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Category: neuroscience

A diet rich in fiber helps reduce inflammation in murine brains.

According to a new study performed by University of Illinois researchers and published in Frontiers in Immunology, a diet rich in fiber reduces inflammation in aged mice, both in the guts and the brain. This beneficial reduction is due to high levels of butyrate, which result from the fermentation of fiber during digestion [1].

Study abstract

Aging results in chronic systemic inflammation that can alter neuroinflammation of the brain. Specifically, microglia shift to a pro-inflammatory phenotype predisposing them to hyper-activation upon stimulation by peripheral immune signals. It is proposed that certain nutrients can delay brain aging by preventing or reversing microglial hyperactivation. Butyrate, a short chain fatty acid (SCFA) produced primarily by bacterial fermentation of fiber in the colon, has been extensively studied pharmacologically as a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, and serves as an attractive therapeutic candidate, as butyrate has also been shown to be anti-inflammatory and improve memory in animal models. In the present study, we demonstrate that butyrate can attenuate pro-inflammatory cytokine expression in microglia in aged mice.

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Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease with characterization of deficits in progressive memory loss, cognitive and behaviour functions. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a predromal stage of AD, displaying cognitive deficit but neither marked functional impairment nor satisfying established clinical criteria for dementia or probable AD. However, not all MCI patients may eventually progress to AD (progressive MCI, pMCI), and some remain unchanged (stable MCI, sMCI), or are recovered from. Therefore, differential diagnosis of MCI types and earlier diagnosis of AD and prediction of disease evolution are difficult

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Playlist Electronic Fusion #158, broadcast on 15 September 2018:

01. Plike — Holmesburg 02. Plike — The Monster Study 03. Plike — Subproject 68 04. Plike — Bluebird 05. Plike — Laboratory 12 (Feat. Digibilly) 06. Alpha Wave Movement — Herzschlag Des Universums 07. Alpha Wave Movement — Other Worlds 08. Chris Gate — This Is Syndae 09. Moonbooter — Syndae’s Theme (Boot From Moon Mix) 10. Stefan Erbe — GP 11. Arend Westra — Under The Milky Way 12. Broekhuis, Keller & Schönwälder — Frozen Nights 13. AndAWan — Time To Remember (Ft. Irene Makri) 14. Thought Guild — Tetrahedral Anomalies 15. Erik Seifert — ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) 16. Wolfgang Roth (Wolfproject) & Jens-H. Kruhl (Wiesenberg) — The Light Belongs To You.

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New research published in PLOS One has found that virtual reality use impairs physical and cognitive performance while trying to balance.

“I became interested in this topic because virtual reality headsets have recently become widely available, with great potential to make rehabilitation more enjoyable and varied for patients,” said study author Steven M. Peterson of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

“While many studies have explored upper-limb activities, I wanted to understand how immersive and mentally challenging a virtual reality headset is when the user is walking around and not seated. We decided to test the realism of virtual reality by looking for stress at high heights because just the perception of heights can affect how people walk and how cautious they are.”

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Promising approach to deliver personalized and non-invasive brain stimulation in clinical settings.

BrainsWay’s Brain Stimulation Device Receives FDA Approval to Treat Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (IEEE Spectrum):

In 2013, Jerusalem-based BrainsWay began marketing a new type of brain stimulation device that uses magnetic pulses to treat major depressive disorder.

Now, thanks to positive results in a study of 100 patients, the company has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market the device for a second psychiatric condition—obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) …

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This is beautiful. If you have time to read the article and watch the full video please do. This woman used EEG to select parts of the brain containing emotion and transferred that signal to vibration in pools of water.

“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what it is.” – Baruch Spinoza.

Artist Lisa Park has come up with an interesting new art form.

Her art performance is called Eunoia. It derives from the Greek word “eu” (well) + “nous” (mind) meaning “beautiful thinking”.

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While blood stem cells from bone marrow have long been a cornerstone of treating blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, Mackenzie’s trial extracting the cells from a pregnant woman to treat a developing fetus in utero is just one of several innovative uses of stem cells to treat a growing list of diseases with cells instead of drugs. And promising studies are inching more of these stem-cell-based treatments closer to finally being tested in people.

With stem cells like those found in bone marrow, scientists are taking advantage of what the body does naturally: generate itself anew. Many of the adult body’s organs and tissues, including fat cells and blood, are equipped with their own stash of stem cells whose sole job is to regenerate cells and tissues when older ones are damaged or die off and which can be harvested for research and growth outside the body.

Some organs are not endowed with these large stem-cell reservoirs, however, most notably the brain and heart muscle. So more than two decades ago, scientists found another source of these flexible cells–in embryos that were donated for research from in vitro fertilization clinics. They learned how to grow these cells in the lab into any cells in the body. That opened the possibility that conditions like heart disease, diabetes or even psychiatric disorders might eventually be treated by replacing damaged tissues or organs with healthy ones, which could provide cures and treatments that didn’t require drugs or surgery.

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A new study on adult neurogenesis and Alzheimer’s disease.

According to a study led by scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital, exercise-induced neurogenesis improves cognition in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, yielding more benefits than drug-induced adult neurogenesis. The scientists were able to figure out the difference between the two types of induced neurogenesis and pharmacologically reproduce the same benefits provided by exercise [1].

Study abstract

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN) is impaired before the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology. We found that exercise provided cognitive benefit to 5×FAD mice, a mouse model of AD, by inducing AHN and elevating levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Neither stimulation of AHN alone, nor exercise, in the absence of increased AHN, ameliorated cognition. We successfully mimicked the beneficial effects of exercise on AD mice by genetically and pharmacologically inducing AHN in combination with elevating BDNF levels. Suppressing AHN later led to worsened cognitive performance and loss of preexisting dentate neurons. Thus, pharmacological mimetics of exercise, enhancing AHN and elevating BDNF levels, may improve cognition in AD. Furthermore, applied at early stages of AD, these mimetics may protect against subsequent neuronal cell death.

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The Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program will fund research on tech that can transmit high-fidelity signals between the brain and some external machine without requiring that the user be cut open for rewiring or implantation. It hasn’t escaped DARPA’s attention that no-surgery-required brain gear that gives people superpowers may find applications beyond the military. The proof-of-concept tech that comes out of the N3 program may lead to consumer products, says Justin Sanchez, director of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office. “This will spawn new industries,” he says…

The N3 program will create no-surgery-required neurotech that the general public may also find useful.

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