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Personalized brain stimulation shows benefit for depression

A more precise and personalized form of electric brain stimulation may be a more effective and faster treatment for people with moderate to major depression compared to other similar treatments, according to a UCLA Health study.

The study, published in JAMA Network Open, examined the effectiveness of a noninvasive brain stimulation treatment known as (HD-tDCS) in treating depression. Transcranial direct current stimulation uses electrodes placed on a patient’s scalp to deliver noninvasive, safe levels of electrical currents to targeted areas of the brain.

For depression, the treatment is used to target brain networks that regulate emotional processing and self-referential thoughts. TDCS has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for depression, and into various forms of tDCS is ongoing.

Distinct psilocybin-induced oscillations observed in rat medial prefrontal cortex, with effects lasting days

Psychedelics, a class of psychoactive drugs that typically induce peculiar mental states and hallucinations, are still prohibited for recreational use in most countries worldwide. In recent years, some neuroscientists and medical researchers have been exploring the potential therapeutic effects of these drugs, focusing on the treatment of depression, anxiety and various substance use disorders.

Researchers at the University of Bristol, Compass Pathways plc and other institutes recently carried out a new study involving rats, exploring the effects of the psychedelic compound on the activity of neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex, a brain region that supports decision-making, attention and the regulation of emotions. Their paper, published in Molecular Psychiatry, outlines some of the associated with the intake of this compound, which had not yet been observed in human experiments.

“Psychedelic drugs like have profound effects on our brains and minds,” Matt Jones, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Bristol and senior author of the paper, told Medical Xpress. “These effects are fascinating and—as a long history of psychedelic use and recent clinical trials attest—potentially beneficial. This study was driven by two interrelated questions. Firstly, how does a relatively simple, small molecule alter brain activity to completely change our mental model of the world? Secondly, can those effects be harnessed to help treat mental illness?”

Scientists reveal how the brain uses objects to find direction

We take our understanding of where we are for granted, until we lose it. When we get lost in nature or a new city, our eyes and brains kick into gear, seeking familiar objects that tell us where we are.

How our brains distinguish objects from background when finding direction, however, was largely a mystery. A new study provides valuable insight into this process, with possible implications for disorientation-causing conditions such as Alzheimer’s. The work is published in the journal Science.

The scientists, based at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) of McGill University and the University Medical Center Göttingen, ran an experiment with mice using ultrasound imaging to measure and record brain activity. The mice were shown , either an object or a scrambled image showing no distinct object.

QROCODILE experiment advances search for dark matter using superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors

Over the past decades, many research teams worldwide have been trying to detect dark matter, an elusive type of matter that does not emit, reflect or absorb light, using a variety of highly sensitive detectors. Ultimately, these detectors should be able to pick up the very small signals that would indicate the presence of dark matter or its weak interactions with regular matter.

A new view of the proton and its excited states

The small but ubiquitous proton serves as a foundation for the bulk of the visible matter in the universe. It abides at the very heart of matter, giving rise to everything we see around us as it anchors the nuclei of atoms. Yet, its structure is amazingly complex, and the quest to understand these details has occupied theorists and experimenters alike since its discovery over a century ago.

“A large part of the visible matter in the universe is made of protons,” said Kyungseon Joo, a physics professor at the University of Connecticut. “And so, if you want to understand the universe, it is important to understand the .”

Currently, proton structure is only well understood in processes where they are probed at high energy and where a lot of momentum is transferred to the proton. In such cases, the probes interact with the quarks and gluons (together called “partons”) that form the proton so quickly that they react like a tightly set rack of billiard balls hit by a well-struck cue ball.

Nano-switch achieves first directed, gated flow of excitons

A new nanostructure acts like a wire and switch that can, for the first time, control and direct the flow of quantum quasiparticles called excitons at room temperature.

The transistor-like switch developed by University of Michigan engineers could speed up or even enable circuits that run on excitons instead of electricity—paving the way for a new class of devices.

Because they have no , excitons have the potential to move without the losses that come with moving electrically charged particles like electrons. These losses drive cell phones and computers to generate heat during use.

Newly developed organic compounds can serve as highly sensitive oxygen sensors

Researchers at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania, have developed new organic compounds that act as highly sensitive oxygen sensors. These sensors can accurately detect even the slightest amounts of oxygen in the environment—information that is crucial in situations where oxygen concentration can determine the success of a process or even a person’s life.

The sensors can be applied in medicine; for example, in diagnosing tumor hypoxia, a condition in which there is almost no oxygen around a tumor; in the food industry, to check whether packaging has lost its seal; and in biotechnology, to precisely monitor cell cultivation processes.

Moreover, their performance can be observed with the naked eye, while their record-high sensitivity ensures rapid and reliable detection. The study is published in the journal Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical.

Narrow-linewidth laser on a chip sets new standard for frequency purity

A record-breaking development in laser technology could help support the development of smaller, cheaper, more easily-fabricated optical and quantum technologies, its inventors say.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow have designed and built a narrow-linewidth laser on a single, fully integrated microchip that achieves the best performance ever recorded in semiconductor lasers of its type.

It could help overcome many of the barriers which have prevented previous generations of this type of monolithic semiconductor from being more widely adopted.

Clocks created from random events can probe ‘quantumness’ of universe

A newly discovered set of mathematical equations describes how to turn any sequence of random events into a clock, scientists at King’s College London reveal. The paper is published in the journal Physical Review X.

The researchers suggest that these formulas could help to understand how cells in our bodies measure time and to detect the effects of quantum mechanics in the wider world.

Studying these timekeeping processes could have far-reaching implications, helping us to understand proteins with rhythmic movements which malfunction in motor neuron disease or chemical receptors that cells use to detect harmful toxins.

Researchers revive the pinhole camera for next-gen infrared imaging

Researchers have used the centuries-old idea of pinhole imaging to create a high-performance mid-infrared imaging system without lenses. The new camera can capture extremely clear pictures over a large range of distances and in low light, making it useful for situations that are challenging for traditional cameras.

“Many useful signals are in the mid-infrared, such as heat and molecular fingerprints, but cameras working at these wavelengths are often noisy, expensive or require cooling,” said research team leader Heping Zeng from East China Normal University. “Moreover, traditional lens-based setups have a limited depth of field and need careful design to minimize optical distortions. We developed a high-sensitivity, lens-free approach that delivers a much larger depth of field and field of view than other systems.”

Writing in Optica, the researchers describe how they use light to form a tiny “optical pinhole” inside a nonlinear crystal, which also turns the into a visible one. Using this setup, they acquired clear mid-infrared images with a depth of field of over 35 cm and a field of view of more than 6 cm. They were also able to use the system to acquire 3D images.

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