https://www.engadget.com/…/3D-printed-brain-medical-imagin…/
There are almost limitless possibilities when it comes to 3D printing. Design your own color-changing jewelry? Fine. Fabricate your own drugs? No problem. Print an entire house in under 24 hours? Sure! Now, researchers have come up with a fast and easy way to print palm-sized models of individual human brains, presumably in a bid to advance scientific endeavours, but also because, well, that’s pretty neat.
In theory, creating a 3D printout of a human brain has been done before, using data from MRI and CT scans. But as MIT graduate Steven Keating found when he wanted to examine his own brain following his surgery to remove a baseball-sized tumour, it’s a slow, cumbersome process that doesn’t reveal any important areas of interest.
MRI and CT scans produce images with so much detail that objects of interest need to be isolated from surrounding tissue and converted into surface meshes in order to be printed. This involves a radiologist manually tracing the desired object onto every single image “slice” of the brain, or it can be done via automatic thresholding, where a computer converts areas that contain grayscale pixels into either solid black or solid white pixels, based on a shade of gray that is chosen to be the threshold between black and white. But since medical imaging data often contains irregularly-shaped objects and lacks clear borders, features of interest are usually over- or under-exaggerated, and details are washed out.
Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered that as we age, our cells’ nuclear membranes become misshapen, which stops our genes from working properly.
Nuclear membranes become distorted with age
The DNA in all our cells is the same; however, the cells in our body show a great range of variation and function. How can this be when they have the same DNA? It all comes down to gene expression and which genes are turned off and which are turned on. For example, certain genes must be turned on in a cell for it to be a liver cell; those same genes need to be turned off for it to be a brain cell. If the correct genes are not turned off, problems occur.
Amazing how quickly things are changing in brain health and mental health — see the news about Interaxon, Akili, NeuraMetrix, Apple, Calm, Halo Neuroscience, Mindstrong Health, Calm, Novartis, Pear Therapeutics, in the last 6 months alone, and consider joining the discussion in December smile (link opens 2-minute video)
Imagine a videogame cleared by the FDA to treat ADHD, depression, or substance abuse — how will doctors prescribe it, patients access it, and insurers pay for it?
Imagine a free “annual brain check-up” — what may it look like, and how can it lead into personalized interventions to improve function and prevent/ delay/ treat cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s Disease?
It is rush hour and you are crammed inside a train carriage with a stranger’s armpit pressing against your face. Are you feeling relaxed?
Studies have shown that repeated infringement of personal space in cities can trigger the brain’s threat system, which makes us feel stressed.
Other factors such as constant contact with strangers and traffic noise all contribute to city dwellers being most likely to suffer from chronic stress.
Glioblastoma is one of the most deadly forms of cancer. Affecting the brain, those unlucky enough to receive a diagnosis don’t have many treatment options – and usually a median life expectancy of just over a year. Now, researchers at MIT have developed nanoparticles that could provide hope, crossing the blood-brain barrier and delivering two types of drugs to fight tumors.
The MIT nanoparticles are liposomes, fatty droplets that can carry one drug on the inside and another in the outer layer. On the inside, the particles were loaded with a common chemotherapy drug called temozolomide, while the outer shell contained a more experimental substance known as JQ-1.
The nascent China Brain Project took another step toward reality last week with the launch of the Shanghai Research Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence. The new center and its Beijing counterpart, launched 2 months ago, are expected to become part of an ambitious national effort to bring China to the forefront of neuroscience. But details of that 15-year project—expected to rival similar U.S. and EU efforts in scale and ambition—are still being worked out, 2 years after the government made it a priority.
New research centers move 15-year project closer to reality.
