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Category: neuroscience – Page 709

A pair of researchers at University College London has found that people with low socioeconomic status experience more declines in age-related functions as they grow older than do people who have a higher socioeconomic status. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Andrew Steptoe and Paola Zaninotto describe their study of data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, and what they learned.

Prior research has shown that tend to suffer more adverse health effects than those who are better off. They also tend to die younger. But one area of aging that has not been well-studied is the impact of poverty on age-related functional decline, associated with such symptoms as loss of hearing or muscle strength. To learn more about the relationship between socioeconomic status and age-related functional decline, the researchers analyzed data in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing—an ongoing long-term study of the aging process. Launched in 2002, the study involved collecting data on volunteers aged 50 and over as they grew older. The data includes both medical and physical information, along with test results designed to measure cognitive and emotional levels. The data sample for this new effort included information on 5,018 people 52 years of age or older as they aged over periods of six to eight years.

The researchers found that people living at the lower end of the economic spectrum performed worse on every measure of age-related functionality. Those less well-off lost grip strength, lung function, gait speed, processing speed and executive function. They also tended to report enjoying life less than those who were more affluent. The researchers noted their findings were independent of race, gender, education or age. They also found that those of lesser means experienced more and were more likely to be depressed.

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In 2005, University of California, Berkeley, researchers made the surprising discovery that making conjoined twins out of young and old mice—such that they share blood and organs—can rejuvenate tissues and reverse the signs of aging in the old mice. The finding sparked a flurry of research into whether a youngster’s blood might contain special proteins or molecules that could serve as a “fountain of youth” for mice and humans alike.

But a new study by the same team shows that similar age-reversing effects can be achieved by simply diluting the of old mice—no needed.

In the study, the team found that replacing half of the blood plasma of old mice with a mixture of saline and albumin—where the albumin simply replaces that was lost when the original blood plasma was removed—has the same or stronger rejuvenation effects on the brain, liver and muscle than pairing with young mice or young blood exchange. Performing the same procedure on had no detrimental effects on their health.

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In other words, practicing the arts can be used to build capacity for managing one’s mental and emotional well-being.

Neuroesthetics — With recent advances in biological, cognitive, and neurological science, there are new forms of evidence on the arts and the brain. For example, researchers have used biofeedback to study the effects of visual art on neural circuits and neuroendocrine markers to find biological evidence that visual art promotes health, wellness, and fosters adaptive responses to stress.

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While modern, scientific understanding of this complex network of neurons between our ears really only began in the last few decades, we’ve already learned a lot about the body’s control center — and have been given a lot to think about.

In this episode of The Abstract, we discuss the groundbreaking research in brain-computer technology offering new hope in restoring sensations and treating anxiety.

Our first story is about groundbreaking research in brain-computer interfaces that’s offering new hope for those who have lost their sense of touch. By decoding neural signals from the brain, researchers were able to create movement and sensory perception in paralyzed limbs. Innovations like these in sense-restoring technology could be life-changing for spinal cord patients and make a devastating loss of sensation reversible.

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Being a late-riser suggests you could have more grey matter in your brain, a study from Brunel University London has shown.

A new survey of thousands of MRI scans revealed that people with a preference for waking up in the late hours of one morning, and going to bed in the early hours of the next, are likely to have a higher volume of in their precuneus, a key area of the associated with .

Previous studies have shown that lower volumes of grey matter are associated with how empathetic or cooperative a person is, traits that scientists have also previously found correlate with being an early bird, suggesting such personality traits could be underpinned by a physical signature.

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Accelerating progress in neuroscience is helping us understand the big picture—how animals behave and which brain areas are involved in bringing about these behaviors—and also the small picture—how molecules, neurons, and synapses interact. But there is a huge gap of knowledge between these two scales, from the whole brain down to the neuron.

A team led by Christos Papadimitriou, the Donovan Family Professor of Computer Science at Columbia Engineering, proposes a new computational system to expand the understanding of the brain at an intermediate level, between and cognitive phenomena such as language. The group, which includes computer scientists from Georgia Institute of Technology and a neuroscientist from the Graz University of Technology, has developed a brain architecture that is based on neuronal assemblies, and they demonstrate its use in the syntactic processing in the production of language; their model, published online June 9 in PNAS, is consistent with recent experimental results.

“For me, understanding the brain has always been a computational problem,” says Papadimitriou, who became fascinated by the brain five years ago. “Because if it isn’t, I don’t know where to start.”

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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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