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Category: neuroscience – Page 863

Doctors Fighting Brain Cancer

Glioblastoma is one of the most common and aggressive forms of brain cancer, and it is particularly difficult to treat. Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have come up with a new approach to treatment for the disease, by growing organoids based on a patient’s own tumor to find the most effective treatments. Digital Trends spoke to senior author Dr. Donald O’Rourke to learn more.

The technique uses mini-brains — pea-sized organoids grown from stem cells which recreate features of full-scale brains. The mini-brains are similar enough to real brains that they can be used for testing out medical treatments to see how a full-sized brain would respond.

The breakthrough in this research is regarding treatment individualization. One of the challenges of treating a complex disease like brain cancer is that different people respond in different ways to the various treatment options available. After surgery has been performed to remove a tumor, doctors typically begin further treatment using radiation or chemotherapy around one month later. That means there isn’t always time to use perform genetic analysis to see which treatment might be best suited for a particular patient — the doctors need to know what will work and start further treatment as soon as possible.

Scientists Have ‘Cleared’ Alzheimer’s Plaque From Mice Using Only Light And Sound

Clumps of harmful proteins that interfere with brain functions have been partially cleared in mice using nothing but light and sound.

Research led by MIT earlier this year found strobe lights and a low pitched buzz can be used to recreate brain waves lost in the disease, which in turn remove plaque and improve cognitive function in mice engineered to display Alzheimer’s-like behaviour.

It’s a little like using light and sound to trigger their own brain waves to help fight the disease.

Injection of virus-delivered gene silencer blocks ALS degeneration, saves motor function

Writing in Nature Medicine, an international team headed by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine describe a new way to effectively deliver a gene-silencing vector to adult amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) mice, resulting in long-term suppression of the degenerative motor neuron disorder if treatment vector is delivered prior to disease onset, and blockage of disease progression in adult animals if treatment is initiated when symptoms have already appeared.

The findings are published in the December 23, 2019 online issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Martin Marsala, MD, professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine and a member of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, is senior author of the study.

ALS is a neurodegenerative that affects nerve cells in the brain and . Motor neurons responsible for communicating movement are specifically harmed, with subsequent, progressive loss of muscle control affecting the ability to speak, eat, move and breathe. More than 5,000 Americans are diagnosed with ALS each year, with an estimated 30,000 persons currently living with the disease. While there are symptomatic treatments for ALS, there is currently no cure. The majority of patients succumb to the disease two to five years after diagnosis.

How To Build A Tougher Mind: Dr Jon Finn

Dr Shima Beigi BSc, MSc, MSc, Ph.D. founder of Mindfulness Engineering™️ and ideaXme Rich Connectedness™️ ambassador interviews Dr Jon Finn founder Tougher Minds.

Dr Jon Finn:

Jon began his career in elite sport — mainly professional football, rugby, cricket and golf. His work focused on helping people to perform to their potential. He realised that the same approach could be adapted to help a broader range of people, of all ages and in all walks of life.

So he founded Tougher Minds and began developing and delivering training in education and business to groups of varying sizes. The programmes has reached over 10,000 people during the last decade. The consultancy is now well established in the corporate sector and works with companies in the City of London, the US and Europe.

Tougher Minds’ programmes have been recognised for their effectiveness. This includes the Independent School Association’s Education Initiative of the Year award. We have also advised the Department of Education, and think-tank DEMOS on developing resilience in young people.

“In order to ensure our training is rooted in the most up to date understanding of neuroscience” Dr Finn completed a PhD at Leeds Beckett University in 2015.

Continue reading “How To Build A Tougher Mind: Dr Jon Finn” | >

Alzheimer’s Gene APOE4 Tied to Tau Protein in the Brain

Talk with an Alzheimer’s researcher and you’ll likely hear the same lament: Finding a treatment or cure is incredibly challenging because scientists are not even certain what exactly causes the neurological disease in the first place.

In fact, researchers speak of a “web of causation” that can lead to Alzheimer’s. In addition to genetics, scientists look to so-called lifestyle elements such as blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Even the bacteria that live in our mouths are being scrutinized for their potential role in Alzheimer’s.

One element that researchers are completely certain about is that people who carry the apolipoprotein E4 gene — known as APOE4 — are at a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

Brain tumor organoids may be key to time-sensitive treatments for glioblastomas

Lab-grown brain organoids developed from a patient’s own glioblastoma, the most aggressive and common form of brain cancer, may hold the answers on how to best treat it. A new study in Cell from researchers at Penn Medicine showed how glioblastoma organoids could serve as effective models to rapidly test personalized treatment strategies.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) remains the most difficult of all brain cancers to study and treat, largely because of tumor heterogeneity. Treatment approaches, like surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, along with newer personalized cellular therapies, have proven to slow tumor growth and keep patients disease-free for some periods of time; however, a cure remains elusive.

“While we’ve made important strides in glioblastoma research, preclinical and clinical challenges persist, keeping us from getting closer to more effective treatments,” said senior author Hongjun Song, Ph.D., Perelman Professor of Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “One hurdle is the ability to recapitulate the tumor to not only better understand its complex characteristics, but also to determine what therapies post-surgery can fight it in a timelier manner.”

How Dr. Daniel Amen Repairs the Brain with Healthy Living

Has anybody else notice the light spectrum in new imaging. Color equals light frequency. This should be a major study. This vid is just for the color imagings reference.

In this informative talk about brain health, Dr. Daniel G. Amen makes a powerful case for preventative living through healthy habits. In a time where bodies are expanding and brains are shrinking, he calls this game-changing lifestyle The Brain Warrior’s Way.

The plan focuses on diet and exercise and delivers results in not only physical but also scientific proof. In a series of images, Amen shows several shrunken brains that with a proper lifestyle, expand to a healthier mass in a matter of months.

“You just have to make a series of really smart decisions, and ask yourself every day, ‘Is what I’m doing today good for my brain, or bad for it?’” –Dr. Daniel Amen.

Hear more great speakers at the next SUCCESS Live event Sept. 8–9 in Long Beach. Get your tickets here: https://www.successliveevent.com/.

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500,000-year-old Fossilized Brain Has Totally Changed Our Minds

Fossils of just about everything have been unearthed, from ancient feathers to entire dinosaur skeletons preserved in opal, but there is one thing nobody thought could survive hundreds of thousands of years—until now.

Brain matter from a Cambrian arthropod that crawled around 500,000 years ago has proven many paleontologists wrong about brain decay being inevitable. Previous research suggests that no matter what it may be protected by, soft neural matter will break down long before fossilization can even start. Minds have suddenly been changed. Alalcomenaeus may have been a tiny creature, but its exoskeleton was tough enough to ward off decomposition.

A molecular map of the brain’s decision-making area

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have come one step closer toward understanding how the part of our brain that is central for decision-making and the development of addiction is organized on a molecular level. In mouse models and with methods used for mapping cell types and brain tissue, the researchers were able to visualize the organization of different opioid-islands in striatum. Their spatiomolecular map, published in the journal Cell Reports, may further our understanding of the brain’s reward-system.

Striatum is the inner part of the brain that among other things regulates rewards, motivation, impulses and motor function. It is considered central to decision-making and the development of various addictions.

In this study, the researchers created a molecular 3D-map of the nerve cells targeted by opioids, such as morphine and heroin, and showed how they are organized in . It is an important step toward understanding how the brain’s network governing motivation and drug addiction is organized. In the study, the researchers described a spatiomolecular code that can be used to divide striatum into different subregions.