Neuroscience – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Mar 28
2023

How to Grow Cerebral Organoids from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Follow our step-by-step video guide for growing cerebral organoids, or brain organoids, from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). We’ll walk you through embryoid body formation, induction, expansion, and organoid maturation.

0:35 — Embryoid Body Formation.
2:57 — Induction.
4:07 — Expansion.
6:42 — Organoid Maturation.

View a printable protocol on how to grow cerebral organoids: https://bit.ly/38hvMDA

Explore resources for neural organoid research: https://bit.ly/34ZGWun.

#CerebralOrganoids #BrainOrganoids #3Dculture.

For a full list of products, as well as educational resources, visit our website: https://www.stemcell.com.

Continue reading “How to Grow Cerebral Organoids from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells” | >

Mar 28
2023

Does consciousness create the universe? A new book makes the startling claim

Credit: Pixabay.

“Observer,” a thriller co-written by the scientist Robert Lanza and the leading sci-fi writer Nancy Kress, looks towards quantum physics and beyond in a provocative story of a brilliant neurosurgeon.

Mar 27
2023

Advances in brain modeling open a path to digital twin approaches for brain medicine

In the current edition of The Lancet Neurology, researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) present the novel clinical uses of advanced brain modeling methods. Computational brain modeling techniques that integrate the measured data of a patient have been developed by researchers at AMU Marseille as part of the HBP. The models can be used as predictive tools to virtually test clinical hypotheses and strategies.

To create personalized brain models, the researchers use a simulation technology called The Virtual Brain (TVB), which HBP scientist Viktor Jirsa has developed together with collaborators. For each patient, the computational models are created from data of the individually measured anatomy, structural connectivity and brain dynamics.

The approach has been first applied in epilepsy, and a major clinical trial is currently ongoing. The TVB technology enables clinicians to simulate the spread of abnormal activity during epileptic seizures in a patient’s brain, helping them to better identify the target areas. In January, the team had presented the detailed methodology of the epilepsy work on the cover of Science Translational Medicine.

Mar 27
2023

A New Field of Computing Powered by Human Brain Cells: “Organoid Intelligence”

Johns Hopkins researchers break ground on new field of ‘organoid intelligence’.

According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, a “biocomputer” powered by human brain cells could be developed within our lifetime. This technology is expected to exponentially expand the capabilities of modern computing and open up new areas of research.

The team’s plan for “organoid intelligence” was outlined in a recent article published in the journal Frontiers in Science.

Mar 27
2023

Digital Twin Approaches Enabled by Cutting-Edge Brain Modelling Advances

Summary: Using a new technology called The Virtual Brain, researchers are able to create personalized computerized brain models of individual patients based on their anatomy, structural connectivity, and brain dynamics.

Source: Human Brain Project.

In the current edition of The Lancet Neurology, researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) present the novel clinical uses of advanced brain modeling methods.

Mar 27
2023

Madeline A. Lancaster on Modeling human brain development in cerebral organoids

Prof. Madeline A. Lancaster (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge, UK) on “Modeling human brain development in cerebral organoids”, at the FENS-SfN Summer School 2018 on Neural stem cells, brain organoids and brain repair, which was held on 3–9 June 2018 in Bertinoro, Italy.

Mar 27
2023

Quantum aspects of the brain-mind relationship: A hypothesis with supporting evidence

Abstract.

If all aspects of the mind-brain relationship were adequately explained by classical physics, then there would be no need to propose alternatives. But faced with possibly unresolvable puzzles like qualia and free will, other approaches are required. In alignment with a suggestion by Heisenberg in 1958, we propose a model whereby the world consists of two elements: Ontologically real Possibles that do not obey Aristotle’s law of the excluded middle, and ontologically real Actuals that do. Based on this view, which bears resemblance to von Neumann’s 1955 proposal (von Neumann, 1955), and more recently by Stapp and others (Stapp, 2007; Rosenblum and Kuttner, 2006), measurement that is registered by an observer’s mind converts Possibles into Actuals. This quantum-oriented approach raises the intriguing prospect that some aspects of mind may be quantum, and that mind may play an active role in the physical world. A body of empirical evidence supports these possibilities, strengthening our proposal that the mind-brain relationship may be partially quantum.

Mar 27
2023

New CRISPR tool reversed blindness in mice — permanently

A new CRISPR tool corrected a genetic mutation that causes vision loss, in an experiment in mice — and its creators at the Wuhan University of Science and Technology (WUST) in China think it could be a safe way to treat countless other genetic diseases in people.

The challenge: Vision starts with light entering the eye and traveling to the retina. There, light-sensitive cells, called photoreceptors, convert light into electrical signals that are sent to the brain.

Retinitis pigmentosa is a rare — and, currently, incurable — genetic disease that can be caused by mutations in more than 100 different genes. These mutations destroy the cells of the retina, leading to vision loss, and for most people, there’s no way to stop the disease or reverse its damage (the exception is a gene therapy approved to treat mutations in the RPE65 gene).

Mar 27
2023

Brains Might Sync As People Interact — and That Could Upend Consciousness Research

When we cooperate on certain tasks, our brainwaves might synchronize. This finding could upend the current understanding of consciousness.

Mar 27
2023

How We’re Reverse Engineering the Human Brain in the Lab | Sergiu P. Pasca | TED

Neuroscientist Sergiu P. Pasca has made it his life’s work to understand how the human brain builds itself — and what makes it susceptible to disease. In a mind-blowing talk laden with breakthrough science, he shows how his team figured out how to grow “organoids” and what they call brain “assembloids” — self-organizing clumps of neural tissue derived from stem cells that have shown the ability to form circuits — and explains how these miniature parts of the nervous system are bringing us closer to demystifying the brain.

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