Lifeboat Foundation

Summary: Neural stem cells, which create new neurons in the brain, become less active with age due to elevated glucose levels. Researchers found that by knocking out the glucose transporter gene GLUT4 in older mice, they could significantly increase the production of new neurons.

This discovery opens up potential pathways for both genetic and behavioral interventions to stimulate brain repair, including the possibility of a low-carbohydrate diet. The findings could help treat neurodegenerative diseases and aid in brain recovery after injury.

Patients with certain mental disorders, including schizophrenia, often hear voices in the absence of sound.

Auditory hallucinations are likely the result of abnormalities in two brain processes: a broken corollary discharge that fails to suppress self-generated sounds, and a noisy efference copy that makes the brain hear these sounds more intensely than it should. That is the conclusion of a study published October 3 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Xing Tian, of New York University Shanghai, China, and colleagues.

In the new study, researchers carried out electroencephalogram (EEG) experiments measuring the brain waves of 20 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations and 20 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia who had never experienced such hallucinations.

🧠 Neuromodulation through the eyes 👀

Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity or brain plasticity, is a process that involves adaptive structural and functional changes to the brain.

Founded and directed by Deborah Zelinsky, O.D., F.N.O.R.A., F.C.O.V.D.

Continue reading “The Z-Bell℠ Test: A Breakthrough in Eye-Ear Testing” »

https://rdcu.be/dVhCN

Imagine trying to understand the brain’s activity over time—an incredibly complex and dynamic process that happens at different speeds.

To solve this problem, we developed a pipeline called UnitMatch, which operates after spike sorting. Before applying UnitMatch, the user spike sorts each recording independently using their preferred algorithm. UnitMatch then deploys a naive Bayes classifier on the units’ average waveform in each recording and tracks units across recordings, assigning a probability to each match.

Continue reading “Tracking neurons across days with high-density probes” »

With this success, Synchon is looking to take its experiments to the next level by adding more participants in a larger study. CEO Tom Oxley claims that their future study would focus more on ‘gathering brain data to improve the BCI.

Are Brain-Computer Interfaces the Future of Technology?

Different companies have already begun their developments and clinical trials of their brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) which need to be implanted on human test subjects, centering mostly on paraplegic patients. One of the most famous companies behind this is Elon Musk’s Neuralink, and their first patient, Noland Arbaugh, testified how the implant can help in controlling technology, and in his case, gaming.

A new study led by Stanford Medicine scientists found that certain changes in neural activity predicted which patients would benefit from a type of cognitive behavioral therapy.

It includes all ~50 million connections between nearly 140,000 neurons in the brain of a fruit fly.

Unlocking the complexities of the fruit fly brain is a crucial step toward understanding the human brain. Fruit flies share many genetic similarities with humans, making them a valuable model organism for studying brain functions as well as diseases.

“An estimated 75% of human genes related to diseases have homologs in the fly genome,” Sebastian Seung, co-leader of the research team, told Interesting Engineering (IE).

Continue reading “139,000 Neurons of Adult Fruit Fly Brain Mapped For The First Time” »

The team says that DNA — known for its stability and density — could be an ideal candidate for MRI data storage.

Brain MRI scans provide invaluable insights into our bodies.

Continue reading “250,000 DNA sequences successfully store 11.28 MB of MRI information” »