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Category: neuroscience – Page 700

Despite pigheaded intransigence at the highest levels of its national government, the renewable energy revolution is coming to Australia in a big way. And why not? Enough sunlight hits what Bill Bryson calls “a sunburned country” every day to meet all of humanity’s energy needs for a year. All it has to do is figure out how to harvest and distribute all that energy. (It could begin by replacing its national leaders with people who possess actual functioning brains, but the same can be said for many nations around the world.)

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“And by answering the question, how do psychedelics work, we also inadvertently shine a light on other questions science has shied away from for decades. How do our brains generate our sense of self? What is the neurochemistry of consciousness?”

New research asks, how does psilocybin create a feeling of ego dissolution, and what chemicals in the brain create our subjective sense of self?

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Researchers in Germany have discovered a new mechanism by which Alzheimer’s disease impairs memory recall – and, importantly, found a way to reverse it in mice. Neurons encoded with existing memories are being drowned out by noise from neurons encoding new experiences, and silencing these allowed the mice to regain lost memories.

The hippocampus is the region of the brain responsible for encoding experiences into memories, by building networks of neurons that store the information. When we recall a previous situation, those same neurons are activated. But when Alzheimer’s strikes, the hippocampus is usually one of the first brain regions to go. This manifests as the familiar memory loss and confusion that patients suffer from.

It was previously thought that the disease impairs the neurons containing memories so that they can’t be activated during recall, and eventually the memory they hold is lost. But the new study, from researchers at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), found a different mechanism at work.

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Circa 2017

Unlike other animals, cephalopods – the family that includes octopuses, squid and cuttlefish – do not obey the commands of their DNA to the letter.

Instead, they sometimes interfere with the code as it is being carried by a molecular “messenger”. This has the effect of diversifying the proteins their cells can produce, leading to some interesting variations.

The system may have produced a special kind of evolution based on RNA editing rather than DNA mutations and could be responsible for the complex behaviour and high intelligence seen in cephalopods, some scientists believe.

Continue reading “Squid and octopus can edit and direct their own brain genes” | >

Independent.co.uk

Cheese contains a chemical found in addictive drugs, scientists have found.

The team behind the study set out to pin-point why certain foods are more addictive than others.

Using the Yale Food Addiction Scale, designed to measure a person’s dependence on, scientists found that cheese is particularly potent because it contains casein.

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Being able to put someone in a state of suspended animation may be a step closer after scientists found the trigger in mammal brains that can induce hibernation.

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba and Harvard Medical School identified the ‘snooze button’ in mice that triggered naturally occurring temporary hibernation.

This natural sleeping state was also triggered in rats, who do not usually hibernate or go into torbor, according to the Japanese scientists.

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Recent therapeutic trials of “classical” psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin (from magic mushrooms) or LSD, have reported benefits to wellbeing, depression and anxiety. These effects seem to be linked to a sense of “ego dissolution” — a dissolving of the subjective boundaries between the self and the wider world. However, the neurochemistry behind this effect has been unclear. Now a new paper, published in Neuropsychopharmacology, suggests that changes in brain levels of the neurotransmitter glutamate are key to understanding reports of ego dissolution — and perhaps the therapeutic effects of psychedelics.

Natasha Mason at Maastricht University, the Netherlands, and colleagues recruited 60 participants for their study. All had taken a psychedelic drug before, but not in the three months prior to the study. Half received a placebo and the other half were given a low to moderate dose of psilocybin (0.17 mg/kg of body weight).

The team then used a technique called proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to look at concentrations of glutamate (as well as other neurochemicals) in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the hippocampus — two regions that have been implicated as key to the psychedelic drug experience. The team also looked at patterns of “functional connectivity” within networks of brain regions, a measure of how closely correlated brain activity is across those regions. Six hours after taking the drug or placebo, the participants reported on their subjective experiences using two surveys: The 5 Dimensions of Altered States of Consciousness and the Ego Dissolution Inventory.

As the researchers expected (based on the findings of earlier research), those given the drug reported increased feelings of ego dissolution, as well as altered states of consciousness. They also showed disruptions in the connectivity of particular networks, including the default mode network, which has also been implicated in past work on the effects of psychedelic drugs…

But, for the first time in humans, the team also observed higher levels of glutamate in the mPFC and lower levels in the hippocampus after taking psilocybin — and they linked these changes to different aspects of ego dissolution. Increases in the mPFC were most strongly linked to unpleasant aspects, such as a loss of control over thoughts and decision-making, and also anxiety. Decreases in the hippocampus, meanwhile, were most strongly linked to more positive aspects, such as feelings of unity with the wider world, and of having undergone a spiritual-type experience.

Continue reading “Psilocybin Alters Brain Levels Of The Neurotransmitter Glutamate — And This Could Explain Why Users Experience “Ego Dissolution”” | >

She cooked up Italian food to protect her noodle!

A 60-year-old woman from the country’s Marche region prepared dozens of delicious stuffed olives while undergoing brain surgery — to reduce the risk of damaging the vital organ, according to a report Wednesday.

As doctors removed a brain tumor from her left temporal lobe, the unnamed patient whipped up 90 of the breaded-and-fried olives in a makeshift kitchen inside the operating room, according to the BBC.

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