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Category: neuroscience

Replacing Aging — Dr. Jean M. Hebert, Ph.D. Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Dr. Jean M. Hebert, Ph.D. (https://einsteinmed.org/faculty/9069/jean-hebert/) is Professor in the Department of Genetics and in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

He’s also the author of the book Replacing Aging, which describes how regenerative medicine will beat aging.

With a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Hebert’s current lab’s projects fall into two groups.

First, they focus on using the mouse neocortex as a platform for testing the ability of multi-cell type grafts (increasingly resembling normal neocortex) to integrate with host tissue.

Secondly, they are testing the ability of genetically engineered microglia that disperse throughout the adult neocortex to bolster neocortical function.

These highly collaborative projects require a range of multidisciplinary methods, including molecular genetics, human embryonic stem cell biology, transcriptomics, surgery, electrophysiology, live brain imaging, and behavioral tests, among others.

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Solid state batteries are the long-promised Holy Grail of battery technology. They’re smaller and better than existing Lithium Ion batteries. They charge more quickly and last much longer. What’s not to like? Trouble is, no-one’s managed to mass produce one at any useful scale yet. Turns out it’s quite tricky to make them reliable! Now though, two major Japanese companies are finally firing up their full production lines. So will 2021 be the year?

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Summary: Newly synthesized compounds can halt the degradation of neurons in a range of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, researchers say.

Source: Ural Federal University

Russian scientists have synthesized chemical compounds that can stop the degeneration of neurons in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other severe brain pathologies. These substances can provide a breakthrough in the treatment of neurodegenerative pathologies.

New molecules of pyrrolyl-and indolylazine classes activate intracellular mechanisms to combat one of the main causes of “aged” brain diseases – an excess of so-called amyloid structures that accumulate in the human brain with age.

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“In this study, for the first time, we see evidence that events which were always assumed to be occurring in the same manner, regardless of sex, may actually be completely different in males compared to females. The fact that these differences involve astrocytes, which have traditionally been ignored in neuroscience but have recently become a hot topic for study, makes them all the more intriguing.”

Summary: Thrombospondin-2, a protein with cell adhesion properties usually secreted by astrocytes, prompted a strong increase in synapses in male-derived neurons but showed no effect in females.

Source: Marshall University

During development, brain cells may find different ways to connect with each other based on sex, according to researchers at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine.

The study, recently published in eNeuro, showed a significantly more robust synaptogenic response in male-derived cells compared to female-derived cells when exposed to factors secreted from astrocytes, which are non-neuronal cells found throughout the central nervous system.

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Summary: A newly developed questionnaire can detect autism in children between the ages of 18 to 30 months.

Source: University of Cambridge.

New research led by the University of Cambridge suggests that autism can be detected at 18–30 months using the Quantitative Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (Q-CHAT), but it is not possible to identify every child at a young age who will later be diagnosed as autistic.

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One of the most important open questions in science is how our consciousness is established. In the 1990s, long before winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his prediction of black holes, physicist Roger Penrose teamed up with anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff to propose an ambitious answer.

They claimed that the brain’s neuronal system forms an intricate network and that the consciousness this produces should obey the rules of quantum mechanics – the theory that determines how tiny particles like electrons move around. This, they argue, could explain the mysterious complexity of human consciousness.

Penrose and Hameroff were met with incredulity. Quantum mechanical laws are usually only found to apply at very low temperatures. Quantum computers, for example, currently operate at around -272°C. At higher temperatures, classical mechanics takes over. Since our body works at room temperature, you would expect it to be governed by the classical laws of physics. For this reason, the quantum consciousness theory has been dismissed outright by many scientists – though others are persuaded supporters.

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New research from the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan shows that a deficit in histone methylation could lead to the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A human variant of the SUV39H2 gene led researchers to examine its absence in mice. Published in Molecular Psychiatry, the study found that when absent, adult mice exhibited cognitive inflexibility similar to what occurs in autism, and embryonic mice showed misregulated expression of genes related to brain development. These findings represent the first direct link between the SUV39H2 gene and ASD.

Genes are turned on and off throughout our development. But genetic variation means that what is turned off in some people remains turned on in others. This is why, for example, some adults can digest dairy products and others are lactose intolerant; the gene for making the enzyme lactase is turned off when some people become adults, but not others. One way that genes can be turned on and off is through a process called histone methylation in which special enzymes transfer methyl groups to histone proteins that are wrapped around DNA.

Variations in genes related to methylation during brain development can lead to serious problems. One such variation occurs in a rare disorder called Kleefstra Syndrome, in which a mutation prevents methylation of H3K9—a specific location on histone H3. Because Kleefstra Syndrome resembles autism in some ways, RIKEN CBS researchers led by Takeo Yoshikawa looked for autism-specific variations in genes that can modify H3K9. Among nine such genes, they found one variant in an H3K9 methyltransferase gene— SUV39H2 —that was present in autism, and the mutated SUV39H2 prevented methylation when tested in the lab. Similar loss-of-function results were found for the mouse version of the variant.

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Harvard scientists have found that a single dose of psilocybin given to mice induces a rapid and long-lasting increase in connections between pyramidal neurons in the medial frontal cortex, an area of the brain known to be involved in control and decision-making. Their new findings are published in the journal Neuron.

Psilocybin — the active component in so-called “magic” mushrooms — has been shown to have profound and long-lasting effects on personality and mood. Preliminary studies have provided hope that psilocybin could help to relieve depression symptoms and treat other mental disorders. But the mechanisms behind these effects remain unclear.

A team of researchers at Yale University were interested in examining whether the lasting therapeutic effects of psilocybin might be caused in part by the substance’s ability to enhance neuroplasticity in the brain.

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Something to consider.

“The whole idea of lifestyle choices as something everyone can tap into is misleading, when in fact that choice is constrained by what is available to people,” he said. “This is where policy solutions or investments into these neighborhoods to make up for historical disinvestment becomes so important.”

Summary: The neighborhood you live in could have an impact on your brain and cardiovascular health, a new study reports.

Source: American Heart Association

Liz Harris won’t let anything stop her from walking. Three mornings a week, she descends three flights of stairs and heads to Anacostia Park. It’s a 10-minute walk just to get there. If none of her friends are available, she walks alone. But they worry about her when she does.

“The community is known for crime, and you don’t feel comfortable walking alone,” said Harris, 72, who lives in southeastern Washington, D.C.’s Ward 8. But that’s not her only concern. Unleashed dogs in the park make her wary. The streets along the way are uneven and in disrepair. Heavy traffic can contribute to poor air quality.

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Now just need to go to rat monkey human.

Researchers at the University of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have imaged an entire mouse brain across five orders of magnitude of resolution, a step which researchers say will better connect existing imaging approaches and uncover new details about the structure of the brain.

The advance, which was published on June 9 in NeuroImage, will allow scientists to connect biomarkers at the microscopic and macroscopic level. It leveraged existing advanced X-ray microscopy techniques at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Argonne, to bridge the gap between MRI and electron microscopy imaging, providing a viable pipeline for multiscale whole brain imaging within the same brain.

“Argonne had this extremely powerful X-ray microscope, and it hadn’t been used for brain mapping yet, so we decided to try it out.” — Assistant Professor Bobby Kasthuri

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