Cells Reveal Brain Chemistry Secrets (via BBC News)
Scientists have developed biological cells that can give insight into the chemistry of the brain. The cells, which change colour when exposed to specific chemicals, have been used to show how a class of schizophrenia drug works…
Schizophrenia is most commonly associated with symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations. But people with the illness also struggle to sustain attention or recall information.
A class of drugs called atypical neuroleptics has become commonly prescribed, in part because they seem to improve these problems. However, the way they altered brain chemistry was uncertain.
It was known that the drugs trigger the release of a large amount of a chemical called acetylcholine, which enables brain cells to communicate with each other. However, the drugs have also been shown to hobble a receptor on the surface of the receiving cell, which would effectively block the message.
The San Diego team designed biological cells - called CNiFERs - which changed colour when acetylcholine latched onto this particular class of receptors - an event scientists have not previously been able to detect in a living brain.
They implanted the cells into rat brains, then stimulated a deeper part of the brain in a way known to release acetylcholine nearby.
In response, CNiFERs changed colour - proving that they were working.
They then gave the rats one of two atypical neuroleptics. In both cases the drug severely depressed the response from the CNiFERs. This suggested that the drugs’ receptor-blocking action over-rides the increase they trigger in acetylcholine.
Scientists Show How Tiny Cells Deliver Big Sound In Cochlea (via ScienceDaily)
not the most interesting article, but I like the cochlea drawing
‘Bionic Eye’ May Help Blind See: Retinal Prosthesis Shown To Restore Partial Vision (via ScienceDaily)
A new artificial retina, an array of electrodes implanted on the back of the eye, has been found to restore partial vision to totally blind people.
Society for Neuroscience Starts Saturday!!!!!
I’ll post anything particularly interesting that I learn….for now, here is what I’m presenting:
New Strategy For Mending Broken Hearts? (via ScienceDaily)
By mimicking the way embryonic stem cells develop into heart muscle in a lab, Duke University bioengineers believe they have taken an important first step toward growing a living “heart patch” to repair heart tissue damaged by disease.
In a series of experiments using mouse embryonic stem cells, the bioengineers used a novel mold of their own design to fashion a three-dimensional “patch” made up of heart muscle cells, known as cardiomyocytes. The new tissue exhibited the two most important attributes of heart muscle cells -– the ability to contract and to conduct electrical impulses. The mold looks much like a piece of Chex cereal in which researchers varied the shape and length of the pores to control the direction and orientation of the growing cells.
The researchers grew the cells in an environment much like that found in natural tissues. They encapsulated the cells within a gel composed of the blood-clotting protein fibrin, which provided mechanical support to the cells, allowing them to form a three-dimensional structure. They also found that the cardiomyocytes flourished only in the presence of a class of “helper” cells known as cardiac fibroblasts, which comprise as much as 60 percent of all cells present in a human heart.
Electric Fish Plug In To Communicate (via ScienceDaily)
The fish generate electric fields to navigate, fight and attract mates in murky streams and rivers throughout Central and South America. They do so at night, while trying to avoid predators such as catfish that sense the electric fields.
Generating electricity is costly (ask any homeowner paying for air conditioning during a hot summer), and the fish are using a dimmer switch to save energy by turning their electrical signals up and down, says Harold Zakon, professor of neurobiology….
They found that the dimmer switch comes in the form of sodium channels the fish insert and remove from the membranes of special cells, called electrocytes, within their electric organs. When more sodium channels are in the cell membrane, the electric impulse emitted by the electric organ is greater.
The scientists also show that the process is under the control of hormones. And it is maintained through a day-night circadian rhythm and can change rapidly during social encounters….
Man posts interactive browser for his own brain (via BoingBoing)
Spinal Advance Gets Rats Running (via BBC News)
US, Russian and Swiss scientists used drugs and electrical stimulation to train the animals, whose spinal cords had been cut, to run on a treadmill. Their movement was “almost indistinguishable” from normal steps, they said. But the report, published in Nature Neuroscience, stressed the movement was not directly controlled by the mind….
The earlier discovery that these patterns of motor signals may be partly governed in the spinal cord itself is the key to the latest research. It is suggested that nerve circuits called “central pattern generators” may exist even at the base of the cord, underneath the point of the injury.
The teams from the University of Zurich and the University of California at Los Angeles believe they have found a way to harness this.
They used drugs which stimulate unused motor nerve circuitry, coupled with electrical stimulation, with the aim of activating these central pattern generators and producing a stepping action in the legs below. The rats, despite having no connection between their brains and their legs, were able to carry their own weight at walking, and even running pace, on a treadmill, with virtually no differences between their gait and the running style of a healthy rat….
Experts Warn Over Health Check Brain Scans In UK
A new study has voiced concern about the growing market for brain screening tests, which people can buy as part of a general health check-up in the United Kingdom.
Researchers warn that paid-for brain scans – increasingly popular with healthy people who want to allay fears about undiagnosed brain cancer and stroke – may do more harm than good.
They reach their conclusion having analysed the results of almost 20,000 brain scans from people who undertook the tests for a variety of reasons, such as general health check-ups or volunteering for medical research. None of them had any symptoms suggesting that they had an underlying brain condition.
The researchers found that almost three per cent of healthy people had an abnormality on a brain MRI scan and warn that even when an incidental abnormality – such as a weakened blood vessel in the brain or a benign tumour – is discovered, there is no clear medical evidence that treatment would do more good than harm.
The experts say this lack of evidence can create anxiety, with many patients feeling that a tough choice has to be made between risky, potentially unnecessary surgery or leaving their condition untreated…. (continues @ ScienceDaily)
Tetris can alter the structure of your brain (via WIRED)
Playing Tetris actually gives you more brain to work with, says a new study to be published later this week.
The study, funded by Tetris’ makers and authored by investigators at the Mind Research Network in New Mexico, shows that playing the classic puzzle game had two distinct effects on the brains of research subjects: some areas in the brain showed greater efficiency (the blue areas in the diagram above), and different areas showed thicker cortexes, which is a sign of more grey matter (red).
This, says the doctors who undertook the study, shows that focusing on a “challenging visuospatial task” like a videogame can actually alter the structure of the brain, not just increase brain activity.
Future benefits of this study, says co-investigator Dr Richard Haier, might be to “demonstrate that a player of Tetris does see lasting effects that generalise to other activity,” showing for example that engaging in activities like playing some games might help fight off the mental decline that occurs with ageing.
The study’s subjects, a group of adolescent girls, underwent MRI scans before and after a three-month Tetris practice period.
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