The mind is a powerful thing – it can generate both symptoms of illness and symptoms of healing. Here’s what this could tell us about consciousness.
Neural circuits underlying brain functions are vulnerable to damage, including ischemic injury, leading to neuronal loss and gliosis. Recent technology of direct conversion of endogenous astrocytes into neurons in situ can simultaneously replenish the neuronal population and reverse the glial scar. However, whether these newly reprogrammed neurons undergo normal development, integrate into the existing neuronal circuit, and acquire functional properties specific for this circuit is not known. We investigated the effect of NeuroD1-mediated in vivo direct reprogramming on visual cortical circuit integration and functional recovery in a mouse model of ischemic injury. After performing electrophysiological extracellular recordings and two-photon calcium imaging of reprogrammed cells in vivo and mapping the synaptic connections formed onto these cells ex vivo, we discovered that NeuroD1 reprogrammed neurons were integrated into the cortical microcircuit and acquired direct visual responses. Furthermore, following visual experience, the reprogrammed neurons demonstrated maturation of orientation selectivity and functional connectivity. Our results show that NeuroD1-reprogrammed neurons can successfully develop and integrate into the visual cortical circuit leading to vision recovery after ischemic injury.
Functional circuit impairment associated with neuronal loss is commonly seen in patients with brain injuries, such as ischemia. Though neural stem cells (NSCs) exist in the subventricular zone (SVZ) in the adult brain, they are found to differentiate mainly into astrocytes when they migrate to injured cortex (Benner et al., 2013; Faiz et al., 2015), and their neurogenesis capacity is too limited to compensate for the neuronal loss. Currently, it still remains a challenge to generate neurons in adults and functionally incorporate them into the local circuits. Several strategies have shown the capability to induce neurogenesis and lead to some behavioral recovery. One promising approach is to transplant stem cell-derived neurons or neural progenitor cells (Tornero et al., 2013; Michelsen et al., 2015; Falkner et al., 2016; Somaa et al., 2017). Yet, there are concerns about graft rejection and tumorigenicity of the transplanted cells (Erdo et al., 2003; Marei et al., 2018).
A new study showing how the explosion of a stripped massive star in a supernova can lead to the formation of a heavy neutron star or a light black hole resolves one of the most challenging puzzles to emerge from the detection of neutron star mergers by the gravitational wave observatories LIGO and Virgo.
The first detection of gravitational waves by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2017 was a neutron star merger that mostly conformed to the expectations of astrophysicists. But the second detection, in 2,019 was a merger of two neutron stars whose combined mass was unexpectedly large.
“It was so shocking that we had to start thinking about how to create a heavy neutron star without making it a pulsar,” said Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz.
Elon Musk said: In the future, you will be able to save and replay memories by Neuralink This is sounding increasingly like a Black Mirror episode.
Elon Musk says you will even be able to store your memories as a backup, and then download them into a robot body. It sounds like science fiction but Neuralink believes it could make that happen one day with a chip.
It is a brain-machine interface or BMI – a device that connects your brain to a computer. But before chasing these futuristic goals, the startup is focusing on one thing: ending human suffering.
Lebanon’s entire electric grid collapsed on Saturday when the country’s two main power stations ran out of fuel.
For months, the country had been providing citizens with a few hours of electricity a day, according to The Washington Post. Then yesterday, Lebanon’s state-owned power stations, Deir Ammar and Zahrani, ran out of diesel fuel leaving the entire country with no electricity. The outage is expected to last days.
To solve the situation, the Lebanese government is attempting to get emergency fuel from the army and other sources until the country receives and distributes a shipment of oil from Iraq.
Creating and building a “Secure Smart City” requires strong Private Public Partnerships that incorporate people, policies, processes and technology from both government and industry into the overall strategy process.
However, the numbers used by the study were wrong. The authors largely underestimated the amount of vaccines delivered, giving a number 25 times smaller than the actual amount.
They initially said that the number of vaccines delivered was 32,379 — when it was actually 854,930.
As a result of this miscalculation, the study was withdrawn on September 24 with the researchers saying in a statement: Our reported incidence appeared vastly inflated by an incorrectly small denominator (i.e. number of doses administered over the time period of the study).
A previously unknown virus that can infect humans and cause disease has been identified by scientists in Japan. The novel infectious virus, named Yezo virus, is transmitted by tick bites and causes a disease characterized by fever and a reduction in blood platelets and leucocytes. The discovery was made by researchers at Hokkaido University and colleagues, and the results have been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Keita Matsuno, a virologist at Hokkaido University’s International Institute for Zoonosis Control, said: “At least seven people have been infected with this new virus in Japan since 2,014 but, so far, no deaths have been confirmed.”
The Yezo virus was discovered after a 41-year-old man was admitted to the hospital in 2019 with fever and leg pain after being bitten by an arthropod believed to be a tick while he was walking in a local forest in Hokkaido. He was treated and discharged after two weeks, but tests showed he had not been infected with any known viruses carried by ticks in the region. A second patient showed up with similar symptoms after a tick bite the following year.
Circa 2009
The futuristic thought of antimatter that is typically related to sci-fi movies may one day be able to provide propulsion to vehicles. Antimatter, is an exact oppposite copy of matter. Identical to matter, but with its electrical charge completely opposite of the original matter. Think of a battery with a positive and negative pole. The positive pole repsresenting matter, and the negative pole representing antimatter.
Antimatter is the exact oposite of matter. A definition as provided by Wikipedia concludes that antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles. For example, an antielectron (a positron, an electron with a positive charge) and an antiproton (a proton with a negative charge) could form an antihydrogen atom in the same way that an electron and a proton form a normal matter hydrogen atom. Furthermore, mixing matter and antimatter would lead to the annihilation of both in the same way that mixing antiparticles and particles does, thus giving rise to high-energy photons (gamma rays) or other particle–antiparticle pairs.
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