Lifeboat Foundation

In a world first, a quadriplegic man in the United States has regained touch and movement after surgeons successfully implanted microchips into his brain.

AI is then used to read, interpret and translate his thoughts into action.

Keith Thomas, 45, broke his neck in an accident and became paralysed from his chest down.

Continue reading “AI-powered brain implants restore touch and movement to paralysed man” »

Low-grade inflammation contributes to age-related decline and impairment, but the precise pathways responsible for this inflammation and their impact on natural aging have until now remained elusive.

A study headed by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) has now shown that a molecular signaling pathway known as cGAS/STING plays a critical role in driving chronic inflammation and functional decline during aging. Andrea Ablasser, PhD, and colleagues found that blocking the STING protein suppressed inflammatory responses in human senescent cells and tissues, and reduced aging-related inflammation in multiple peripheral organs and in the brain in mice.

The researchers in addition studied the effects of blocking the STING protein in aged mice. As expected by its central role in driving inflammation, inhibiting STING alleviated markers of inflammation both in the periphery and in the brain. “Notably, various aging-related immune signature genes were significantly attenuated as a result of STING inhibition,” they stated. And importantly, animals receiving STING inhibitors displayed significant enhancements in spatial and associative memory, as well as improved muscle strength and physical endurance.

Continue reading “Signaling Pathway Implicated in Inflammation and Functional Decline during Aging” »

New research on mice has shed light on how high blood pressure causes changes to arteries in the brain, a process that leads to vascular dementia. The research, led by University of Manchester scientists, funded by the British Heart Foundation and published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ^[1] has uncovered a route to developing the first ever drug treatments for vascular dementia that directly target a cause of the condition.

High blood pressure is the main cause of vascular dementia, a condition characterised by poor blood flow to the brain. The reduced blood supply starves brain cells of nutrients and over time they become damaged and die. Symptoms of vascular dementia include loss of energy, lack of concentration and poor memory.

It’s normal for the brain’s arteries to narrow and widen in response to changes in blood pressure. However, consistently high blood pressure causes arteries to stay narrow and restrict the brain’s blood supply. Until now, it was not known why.

Among humans and many other species, parents have a super sense when it comes to a crying baby. Something in that wordless call communicates distress so clearly that it sparks an instinctive response. And the cries of human, chimp and bonobo babies are so compelling that even other species recognize and react to them, including Nile crocodiles. However, to a croc, a human baby’s screams may sound less like a cry for help—and more like a dinner bell.

Researchers have identified two ion channel switches that regulate the release of dopamine in the brain, a first step that might one day lead to therapeutics for a wide range of diseases and disorders that currently have few solutions.

The switches help regulate learning and motivational state in mice. Humans also have hundreds of these channels, which govern many chemical and hormonal processes that influence behavior and mood. The University of Washington School of Medicine research team hopes to identify drugs to target these channels. Those drug candidates could then be tested in clinical trials.

“The ability to precisely manipulate how dopamine-producing neurons of the brain regulate different behaviors is a major step toward developing better therapies for a range of mental illnesses,” said Larry Zweifel, professor of psychiatry & behavioral sciences at the UW School of Medicine.

The findings were published Aug. 10 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

“It’s amazing that children with the same symptoms end up with two distinct forms of altered neural networks,” said Dr. Flora Vaccarino, the Harris Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine and co-senior author of the paper.

Two distinct neurodevelopmental abnormalities that arise just weeks after the start of brain development have been associated with the emergence of autism spectrum disorder, according to a new Yale-led study in which researchers developed brain organoids from the stem cells of boys diagnosed with the disorder.

Continue reading “Yale scientists reveal two paths to autism in the developing brain” »

A form of gene therapy currently used to treat Parkinson’s disease may dramatically reduce alcohol use among chronic heavy drinkers, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University and institutions across the country have found.

The study in nonhuman primates showed that implanting a specific type of molecule that induces cell growth effectively resets the brain’s dopamine reward pathway in animals predisposed to heavy drinking. The gene therapy procedure involves brain surgery, and may be useful in the most severe cases of alcohol use disorder.

Already used in clinical trials to treat Parkinson’s disease, OHSU researchers found surgical treatment dramatically reduced chronic heavy drinking.

Continue reading “Study shows promise of gene therapy for alcohol use disorder” »

A team of New Jersey researchers reviewed the evidence for the impact of robotic exoskeleton devices on recovery of ambulation among individuals with acquired brain injury, laying out a systematic framework for the evaluation of such devices that is needed for rigorous research studies. The open access article, “Lower extremity robotic exoskeleton devices for overground ambulation recovery in acquired brain injury – A review” (doi: 10.3389/fnbot.2023/1014616), was published May 25, 2023 in Frontiers in Neurorobotics.

New Jersey researchers provide framework for evaluating lower extremity robotic exoskeletons and their role in neurorehabilitation following acquired brain injury East Hanover, NJ. August 14, 2023.

About six years ago, scientists discovered a new type of more powerful neural network model known as a transformer. These models can achieve unprecedented performance, such as by generating text from prompts with near-human-like accuracy. A transformer underlies AI systems such as ChatGPT and Bard, for example. While incredibly effective, transformers are also mysterious: Unlike with other brain-inspired neural network models, it hasn’t been clear how to build them using biological components.

Now, researchers from MIT, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and Harvard Medical School have produced a hypothesis that may explain how a transformer could be built using biological elements in the brain. They suggest that a biological network composed of neurons and other brain cells called astrocytes could perform the same core computation as a transformer.