Neuroscience – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Jan 1
2023

Scientists Uncover a Gut-Brain Connection for Social Development

To learn to socialize, zebrafish need to trust their gut.

Gut microbes encourage specialized cells to prune back extra connections in brain circuits that control social behavior, new University of Oregon research in zebrafish shows. The pruning is essential for the development of normal social behavior.

The researchers also found that these ‘social’ neurons are similar in zebrafish and mice. That suggests the findings might translate between species — and could possibly point the way to treatments for a range of neurodevelopmental conditions.

Jan 1
2023

Ketamine Found to Increase Brain Noise

Summary: By inhibiting NMDA receptors, ketamine increases noise to gamma frequencies in one layer of the thalamic nucleus and one lay of the somatosensory cortex. Findings suggest psychosis may be triggered by an increase in background noise impairing thalamocortical neurons which may be caused by a malfunction in NMDA receptors affecting the balance of inhibition and excitation in the brain.

Source: HSE

An international team of researchers including Sofya Kulikova, Senior Research Fellow at the HSE University-Perm, found that ketamine, being an NMDA receptor inhibitor, increases the brain’s background noise, causing higher entropy of incoming sensory signals and disrupting their transmission between the thalamus and the cortex.

Dec 31
2022

Why Do We Like What We Like? The Neuroscience Behind the Objects That Please Us

Summary: Researchers say hedonic value isn’t simply a biological and psychological mechanism, it’s also vital for our survival.

Source: The Conversation.

We humans, like other cognitive systems, are sensitive to our environment. We use sensory information to guide our behavior. To be in the world.

Dec 31
2022

Scientists remotely controlled the social behavior of mice with light

Year 2021 Basically this could cure many diseases and even allow for better human devices to be created.

New devices — worn as headsets and backpacks — rely on optogenetics, in which bursts of light toggle neurons, to control mouse brain activity.

Dec 31
2022

Will 2023 be the year we finally understand consciousness?

In 1998, two researchers made a bet that by 2023, we would have found a sign of consciousness within the brain. As the wager comes due, how close are we to an answer?

Dec 31
2022

A Year in Neuroscience: Top 20 Neuroscience News Articles of 2022

Summary: 2022 has been a fantastic year for neuroscience and brain science research. Here, we take a look back over some of the most popular neuroscience research articles of the year.

Source: Neuroscience News.

For over 20 years, Neuroscience News has reported on the latest, ground-breaking neuroscience research. Every year, we like to take a look back at some of the most popular articles we have published on the website.

Dec 31
2022

New research reveals how the brain holds information in mind

MIT neuroscientists have published a key new insight on how working memory functions, in a study published in PLOS Computational Biology.

The researchers at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory compared measurements of brain cell activity in an animal performing a working memory task with the output of various computer models representing two theories on the underlying mechanism for holding information in mind.

The results favored the newer theory that a network of neurons stores information by making short-lived changes in the connections, or synapses, between them, rather than the traditional theory that memory is maintained by neurons remaining persistently active.

Dec 31
2022

Community Detection in Brain Connectome using Quantum Annealer Devices #quantum #brain #networks

https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.21.

Community Detection in Brain Connectome using Quantum Annealer Devices:

Recent advancements in network neuroscience are pointing in the direction of considering the brain as a small-world system with segregated regions integrated to facilitate different cognitive tasks and functions. In this context, community detection is a pivotal issue in computational neuroscience. In this paper we explore community detection within brain connectomes using the power of quantum annealers, and in particular the Leap’s Hybrid Solver. Our results shows that quantum annealers can achieve higher modularity index compared to classical annealer while computing communities of brain connectomes. Those promising preliminary results points out that quantum annealers might be the better choice compared to classical computing optimization process.

#quantum #brain #networks

Dec 30
2022

Consciousness may explain some of the weirdness of quantum mechanics

A wild theory suggests that consciousness may explain quantum mechanics, by forcing the subatomic particles to choose one concrete outcome.

Dec 30
2022

Neuroscientists developed a blood-based biomarker for Alzheimer’s diagnosis

A significant step toward improved accessibility.

Neuroscientists from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine developed a new test to identify a sign of Alzheimer’s disease neurodegeneration in a blood sample, according to a press release.

“At present, diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease requires neuroimaging,” said senior author Thomas Karikari, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at Pitt.

Artur Plawgo/iStock.

Called “brain-derived tau” (BD-tau), the biomarker is specific to neurodegenerations related to Alzheimer’s disease, and it reportedly outperforms currently used blood diagnostic tests.