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Category: biotech/medical – Page 218

AI Reveals How Brain Cells Evolved Over 320 Million Years

Summary: A new study reveals how AI-driven deep learning models can decode the genetic regulatory switches that define brain cell types across species. By analyzing human, mouse, and chicken brains, researchers found that some brain cell types remain highly conserved over 320 million years, while others have evolved uniquely.

This regulatory code not only sheds light on brain evolution but also provides new tools for studying gene regulation in health and disease. The findings highlight how AI can identify preserved and divergent genetic instructions controlling brain function across species.

The study also has implications for understanding neurological disorders by linking genetic variants to cognitive traits. Researchers are now expanding their models to study the brains of various animals and human disease states like Parkinson’s.

AI-Enhanced Chip Unravels Brain’s Neural Networks

Summary: Researchers have mapped over 70,000 synaptic connections in rat neurons using a silicon chip with 4,096 microhole electrodes, significantly advancing neuronal recording technology. Unlike traditional electron microscopy, which only visualizes synapses, this method also measures connection strength, providing deeper insight into brain network function.

The chip mimics patch-clamp electrodes but at a massive scale, enabling highly sensitive intracellular recordings from thousands of neurons simultaneously. Compared to their previous nanoneedle design, this new approach captured 200 times more synaptic connections, revealing detailed characteristics of each link.

The technology could revolutionize neural mapping, offering a powerful tool for studying brain function and diseases. Researchers are now working to apply this system in live brains to further understand real-time neural communication.

What removing large chunks of brain taught me about selfhood

A few decades later, the neuropsychologists Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga studied more of these so-called split-brain patients and discovered that each half of the brain processed information independently. Each could make its own decisions and control its own behaviours. In a sense, the surgery had created two separate selves. In some of these patients, one side of their body (controlled by one hemisphere) would do one thing, while the other half (controlled by the other hemisphere) would do the opposite. For example, one hand would button their shirt while the other hand would unbutton it.

So why didn’t these split-brain patients, post-surgery, feel like they had two selves? The answer is that their brains fooled them into thinking that only one self existed and that it was in charge. When one of their hands did something unexpected, they made up a story to explain why. I changed my mind. I didn’t like the way that shirt looked.

These stories or confabulations show the power of the illusion of selfhood – a feeling that evolutionary psychologists believe evolved because it is adaptively useful. What better way to ensure that the physical package carrying and protecting the information in our DNA – namely, our bodies – survives long enough to pass on that code to the next generation? The illusion of the self makes us feel unique and provides us with a goal-oriented purpose to our lives.

USC Researchers Uncover Hidden “Brain Drain” Responsible for Vascular Dementia

Researchers investigated cerebral small vessel disease, a precursor to dementia, by analyzing data from thousands of participants spanning four distinct groups of middle-aged to older adults. Their study confirmed the validity of a biomarker that could aid in advancing research on potential treatments.

A recent study conducted by the Keck School of Medicine of USC

<span class=””>Founded in 1880, the <em>University of Southern California</em> is one of the world’s leading private research universities. It is located in the heart of Los Angeles.</span>

Chromatin fiber’s genomic ‘memory’ governs the building blocks of life, study reveals

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered new details about how the human genome produces instructions for creating proteins and cells, the building blocks of life, according to a pioneering new study published in Science Advances.

While it’s understood that genes function as a set of instructions for creating RNA, and thus proteins and cells, the fundamental process by which this occurs has not been well-studied due to technological limitations, said Vadim Backman, Ph.D., the Sachs Family Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine, who was senior author of the study.

“It is still not fully understood how, despite having the same set of genes, cells turn into neurons, bones, skin, heart, or roughly 200 other kinds of cells, and then exhibit stable cellular behavior over a human lifespan which can last for more than a century—or why aging degrades this process,” said Backman, who directs the Center for Physical Genomics and Engineering at Northwestern. “This has been a long-standing open question in biology.”

Cathedral Therapeutics: a startup aiming to make AAV gene therapy accessible to all patients

2-minute pitch for my startup Cathedral Therapeutics (co-founded with David Curiel)! If you’re interested, please feel free to reach out.

Cathedral’s novel technology protects adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapies from the immune system so that all patients can access the life-changing cures they need. We encapsulate AAVs inside of hollow organelles found in human cells called protein vaults to make vaultAAV complexes. This approach shields the encapsulated AAVs from antibodies so that they can enter cells and deliver beneficial DNA. https://www.cathedraltherapeutics.com/

Learning from catastrophe

Engineers are renowned clock-problem solvers. They’re also notorious for treating every problem like a clock. Increasing specialization and cultural expectations play a role in this tendency. But so do engineers themselves, who are typically the ones who get to frame the problems they’re trying to solve in the first place.

In his latest book, Wicked Problems, Guru Madhavan argues that the growing number of cloudy problems in our world demands a broader, more civic-minded approach to engineering. “Wickedness” is Madhavan’s way of characterizing what he calls “the cloudiest of problems.” It’s a nod to a now-famous coinage by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who used the term “wicked” to describe complex social problems that resisted the rote scientific and engineering-based (i.e., clock-like) approaches that were invading their fields of design and urban planning back in the 1970s.

Madhavan, who’s the senior director of programs at the National Academy of Engineering, is no stranger to wicked problems himself. He’s tackled such daunting examples as trying to make prescription drugs more affordable in the US and prioritizing development of new vaccines. But the book isn’t about his own work. Instead, Wicked Problems weaves together the story of a largely forgotten aviation engineer and inventor, Edwin A. Link, with case studies of man-made and natural disasters that Madhavan uses to explain how wicked problems take shape in society and how they might be tamed.

Scientists Unveil AI That Learns Without Human Labels — A Major Leap Toward True Intelligence!

Researchers have created a new AI algorithm called Torque Clustering, which greatly enhances an AI system’s ability to learn and identify patterns in data on its own, without human input.

Researchers have developed a new AI algorithm, Torque Clustering, which more closely mimics natural intelligence than existing methods. This advanced approach enhances AI’s ability to learn and identify patterns in data independently, without human intervention.

Torque Clustering is designed to efficiently analyze large datasets across various fields, including biology, chemistry, astronomy, psychology, finance, and medicine. By uncovering hidden patterns, it can provide valuable insights, such as detecting disease trends, identifying fraudulent activities, and understanding human behavior.