Lifeboat Foundation

Belgian scientists have come to the surprising finding that vesicles coming from gut bacteria, are present in blood of patients with HIV, inflammatory bowel disease and cancer. Due to the increased permeability of the intestinal wall in these patients, bacterial vesicles end up in the bloodstream and can influence the immune system. This research sheds new light into the way the gut bacteria can communicate with different organs in the human body and is published in the scientific journal Gut.

Our body lives in symbiosis with trillions of bacteria. Most of these bacteria are located in the colon and a disturbance in this intestinal flora has recently been linked to the development of diseases such as diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, HIV and cancer. Gut bacteria communicate with each other, but also with human cells, using different molecules (proteins, RNA, DNA,…). These molecules can be packaged in unique small particles that are formed by bacterial cells, bacterial extracellular vesicles.

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A protein-secreting device implanted into the hippocampus of epileptic rats reduces seizures by 93 percent in three months, finds preclinical research published in JNeurosci. These results support ongoing development of this technology and its potential translation into a new treatment for epilepsy.

Motivated by an unmet need for effective and well-tolerated epilepsy therapies, Giovanna Paolone and colleagues of the University of Ferrara, Italy and of Gloriana Therapeutics, Inc. (Providence, RI) investigated the effects of the Gloriana targeted cellular delivery system for glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF)—a protein recent research suggests may help suppress epileptic activity.

In addition to quickly and progressively reducing seizures in male rats—by 75 percent within two weeks—the researchers found their device improved rats’ anxiety-like symptoms and their performance on an object recognition task, indicating improvement in cognition.

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According to the World Health Organisation, up to a half-million people around the world suffer a spinal cord injury each year. Often caused by road traffic crashes, accidents or violence, the loss of motor control or paralysis significantly impacts quality of life and requires years of treatment and care. Spinal cord injury is also associated with lower rates of school enrollment and economic participation, and carries substantial individual and societal costs.

Current methods for spinal cord injury treatment involve cumbersome brain-machine interfaces, with many cables linking the patient and a computer to restore limited motor functions. Other methods to map brain activity, such as magnetoencephalography, require very large machinery and particularly low-temperature working conditions.

Continue reading “Can nanotechnology rewire an injured spinal cord?” »

Scientists from global biopharmaceutical company MSD will come to the Crick next year to tackle a range of conditions associated with ageing such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease.

A new team of around 15 MSD chemists and pharmacologists will be based at the Crick over the next five years, working to develop new understandings of diseases that affect the UK’s ageing population.

The scientists will be based at the Crick while MSD establishes their new discovery science centre and UK headquarters in London, the location of which is being finalised. Their work will complement the MSD neuroscience cell biology team already established at the London Bioscience Innovation Centre, and both teams will eventually move to MSD’s new centre.

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A compelling new study from an international team of researchers has described a novel protein could be a useful blood-based biomarker to monitor the progression of Alzheimer’s disease over a decade before any clinical symptoms appear.

RealClearScience.

Mention artificial intelligence (AI) or artificial neural networks, and images of computers may come to mind. AI-based pattern recognition has a wide variety of real-world uses, such as medical diagnostics, navigation systems, voice-based authentication, image classification, handwriting recognition, speech programs, and text-based processing. However, artificial intelligence is not limited to digital technology and is merging with the realm of biology—synthetic biology and genomics, to be more precise. Pioneering researchers led by Dr. Lulu Qian at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created synthetic biochemical circuits that are able to perform information processing at the molecular level–an artificial neural network consisting of DNA instead of computer hardware and software.

Artificial intelligence is in the early stages of a renaissance period—a rebirth that is largely due to advances in deep learning techniques with artificial neural networks that have contributed to improvements in pattern recognition. Specifically, the resurgence is largely due to a mathematical tool that calculates derivatives called backpropagation (backward propagation)—it enables artificial neural networks to adjust hidden layers of neurons when there are outlier outcomes for more precise results.

Artificial neural networks (ANN) are a type of machine learning method with concepts borrowed from neuroscience. The structure and function of the nervous system and brain were inspiration for artificial neural networks. Instead of biological neurons, ANNs have artificial nodes. Instead of synapses, ANNs have connections that are able to transmit signals between nodes. Like neurons, the nodes of ANNs are able to receive and process data, as well as activate other nodes connected to it.

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A young mother from Anchorage, Alaska, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) more than 10 years ago says an experimental stem-cell treatment has left her “practically symptom-free.”

Amanda Loy was 27 years old when she was first diagnosed with the disease, which typically affects the brain and spinal cord, also known as the central nervous system. MS can be debilitating and there is currently no cure, according to the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation.

ACTRESS SELMA BLAIR, 46, REVEALS MS DIAGNOSIS: ‘I AM DISABLED’

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Neuroscientists have for the first time discovered differences between the ‘software’ of humans and monkey brains, using a technique that tracks single neurons.

They found that human brains trade off ‘robustness’ — a measure of how synchronized neuron signals are — for greater efficiency in information processing. The researchers hypothesize that the results might help to explain humans’ unique intelligence, as well as their susceptibility to psychiatric disorders. The findings were published in Cell on 17 January.

Scientists say that this type of unusual study could help them to better translate research in animal models of psychiatric diseases into the clinic.