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Category: neuroscience

If you’re interested in superlongevity and superintelligence, then I have a book to recommend., by Sonia Contera, is a book about the intersection of biotech and nanotech. Interesting and well written for the layman, the book covers some of the latest developments in nanotechnology as it applies to biological matters. Although there are many topics, I was primarily interested in the DNA nanobots, DNA origami, and the protein nanotechnology sections. My interest is piqued in these arenas due to my expectation that DNA nanobots and protein nanobots, as well as complex self-assembled custom nanostructures, are going to be key to some of the longevity technologies and some of the possible substrates for mind uploading that are key to superlongevity and superintelligence. There are also sections in the book on 3D bioprinted organs — progress and possibilities, as well as difficulties.

There is even a section that clearly was written specifically to address a discussion that has engaged my friends, Dinorah Delfin and Dan Faggella. The title is:

FUTURE DEVICES: QUANTUM PHYSICS MEETS BIOLOGY MEETS NANOTECHNOLOGY

Now, some might be tempted to consider that particular combination to be “woo woo”, however, please keep in mind the author’s credentials. Sonia Contera is a professor of biological physics in the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford.

Increasingly, scientists are gaining control over matter at the nanometer scale. Spearheaded by physical scientists operating at the interfaces of physics and biology, advances in nanoscience and technology are transforming how people think about life and treat human health.

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General anesthesia (GA) can produce analgesia (loss of pain) independent of inducing loss of consciousness, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We hypothesized that GA suppresses pain in part by activating supraspinal analgesic circuits. We discovered a distinct population of GABAergic neurons activated by GA in the mouse central amygdala (CeAGA neurons). In vivo calcium imaging revealed that different GA drugs activate a shared ensemble of CeAGA neurons also possess basal activity that mostly reflects animals’ internal state rather than external stimuli. Optogenetic activation of CeAGA potently suppressed both pain-elicited reflexive and self-recuperating behaviors across sensory modalities and abolished neuropathic pain-induced mechanical (hyper-)sensitivity. Conversely, inhibition of CeAGA activity exacerbated pain, produced strong aversion and canceled the analgesic effect of low-dose ketamine. CeAGA neurons have widespread inhibitory projections to many affective pain-processing centers. Our study points to CeAGA as a potential powerful therapeutic target for alleviating chronic pain.

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Molecular dynamics is at the point of simulating bulk matter – but don’t expect it to predict the future.

The TV series Devs took as its premise the idea that a quantum computer of sufficient power could simulate the world so completely that it could project events accurately back into the distant past (the Crucifixion or prehistory) and predict the future. At face value somewhat absurd, the scenario supplied a framework on which to hang questions about determinism and free will (and less happily, the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics).

Quite what quantum computers will do for molecular simulations remains to be seen, but the excitement about them shouldn’t eclipse the staggering advances still being made in classical simulation. Full ab initio quantum-chemical calculations are very computationally expensive even with the inevitable approximations they entail, so it has been challenging to bring this degree of precision to traditional molecular dynamics, where molecular interactions are still typically described by classical potentials. Even simulating pure water, where accurate modelling of hydrogen bonding and the ionic disassociation of molecules involves quantum effects, has been tough.

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If you’re interested in superlongevity and cognitive enhancement, I have a YouTube video to recommend. Our good friend, Ira Pastor, on his excellent podcast ideaXme, discusses with Dr. Rudolph Tanzi the topic of inflammaging, specifically brain inflammation, plaque, tau tangles, brain health, and Alzheimer’s disease. Then they discuss some emergent therapies to prevent Alzheimer’s by protecting the neurons.

The discussion is concise and complete, but also very easy to follow.

Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador, interviews Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, Vice-Chair of Neurology, Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and Co-Director of the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Ira Pastor Comments

On this episode we are going to journey back to the topic of Alzheimer’s, a disease of substantial unmet medical need, projected to affect over a 100 million people globally by mid century.

Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, Vice-Chair of Neurology, Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and Co-Director of the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and has been investigating the genetics of neurological disease since the 1980s when he participated in the first study that used genetic markers to find a disease gene for Huntington’s disease.

In 1990, Dr. Tanzi received his Ph.D. in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, where his doctoral thesis was on the discovery and isolation of the first Alzheimer’s disease gene — the amyloid precursor protein (APP), published in 1987 in Science.

Dr. Tanzi’s work in Alzheimer’s disease research.

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If an unconscious person responds to smell through a slight change in their nasal airflow pattern — they are likely to regain consciousness. This is the conclusion from a new study conducted by Weizmann Institute scientists and colleagues at the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital, Israel. According to the findings, published in the journal Nature, 100% of the unconscious brain-injured patients who responded to a “sniff test” developed by the researchers regained consciousness during the four-year study period. The scientists think that this simple, inexpensive test can aid doctors in accurately diagnosing and determining treatment plans according to the patients’ degree of brain injury. The scientists conclude that this finding once again highlights the primal role of the sense of smell in human brain organization. The olfactory system is the most ancient part of the brain, and its integrity provides an accurate measure of overall brain integrity.

Following severe brain injury, it is often difficult to determine whether the person is conscious or unconscious, and current diagnostic tests can lead to an incorrect diagnosis in up to 40% of cases. “Misdiagnosis can be critical as it can influence the decision of whether to disconnect patients from life support machines,” says Dr. Anat Arzi, who led the research. “In regard to treatment, if it is judged that a patient is unconscious and doesn’t feel anything, physicians may not prescribe them painkillers that they might need.” Arzi commenced this research during her doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Neurobiology Department and continued it as part of her postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.

The “consciousness test” developed by the researchers — in collaboration with Dr. Yaron Sacher, Head of the Department of Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation at Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital — is based on the principle that our nasal airflow changes in response to odor; for example, an unpleasant odor will lead to shorter and shallower sniffs. In healthy humans, the sniff-response can occur unconsciously in both wakefulness and sleep.

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Researchers from the University of Surrey have revealed their new biodegradable motion sensor—paving the way for implanted nanotechnology that could help future sports professionals better monitor their movements to aid rapid improvements, or help caregivers remotely monitor people living with dementia.

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Humans are living longer than ever before. But alongside these increases in life expectancy are an increase in the occurrence of age-related diseases such as cancer and dementia.

But understanding the biology of ageing, and knowing the genes and proteins involved in these processes, will help us increase our “healthspan”—the period that people can live in a healthy and productive state, without age-related diseases.

In a recent study, our team identified a novel anti-ageing , called Gaf1. We found that Gaf1 controls protein metabolism, a process that has been implicated in ageing and disease. We also found that without Gaf1, have a shorter lifespan.

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A study published in Current Biology reports on one of the first comprehensive characterizations of poorly formed memories, and may offer a framework to explore different therapeutic approaches to fear, memory and anxiety disorders. It may also have implications for accuracy of some witness testimony.

Senior author Professor Bryce Vissel, from the UTS Centre for Neuroscience & Regenerative Medicine, said his team used novel behavioral, molecular and computational techniques to investigate memories that have not been well-formed, and how the deals with them. “For memories to be useful, they have to have been well-formed during an event—that is, they have to accurately reflect what actually happened.

”However, in the many memories are likely to be inaccurate—especially in situations where the experience was brief, sudden or highly emotional, as can often occur during trauma. Inaccurate memories can also occur when the is poorly encoded, potentially as a result of subtle differences in how each person processes memory or because of disease like Alzheimer’s or dementia.”

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