How a single cell slime mold makes smart decisions without a central nervous system. Having a memory of past events enables us to make smarter decisions about the future. Researchers at the Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now identified how the slime mold Physarum polycephalum saves memories – although it has no nervous system.
Modifying brain cell activity can extend the lifespan of fruit flies while also preventing the damage characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.
Summary: A new study of gene expression in the hippocampus has unveiled two new genes potentially implicated in Alzheimer’s disease.
Source: PLOS
As people get older, their neural stem cells lose the ability to proliferate and produce new neurons, leading to a decline in memory function. Researchers at the University of Zurich have now discovered a mechanism linked to stem cell aging—and how the production of neurons can be reactivated.
NU-9, a novel, non-toxic protein, targets upper motor neurons and reverses damage associated with ALS within 60 days of treatment.
Summary: NU-9, a novel, non-toxic compound, targets upper motor neurons and reverses damage associated with ALS within 60 days of treatment.
Source: Northwestern University
Circa 2016
In the future, the doctor will follow you home with little measuring devices implanted in your body.
We hope that providing gentle neuromodulation throughout each day will be able to prevent patients from falling into long-lasting depressive episodes.
Hallucinogens, neuro-immunology and the microbiome — convergent approaches in mental healthcare — mike wang, johns hopkins university.
Mike Wang, is a neuro-psychiatric researcher and adjunct teaching faculty in neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
Mike is one of the youngest principal investigators at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and currently leads a clinical trial examining how hallucinogenic levels of over-the-counter dextromethorphan might serve as the world’s first rapid acting oral antidepressant. (Those interested in the clinical trial for dextromethorphan can.
Mike’s work has been featured in academic journals like the American Journal of Psychiatry, as well as popular outlets like Psychology Today and VICE.
Mike received his graduate training in immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health studying rare viral encephalitides and neuro-immune determinants of depressive disorders.
Scientific investigations of dreaming have been hampered by the delay between a dream and when people report on their dream, and by a change in state from sleep to wake. To overcome this problem, Konkoly et al. show that individuals in REM sleep can perceive and answer an experimenter’s questions, allowing for real-time communication about a dream.
Although the definitive causes of Alzheimer’s diseases aren’t yet fully understood, one of the leading suspects is the accumulation of abnormal proteins in the brain that impinges on the activity of the neurons. Scientists at Northwestern University have explored this phenomenon in a group of elderly individuals with excellent memory, known as SuperAgers, and found them to be far more resistant to the troublesome buildup of some of these proteins, shedding further light on how the disease may take hold.
A lot of the research into the progression of Alzheimer’s focus on a pair of proteins called amyloid and tau. Clumps of amyloid are thought to build up and develop into plaques that impact on memory and cognitive function, while tau takes the form of tangles that interfere with the way nutrients are taken up by the neurons, eventually leading to the death of the cell.
The Northwestern University researchers carried out experiments to study the prevalence of these proteins in SuperAgers, a group of subjects over the age of 80 with the memory capacity of someone 20 to 30 years younger than them. These subjects are assessed annually as part of ongoing research at Northwestern’s Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease.
