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A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry makes the case that symptom provocation may significantly improve the clinical effectiveness of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a noninvasive brain stimulation method used to treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and nicotine dependence.

The study was conceptualized, designed and supervised by Heather Burrell Ward, MD, assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and director of Neuromodulation Research, in collaboration with Simon Vandekar, Ph.D., associate professor of Biostatistics and Daniel Bello and Megan Jones, two students in their respective labs.

This is the first large-scale meta-analysis to examine whether deliberately triggering symptoms immediately before administering rTMS enhances treatment outcomes.

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When navigating a place that we’re only somewhat familiar with, we often rely on unique landmarks to help make our way. However, if we’re looking for an office in a brick building, and there are many brick buildings along our route, we might use a rule like looking for the second building on a street, rather than relying on distinguishing the building itself.

Until that ambiguity is resolved, we must hold in mind that there are multiple possibilities (or hypotheses) for where we are in relation to our destination. In a study of , MIT neuroscientists have now discovered that these hypotheses are explicitly represented in the brain by distinct neural activity patterns.

This is the first time that neural activity patterns that encode simultaneous hypotheses have been seen in the brain. The researchers found that these representations, which were observed in the brain’s retrosplenial cortex (RSC), not only encode hypotheses but also could be used by the animals to choose the correct way to go.

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2Institute for Lung Health, Cardiopulmonary Institute, Member of German Lung Center, Justus-Liebig University, Giessen, Germany.

3Division of Pharmacology, Otto Loewi Research Center, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

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A team from Fudan University, the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and Shaoxin Laboratory, all in China, has developed a retinal prosthesis woven from metal nanowires that partially restored vision in blind mice.

In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they created tellurium nanowires and interlaced them to create a . Eduardo Fernández, with University Miguel Hernández, in Spain, has published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team on this new effort.

Finding a way to cure blindness has been a major goal for scientists for many years, and such efforts have paid off for some types of blindness, such as those caused by cataracts. Other types of blindness associated with damage to the retina, however, have proven too difficult to overcome in most cases. For this research, the team in China tried a new approach to treating such types of blindness by building a mesh out of a semiconductor and affixing it to the back of the eye, where it could send signals to the .

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Areas of the brain that help a person differentiate between what is real and what is imaginary have been uncovered in a new study led by UCL researchers.

The research, published in Neuron, found that a region in the brain known as the —located behind one’s temples, on the underside of the brain’s —is involved in helping the brain to determine whether what we see is from the external world or generated by our imagination.

The researchers hope that their findings will increase understanding of the cognitive processes that go awry when someone has difficulty judging what is real and what is not, such as in schizophrenia, and could eventually lead to advancement in diagnosing and treating these conditions.

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IN A NUTSHELL 🔬 Brown University engineers utilize quantum entanglement to enhance 3D holographic imaging without traditional infrared cameras. 💡 The new technique, Quantum Multi-Wavelength Holography, overcomes phase wrapping challenges to deliver high-fidelity images. 🔍 By pairing infrared and visible light photons, the method captures both intensity and phase, offering unprecedented depth resolution. 🌟 Funded

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IN A NUTSHELL 🔬 Researchers have developed a groundbreaking method to convert noisy lasers into stable beams using nonlinear optical fibers and spectral filters. 📉 This innovative technique achieves noise levels 30 times lower than traditional laser beams while maintaining high intensity. 💡 The discovery enables the production of intensity-squeezed light, reducing photon variation beyond

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