Researchers are investigating how the community of microbes living in the gut might help people with multiple sclerosis, lupus and type 1 diabetes.
Category: neuroscience – Page 918
Decoding the Brain Goes Global With the International Brain Initiative
Rather than each country formulating their own brain projects independently, the project argues, it’s high time for the world to come together and share their findings, resources, and expertise across borders. By uniting efforts, the IBI can help shape the future of neuroscience research at a global scale—for promoting brain and mental health, for stimulating international collaboration, for ethical neuroscience practices, and for crafting future generations of scientists.
“It takes a world to understand the brain,” said Caroline Montojo of the Kavli Foundation, which offered support to the project. “When we have the best brains and the best minds working together, sharing information and research that could benefit us all.”
The initiative, at the time of writing, includes Japan’s Brain/Minds, Australian Brain Alliance, the EU’s Human Brain Project (HBP), Canadian Brain Research Strategy, the US’ BRAIN Initiative (BRAINI), the Korea Brain Initiative, and the China Brain Project.
Theoretically, Recording Dreams Is Possible…Scientists Are Trying
Dreams can feel awfully real when you’re deep in sleep. Perhaps you find a hidden doorway in your home that leads to entirely new rooms and passageways. Maybe you went to work in your underwear—yikes.
When you wake up, you check your closet for that mysterious doorway; maybe you jolt awake in a cold sweat, instantly relieved you still have plenty of time to properly clothe yourself before leaving the house. Regardless, whatever you were experiencing felt very real just moments ago.
Dreams are essentially vivid memories that never existed. Yet you find yourself inside an all-encompassing parallel reality, a fantastical world that’s uniquely yours. The trouble with dreams, especially the fun ones, is that they’re fleeting. Often, you can’t remember a thing from a dream just moments after waking—the echo of some feeling is all that remains. But what if you could record your dreams, and play them back for analysis, or even share them with friends?
Israeli drug makes Alzheimer’s symptoms disappear in mice
Medical science has been this optimistic before about finding a cure for Alzheimer’s, but in most cases the scientists, patients and their families have suffered serious disappointment. The bitter truth is that over 99 percent of all clinical trials for Alzheimer’s treatments end in failure. For now it is not only incurable, but a major mystery and irreversible. The chemical basis for the disease is still unclear. The research is directed in many directions and based on very different assumptions and approaches.
One focus in recent years is based on the “amyloid assumption,” which says the amyloid beta peptide plays a major role in the development of the disease. The accumulation of the “sticky” amyloid protein plaques is responsible for the damage, by building up into clumps that can cause inflammation in the brain and the death of neurons. These plaques are the main target of most Alzheimer’s research today. Almost 90 percent of the scientific resources in Alzheimer’s research are devoted to developing drugs and treatments to reduce the concentrations and activity of amyloid beta in the brain.
How ‘brain hacking’ could help fight Alzheimer’s, depression and more
Millions suffer from conditions without known causes. Some contend with constant pain, many live with unrelenting mental anguish. None of them know why.
Now a groundbreaking theory of brain illness — presented in a thrilling new book by science journalist Donna Jackson Nakazawa called “The Angel and the Assassin” (Ballantine Books) — offers big answers by pointing to the tiny packages called microglia.
Microglia are long-dismissed free-floating brain cells located all over the brain, making up 10 percent of the cells that populate the inside of our skulls. According to emerging research, these cells appear to play a significant role in a host of conditions including Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury, anxiety disorders and more.