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Category: neuroscience – Page 6

Study reveals new role for tau, a top target for Alzheimer’s drug development

In the race for new ways to treat Alzheimer’s and other devastating neurologic diseases, the protein tau has become a tantalizing target for drug developers. A new study lends support to those efforts by describing a previously unknown role that tau plays in neurodegeneration — and suggesting a novel way researchers might block the protein’s activity.

A team led by Stanford scientists found that tau can gum up the works of a cell’s mitochondria, its energy-producing powerhouse. The protein sends electrons flowing in the opposite direction of their usual microscopic relay race, a reversal that generates reactive oxygen species, cellular stress, and inflammation. Scientists found that blocking this phenomenon, known as reverse electron transport, reversed many of the harmful effects and improved learning and memory in flies and mice.

Whether the same will hold true in people is for now unclear, though an analysis of human cells grown in the lab and patient brain tissue suggests blocking the retrograde flow of electrons could make neurons healthier. Two of the study’s authors have started a biotech startup to put this idea to the test.

New brain map connects mice and primates to strengthen medical research

Most neuroscience research still runs on mice, even though much of what applies to mice does not hold up in humans. Marmosets have emerged as a bridge between species. However, comparing the brains of mice and marmosets runs into a chicken-and-egg problem. Scientists need to know which part of one brain matches the respective region of the other, but almost every brain map draws those areas differently.

For a new study published in Communications Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Partha Mitra and colleagues built the first cross-species map to systematically link mouse and marmoset brain regions.

“It’s the kind of problem that nobody wants to address, because it’s hard,” Mitra says. Comparing genomes across species is relatively straightforward. DNA aligns letter by letter. But brain circuits vary even within one species. Compounding the problem, research teams have built different brain atlases that divide the same mouse brain differently.

Sleep could help identify people at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease at an earlier stage

What if certain signs of the disease were to manifest subtly during sleep, long before the first memory problems appear? This is the line of inquiry being explored by a team of researchers at ULiège.

A team of scientists from the University of Liège (GIGA Neurosciences), supported by the Stop Alzheimer’s Foundation, has analyzed the sleep patterns of more than 500 healthy people. Among middle-aged participants, a higher frequency of nocturnal micro-awakenings was found to be associated with a greater genetic risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, whereas this link was not observed in young adults. This research, published in the journal Sleep, suggests that the study of sleep could, in the long term, contribute to the early identification of vulnerable individuals.

Glioblastoma isoform diversity mapping

Researchers have achieved a major breakthrough in brain cancer research by developing the most comprehensive map to date of isoform diversity in glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer in adults. Using advanced long-read single-cell sequencing, the team uncovered thousands of previously unknown tumor-specific genetic isoforms that had remained invisible to conventional approaches. The discovery reveals a new source of potential therapeutic targets, including candidates that could be harnessed for future personalised cancer vaccines and immunotherapies. The findings were published in Nature Communications.

Glioblastoma is notoriously difficult to treat because tumor cells within the same patient can behave, grow and respond to treatment differently. Understanding this cellular diversity is essential for developing more effective therapies.

Every gene in the human body can produce slightly different versions of its genetic instructions, known as isoforms. These variations can profoundly influence cellular function and in cancer, may determine whether tumour cells are recognised by the immune system or evade detection. Until now, the technology used to study individual cancer cells could read only short fragments of genetic information, limiting researchers’ ability to study full-length isoforms in individual cells.

Potential language-specific brain network identified

The language network in your brain can be seen, even if you aren’t saying a word. For a study published in Nature Communications, researchers used data from more than 1,900 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans to find significant support for the existence of a language-specific network of neurons in the adult human brain. They could detect this network even when the people whose brains were scanned were at rest or performing a task unrelated to language, such as putting together a puzzle or listening to music.

“The human brain appears to have a network that’s selective and necessary for language, and we can find that network from the activity in the brain alone,” said Cory Shain, lead study author and assistant professor of linguistics at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences. “The simple fact that a person’s brain activity is always going up and down lets us detect where this network is with high fidelity. It’s such an important and stable structure that we can find it no matter what someone is doing.”

Shain and co-author Evelina Fedorenko of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that much of the language network generally spans the left hemisphere and frontal and temporal regions of the brain, but the details of its structure are different for each individual. The study findings could help make a range of advances, including finding therapies for the communication problems caused by strokes or other brain injuries.

Why eye contact may help babies learn: A hidden link between two brains

Have you ever noticed how babies get hooked the moment someone makes eye contact with them? That eye contact is not only cute; it may also send a powerful message to a baby. For years, scientists have been investigating whether social messages like eye contact and baby talk do more than engage babies. They may help synchronize babies’ brains with adult brain waves. But the biggest question remained: Does it actually help babies learn?

A new study, published in Nature Communications, offers an answer. Scientists found that 9-month-old infants were able to learn a novel language when the face in a video looked directly at them with fully visible eyes.

Using electroencephalography, or EEG, brain scanning, scientists detected a kind of “neural handshake” between the adult’s and infant’s brains, synchronized through eye contact.

This Deadly Brain Cancer Hijacks Brain Activity to Fuel Its Growth, Study Reveals

Of all the many forms cancer can take, those that arise in the brain can be among the hardest to treat.

A type of tumor known as glioma is a particularly formidable example. These malignant growths arise from glial cells or their precursors in the brain or spinal cord; the worst form – glioblastoma – has a 5-year survival rate of just 5 to 7 percent.

Part of the reason gliomas are so insidiously difficult to treat is that they actively exploit the brain’s crucial functions to feed their growth.

A Human-Specific Gene May Help Explain Our Extraordinary Brainpower

The new findings could help explain what made the human brain unique during evolution.

A mouse’s brain immune cells mature in about three weeks. Their human counterparts take four to eight years, an unusually slow timetable that may help explain how the human brain develops its distinctive cognitive abilities.

Microglia are the brain’s most abundant immune cells. They protect against invading threats, remove damaged neurons and help shape neural circuits as the brain develops. Scientists at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute have now found for the first time that human microglia, like human neurons, mature far more slowly than those of other animals.

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