Until now, skin cells have been viewed as barriers that can respond to electric stimuli. Turns out, they also generate electric spikes, similar to neurons.
Brain injury, disease and subsequent interventions can alter behaviour, providing a unique opportunity to study cognitive processes. This Collection seeks to bridge the gap between neurologists and neurosurgeons studying clinical disorders and neuroscientists studying neural processes underlying typical cognition.
The editors at Nature Communications, Communications Biology and Scientific Reports therefore invite original research articles examining neural mechanisms underlying cognitive functions in people affected by neurological conditions. This call for papers includes but is not limited to studies in patients with epilepsy, brain tumours, stroke, neuropsychiatric disorders, neurodegenerative disease or traumatic brain injury using brain stimulation and recording techniques and/or neuroimaging that offer new insights into the mechanisms behind cognitive processes. We also encourage submissions aiming to develop best practices and reporting of these studies. Preclinical work is not within scope for this collection.
This is a cross-journal Collection across Nature Communications, Communications Biology and Scientific Reports. Please see the relevant journal webpages to check which article types the journals consider.
A new kind of memristor mimics how the brain learns by combining analog and digital behavior, offering a promising solution to the problem of AI “catastrophic forgetting.”
Unlike traditional deep neural networks that erase past knowledge when learning something new, this innovative component may retain previous learning, just like our own brains.
Understanding “Catastrophic Forgetting” in AI.
Jaeb Center for Health Research conducted a randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of automated insulin delivery (AID) in adults with insulin-treated type 2 diabetes. AID significantly lowered glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels and improved glucose control compared to standard insulin therapy with continuous glucose monitoring (CGM).
AID therapy resulted in a mean HbA1c reduction of 0.9 percentage points over 13 weeks, while the control group experienced a 0.3 percentage point reduction.
Automated insulin delivery systems have demonstrated benefits for patients with type 1 diabetes, yet their efficacy and safety for individuals with type 2 diabetes remain less established. Prior studies have either lacked randomized controlled designs or involved limited sample sizes, creating a gap in clinical understanding.
Three decades ago, in January 1995, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake leveled much of Kobe and killed more than 6,000 people. Has Japan been successful in building on the lessons of that and later disasters to prepare for the next one that will strike these islands?
Japan’s fledgling space defense sector is taking its cues from the US Space Development Agency, which is pursuing a novel concept based on constellations of small satellites and maximum use of existing commercial technologies. Space policy researcher Umeda Kota discusses the challenges facing Japan as it embraces the SDA’s “proliferated architecture” for military communications, missile detection and tracking, and other purposes.
NASA’s Artemis project aims to put humans on the moon for the first time in more than half a century. Japan is slated to take part in this program, providing both astronauts and a rover to aid in exploration on the lunar surface. A look at the possibility of a made-in-Japan vehicle on the moon in the next decade.
Youm et al. demonstrate that elevating locally derived FGF21 delays thymic aging and extends organismal healthspan, dependent in part on expression of the FGF21 co-receptor β-klotho on thymic epithelial cells.
Google’s Taara Lightbridge has become a standalone company setting stage for competition with SpaceX-owned Starlink
Researchers discovered uniquely human neuroanatomical features in a study comparing human brains to macaque and chimpanzee brains.
A groundbreaking study reveals that what makes humans unique isn’t just intelligence but also emotional and social cognition. Comparing brain scans of humans, chimpanzees, and macaques, researchers found that key brain connections related to emotions and social interactions are distinctly human, highlighting the deep-rooted role of relationships in human evolution.
What makes the human brain unique?