Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers have discovered a link between a protein and aging

A protein found within the powerhouse of a cell could be the key to holding back the march of time, research by scientists at The University of Nottingham has shown and the discovery could offer a new target for drugs that may help to slow the debilitating effects of ageing on our bodies.

Their research, published in the academic journal Aging, could have special significance for combatting age related decline and halting the progression of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease.

Continue reading “Scientists may have identified the genes responsible for ageing” »

Could this finally help suppress and maybe even eliminate MS, Dystonia, Parkinson and other central nervous system disfunctions?

Last year, a team of Harvard University researchers revealed that they created a wire mesh doctors can inject into the brain to help treat Parkinson’s and other neurological diseases. They already successfully tested it on live mice, but now that technology is ready for the next stage: human testing. The mesh made of gold and polymers is so thin, it can coil inside a syringe’s needle and doesn’t need extensive surgery to insert. Once it’s inside your head, it merges with your brain, since the mesh has spaces where neurons can pass through.

A part of it needs to stick out through a small hole in your skull so it can be connected a computer. That connection is necessary to be able to monitor your brain activity and to deliver targeted electric jolts that can prevent neurons from dying off. By preventing the death of neurons, which triggers spasms and tremors, the device can be used to combat Parkinson’s and similar diseases. Eventually, the wire mesh could come with an implantable power supply and controls, eliminating the need to be linked to a computer.

Continue reading “Brain-fixing injectable wires will soon be tested on humans” »

In mental health research, clinical studies deserve more funding.

Watching millions of neurons in the brain interacting with each other is the ultimate dream of neuroscientists! A new imaging method now makes it possible to observe the activation of large neural circuits, currently up to the size of a small-animal brain, in real time and three dimensions. Researchers at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich have recently reported on their new findings in Nature’s journal ‘Light: Science & Applications’.

Nowadays it is well recognized that most brain functions may not be comprehended through inspection of single neurons. To advance meaningfully, neuroscientists need the ability to monitor the activity of millions of neurons, both individually and collectively. However, such observations were so far not possible due to the limited penetration depth of optical microscopy techniques into a living brain.

A team headed by Prof. Dr. Daniel Razansky, a group leader at the Institute of Biological and Molecular Imaging (IBMI), Helmholtz Zentrum München, and Professor of Molecular Imaging Engineering at the Technical University of Munich, has now found a way to address this challenge. The new method is based on the so-called optoacoustics*, which allows non-invasive interrogation of living tissues at centimeter scale depths.

Continue reading “New imaging method helps observe activation of neural circuits in the brain” »

The nerves we feel before a stressful event—like speaking in public, for example—are normally kept in check by a complex system of circuits in our brain. Now, scientists at Rockefeller University have identified a key molecule within this circuitry that is responsible for relieving anxiety. Intriguingly, it doesn’t appear to reduce anxiety in female mice, only in males.

“This is unusual, because the particular cell type involved here is the same in the male and female brain—same in number, same in appearance,” says Nathaniel Heintz, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “It’s a rare case where a single cell type is activated by the same stimulus but yields two different behaviors in each gender.”

Friday, October 14, 2016 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writerTags: trees, social communication, plant science (NaturalNews) If trees could talk, what would they say? Emerging research suggests that if they had mouths, they might just say a whole lot because, believe it or not, trees have brains and intelligence, and are able to communicate with other trees much like humans do with other humans when in social situations.

Madeleine Lancaster has 300 brains growing in her lab – here’s how she’s done it.

There are two kinds of people in Washington, DC, says entrepreneur Dean Kamen. There are the policy experts, whom he calls cynics. And there are the scientists, whom he deems optimists.

Kamen, speaking at the White House Frontiers Conference at the University of Pittsburgh, places himself in the latter camp. Unlike policy wonks and politicians who see diseases like Alzheimer’s or ALS as unstoppable scourges, Kamen points out that previously terrifying diseases were all toppled by medical innovation. The plague, polio, smallpox — all were civilization-threatening epidemics until experimental scientists discovered new ways to combat them.

If that sounds like the kind of disruption that the tech industry has unleashed across the rest of the world, that’s no accident. Kamen, the founder of DEKA, a medical R&D company, says that the same trends that have empowered our computers and phones and communication networks will soon power a revolution in health care. He says that medical innovation follows a predictable cycle. First we feel powerless before a disease. Then we seek ways of treating it. Then we attempt to cure it.

Continue reading “Engineering a Better Body and the End of Disease” »

In Brief:

This newly developed bionic eye sends images directly to the brain to restore a tiny fraction of the pixels a normal eye can produce.

There are about 285 million people in the world who suffer from some type of visual impairment. For many years, researchers have been looking for ways to restore eyesight. This year, Australian volunteers are set to receive bionic eyes which should help restore their vision.

Continue reading “This Revolutionary Bionic Eye Sends Images Directly To Your Brain” »