research on a different target: inflammation.

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YaleNew

In a stunning scientific breakthrough, Yale School of Medicine researchers restored brain activity in pigs that had died hours before. The finding could revolutionize the neuroscience field and how scientists conceive the boundaries between life and death.

By circulating a cocktail of cell-rejuvenating compounds throughout the pigs’ brains, the researchers prevented tissue decomposition and restored some cell function. If replicated, their technique could be used as a model for drug testing and has implications for how scientists understand brain plasticity after traumatic events such as strokes.

They are found in many freshwater lakes.

A potentially deadly brain-eating amoeba has been detected in a Louisiana neighborhood’s drinking water — the third time the terrifying discovery has been made in the same parish since 2015, reports said.

Naegleria fowleri, which causes fatal brain swelling and tissue destruction, was found over the weekend in Terrebonne Parish, deep in the Louisiana bayou about an hour south of New Orleans, WWL-TV reported.

Continue reading “Brain-eating amoeba found in Louisiana drinking water again” »

The Allen Brain Explorer (beta) is an application that allows users to browse multimodal datasets in an annotated 3D spatial framework. This new application is an integrated web-based navigator, allowing users to explore the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas projection data and Allen Reference Atlas (ARA) in a standardized coordinate space.

The Brain Explorer 2 software is a desktop application for viewing the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas projection data and the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas gene expression data in the framework of the Allen Reference Atlas (ARA). This downloadable software will be discontinued in 2019, as improved functionality and new features will be available via the integrated web-based platform. Updates to this software will be discontinued after that time.