Blobs of human brain cells cultivated in the lab, known as brain organoids or “mini-brains”, are transforming our understanding of neural development and disease. Now, researchers are working to make them more like the real thing.
Category: neuroscience – Page 667
Neuroscientist leads unprecedented research to map billions of brain cells
Circa 2018 face_with_colon_three
Since the time of Hippocrates and Herophilus, scientists have placed the location of the mind, emotions and intelligence in the brain. For centuries, this theory was explored through anatomical dissection, as the early neuroscientists named and proposed functions for the various sections of this unusual organ. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal developed the methods to look deeper into the brain, using a silver stain to detect the long, stringy cells now known as neurons and their connections, called synapses.
Today, neuroanatomy involves the most powerful microscopes and computers on the planet. Viewing synapses, which are only nanometers in length, requires an electron microscope imaging a slice of brain thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper. To map an entire human brain would require 300,000 of these images, and even reconstructing a small three-dimensional brain region from these snapshots requires roughly the same supercomputing power it takes to run an astronomy simulation of the universe.
Fortunately, both of these resources exist at Argonne, where, in 2015, Kasthuri was the first neuroscientist ever hired by the U.S. Department of Energy laboratory. Peter Littlewood, the former director of Argonne who brought him in, recognized that connectome research was going to be one of the great big data challenges of the coming decades, one that UChicago and Argonne were perfectly poised to tackle.
New device can heal with a single touch, and even repair brain injuries
Circa 2017 face_with_colon_three
A new device developed at The Ohio State University can start healing organs in a “fraction of a second,” researchers say.
The technology, known as Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT), has the potential to save the lives of car crash victims and even deployed soldiers injured on site. It’s a dime-sized silicone chip that “injects genetic code into skin cells, turning those skin cells into other types of cells required for treating diseased conditions,” according to a release.
In lab tests, one touch of TNT completely repaired injured legs of mice over three weeks by turning skin cells into vascular cells.
Too much motivation affects our decision-making
In a good or a bad mood, focused or distracted, our internal states directly influence our perceptions and decision-making. While the role of motivation on the performance of behavioral tasks has been known for more than a century—thanks to the work of psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dilligham Dodson—its precise effect on the brain remains unclear.
A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with the EPFL, has revealed how motivation alters the neural circuits responsible for sensory perception preceding decision-making in mice. This study reveals why a level of motivation that is too high or too low can affect our perception and therefore our choices. These results, featured in the journal Neuron, open up new perspectives in learning methods.
Going to work early in the morning, choosing a restaurant at lunchtime: many of our decisions are motivated by needs such as earning a living or satisfying our hunger. However, decision-making is a complex process, which can also be influenced by external factors, such as the environment or other individuals, and by our internal states, such as our mood, our level of attention or our degree of motivation.
The Obligatory Mind Uploading Blockchain Crossover
A classic thought experiment in the philosophy of mind is reduplication, in which a person (or her mind) is duplicated such that two or more descendant people of shared mental ancestry now exist where previously there was one. The philosophical quandary is to resolve what happened to the original person’s identity. Did she survive and if so, in which of the resulting people’s minds? Which of the two resulting people is the original and which is a mere copy of denigrated identity status? Alternatively, is there something fundamentally wrong with the wording of such questions, such that we should we adopt a different perspective on the nature of personal identity that offers alternative solutions to the reduplication quandary? Reduplication further arises not only in abstract philosophical musings, but also in the futuristic and variously conceivable (depending on the reader’s tastes), technology of mind uploading, in which a person’s physical brain is emulated via the technology of whole brain emulation. While mind uploading might produce a single result, such as if the original brain is destroyed by the uploading process and only one upload is created, we can also conceive of either nondestructive scenarios (in which the original brain is not destroyed) or scenarios that produce multiple uploads. Either case results in multiple descendant minds, each operating in distinct physical systems (brains or cloned brains, or computers of some sort). The philosophy of personal identity has produced several possible stances on the nature of personal identity. The most popular are body identity and psychological identity, with other options including closest continuer identity, space-time worm identity and branching identity. However, there is always room for new theories to enter the discussion. The way in which blockchains work, and Bitcoin’s mining process and protocol for handling orphaned blocks, suggests a new theory of identity along with a new solution to the reduplication problem. The proposed blockchain solution to personal identity has applications to the handling of the reduplication problem as it may arise during a futuristic mind uploading procedure.
A blockchain holds a hashed transaction ledger, essentially the history of all transactions encoded to prevent any subsequent alteration of the history. In this way, all transactions back to the beginning of the ledger’s history can be confirmed by any interested party. Deceit, fraud, and other attempts to undermine the history simply don’t work, and consequently blockchains enable a variety of interactions with the currently most popular being digital currency. In addition to more conventional applications, blockchains could also be used to assign identity status (original or copy) to the descendent minds of a mind uploading procedure. Each descendant could then venture out into the world confident that their identity status will be honored by all third parties thereafter. Let us call this the blockchain theory of personal identity.
Secret Structure in the Wiring Diagram of the Brain
Summary: Study reveals a hidden order in seemingly random connections between neurons.
Source: University Hospital Bonn.
In the brain, our perception arises from a complex interplay of neurons that are connected via synapses. But the number and strength of connections between certain types of neurons can vary.
Alector initiates Phase 1 clinical trial for treatment of Alzheimer’s
Alector, a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering immuno-neurology and innate immuno-oncology, has announced the initiation of the first-in-human Phase 1 trial of AL044. The study is investigating the safety profile, pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD) and target engagement of AL044 in healthy adults.
Longevity. Technology: Headquartered in South San Francisco, California, Alector is aiming to develop an unmatched pipeline of novel potential medicines based on insights into immunology, neurology and human genetics. The company’s therapeutic candidates are intended to harness the body’s innate power to heal itself, and Alector is pioneering immuno-neurology, a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, and innate immuno-oncology.
Immuno-neurology targets immune dysfunction as a root cause of multiple pathologies that are drivers of degenerative brain disorders. Alector has discovered, and is developing, a broad portfolio of innate immune system programs, designed to functionally repair genetic mutations that cause dysfunction of the brain’s immune system and enable rejuvenated immune cells to counteract emerging brain pathologies. Alector’s immuno-neurology product candidates are supported by biomarkers and target genetically defined patient populations in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Pain-Sensing Gut Neurons Protect Against Inflammation
Summary: Pain-sensing neurons in the put secrete substance P, a molecule that protects against gut inflammation and tissue damage by boosting specific microbes in the gut. In people with inflammatory bowel disease, the pain-sensing neurons are diminished and there are significant disruptions in pain-signaling genes.
Source: Weill Cornell University.
Neurons that sense pain protect the gut from inflammation and associated tissue damage by regulating the microbial community living in the intestines, according to a study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Elon Musk says he’s selling Perfume to gather cash for Twitter buyout
With a fresh comment, Elon Musk, the brains behind Tesla and SpaceX, has ignited Twitter once again. “Please purchase my perfume, so I can buy Twitter,” reads his most recent tweet. For those who are unaware, Elon Musk agreed to buy the social networking site Twitter in April 2022.
Twitter said in October 2022 that it had spoken with Elon Musk and that he had verified his willingness to pay the $44 billion sum in question. Musk now plans to make some money by offering perfume for sale online.
In the beginning, Musk bought a 9.2 percent share on Twitter. Musk, however, made the decision to fully acquire Twitter owing to several differences and a desire to promote “Free Speech” on the social networking platform. In April 2022, a settlement was reached between the two sides, and $54.20 per share in cash was agreed upon.
The Cerebellum Has a Function We Didn’t Even Know About, New Research Reveals
Given the complexity of the human body, it’s no surprise that we’re still making new discoveries about the different parts we’re made up of – and scientists have just made a new discovery about the cerebellum at the back of the brain.
Already known as being important for properly controlling our movements, it now appears that this brain region also has a key role to play when it comes to remembering positive and negative emotional experiences.
These types of emotional experiences are particularly well remembered by the brain, not least because it helps the survival of our species to be able to remember times when we were in danger and times when we prospered.