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The work, published today in Nature, marks a significant step forward in our ability to study how the human body takes shape during early development.

The notochord, a rod-shaped tissue, is a crucial part of the scaffold of the developing body. It is a defining feature of all animals with backbones and plays a critical role in organising the tissue in the developing embryo.

Despite its importance, the complexity of the structure has meant it has been missing in previous lab-grown models of human trunk development.

In this research, the scientists first analysed chicken embryos to understand exactly how the notochord forms naturally. By comparing this with existing published information from mouse and monkey embryos, they established the timing and sequence of the molecular signals needed to create notochord tissue.

With this blueprint, they produced a precise sequence of chemical signals and used this to coax human stem cells into forming a notochord.

The stem cells formed a miniature ‘trunk-like’ structure, which spontaneously elongated to 1–2 millimetres in length. It contained developing neural tissue and bone stem cells, arranged in a pattern that mirrors development in human embryos. This suggested that the notochord was encouraging cells to become the right type of tissue at the right place at the right time.

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Timely TGFβ signalling inhibition induces notochord.

Through analysis of developing chick embryos and in vitro differentiation of embryonic stem cells, a study develops a method to generate a model of the human trunk with a notochord.

Sensitive cells: Scientists discovered dozens of specific cell types, mostly glial cells, known as brain support cells, that underwent significant gene expression changes with age. Those strongly affected included microglia and border-associated macrophages, oligodendrocytes, tanycytes, and ependymal cells.

Inflammation and neuron protection: In aging brains, genes associated with inflammation increased in activity while those related to neuronal structure and function decreased.

Aging hot spot: Scientists discovered a specific hot spot combining both the decrease in neuronal function and the increase in inflammation in the hypothalamus. The most significant gene expression changes were found in cell types near the third ventricle of the hypothalamus, including tanycytes, ependymal cells, and neurons known for their role in food intake, energy homeostasis, metabolism, and how our bodies use nutrients. This points to a possible connection between diet, lifestyle factors, brain aging, and changes that can influence our susceptibility to age-related brain disorders.

Brain-wide cell-type-specific transcriptomic signatures of healthy ageing in mice.

A comprehensive single-cell RNA sequencing study delineates cell-type-specific transcriptomic changes in the brain associated with normal ageing that will inform the investigation into functional changes and the interaction of ageing and disease.

Surprisingly, the organoids were still healthy when they returned from orbit a month later, but the cells had matured faster compared to identical organoids grown on Earth—they were closer to becoming adult neurons and were beginning to show signs of specialization. The results, which could shed light on potential neurological effects of space travel, were published on October 23, 2024, in Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

“The fact that these cells survived in space was a big surprise,” says co-senior author Jeanne Loring, PhD, professor emeritus in the Department of Molecular Medicine and founding director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Scripps Research. “This lays the groundwork for future experiments in space, in which we can include other parts of the brain that are affected by neurodegenerative disease.”

On Earth, the team used stem cells to create organoids consisting of either cortical or dopaminergic neurons, which are the neuronal populations impacted in multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease—diseases that Loring has studied for decades. Some organoids also included microglia, a type of immune cell that is resident within the brain, to examine the impact of microgravity on inflammation.

Abstract. Research conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) in low-Earth orbit (LEO) has shown the effects of microgravity on multiple organs. To investigate the effects of microgravity on the central nervous system, we developed a unique organoid strategy for modeling specific regions of the brain that are affected by neurodegenerative diseases. We generated 3-dimensional human neural organoids from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from individuals affected by primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) or Parkinson’s disease (PD) and non-symptomatic controls, by differentiating them toward cortical and dopaminergic fates, respectively, and combined them with isogenic microglia. The organoids were cultured for a month using a novel sealed cryovial culture method on the International Space Station (ISS) and a parallel set that remained on Earth. Live samples were returned to Earth for analysis by RNA expression and histology and were attached to culture dishes to enable neurite outgrowth. Our results show that both cortical and dopaminergic organoids cultured in LEO had lower levels of genes associated with cell proliferation and higher levels of maturation-associated genes, suggesting that the cells matured more quickly in LEO. This study is continuing with several more missions in order to understand the mechanisms underlying accelerated maturation and to investigate other neurological diseases. Our goal is to make use of the opportunity to study neural cells in LEO to better understand and treat neurodegenerative disease on Earth and to help ameliorate potentially adverse neurological effects of space travel.

In a paper published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness psychology researchers from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) worked with 54 participants to examine the effects of surveillance on an essential function of human sensory perception – the ability to detect another person’s gaze.

Lead author, Associate Professor of neuroscience and behaviour Kiley Seymour, said previous research has established the effects on conscious behaviour when people know they are being watched, but the new study provided the first direct evidence that being watched also has an involuntary response.

“We know CCTV changes our behaviour, and that’s the main driver for retailers and others wanting to deploy such technology to prevent unwanted behaviour,” Associate Professor Seymour said.

However, we show it’s not only overt behaviour that changes – our brain changes the way it processes information.

We found direct evidence that being conspicuously monitored via CCTV markedly impacts a hardwired and involuntary function of human sensory perception – the ability to consciously detect a face.

It’s a mechanism that evolved for us to detect other agents and potential threats in our environment, such as predators and other humans, and it seems to be enhanced when we’re being watched on CCTV.

Our surveilled participants became hyper aware of face stimuli almost a second faster than the control group. This perceptual enhancement also occurred without participants realising it.

Abstract. Despite the dramatic rise of surveillance in our societies, only limited research has examined its effects on humans. While most research has focused on voluntary behaviour, no study has examined the effects of surveillance on more fundamental and automatic aspects of human perceptual awareness and cognition. Here, we show that being watched on CCTV markedly impacts a hardwired and involuntary function of human sensory perception—the ability to consciously detect faces. Using the method of continuous flash suppression (CFS), we show that when people are surveilled (N = 24), they are quicker than controls (N = 30) to detect faces. An independent control experiment (N = 42) ruled out an explanation based on demand characteristics and social desirability biases. These findings show that being watched impacts not only consciously controlled behaviours but also unconscious, involuntary visual processing. Our results have implications concerning the impacts of surveillance on basic human cognition as well as public mental health.

Just as humans can use the taps of Morse Code or the patterns of smoke signals to communicate precise messages, infants show a remarkable flexibility to interpret nonlinguistic signals to aid their learning.

But what conditions are required for babies to elevate new nonlinguistic signals in this way? And how early can they do so?

Sandra Waxman, the study’s senior author, and her colleagues discovered that infants as young as six months old were able to harness nonlinguistic signals for learning, a surprising finding because at this age, babies are just beginning to acquire their own language.

The evidence revealed the conditions under which babies conferred communicative status to the novel tone signals and then recruited them to successfully complete a learning task. Infants’ success did not depend on whether the signals were produced by humans, or in a give-and-take interchange between individuals. Instead, what mattered was cross-modal temporal synchrony, in other words, if the method of signal delivery included synchronized sound and movement.

Six-month-old infants use cross-modal synchrony to identify novel communicative signals. Sci Rep 14, 27859 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-78801-9

The world’s first human trial of a drug that can regenerate teeth will begin in a few months, less than a year on from news of its success in animals. This paves the way for the medicine to be commercially available as early as 2030.

The trial, which will take place at Kyoto University Hospital from September to August 2025, will treat 30 males aged 30–64 who are missing at least one molar. The intravenous treatment will be tested for its efficacy on human dentition, after it successfully grew new teeth in ferret and mouse models with no significant side effects.

“We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,” said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi, head of dentistry and oral surgery at Kitano Hospital. “While there has been no treatment to date providing a permanent cure, we feel that people’s expectations for tooth growth are high.”

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Psychological studies have shown that the way humans respond to others’ emotions is strongly influenced by their own past emotional experiences. When a similar emotional situation—such as a past stressful event—is observed in another person, we can react in two different ways. On one hand, it may generate empathy, enhancing the ability to understand others’ problems and increasing sensitivity to others altered emotions. On the other hand, it may induce self-distress resulting into an avoidance towards others.

The research group at IIT has demonstrated that a similar phenomenon also occurs in animals: recalling a negative experience strongly influences how an individual responds to another who is experiencing that same altered emotional state. More specifically, animals exhibit different reactions only if the negative event they experienced in the past is identical to the one they observe in others. This indicates that even animals can specifically recognize an emotional state and react accordingly even without directly seeing the triggering stimuli.

italiano di tecnologia.

Maltese et al. show in mice that experiencing an adverse event affects future interaction with others experiencing the same stressor. These self-experience socioemotional reactions are orchestrated by the corticotropin-releasing factor system in the medial prefrontal cortex.

The question as to whether morality is innate has been hotly debated in developmental psychology for decades.

An international study with LMU participation provides evidence that our moral sense is not innate.

In a new work, a team from the University of Pennsylvania tracked the impact of alcohol consumption from the age of 20 on brain health and came to disappointing conclusions.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Binge drinking in early adults can lead to long-lasting and potentially permanent dysregulation in the brain, according to a new study in mice, led by researchers at Penn State. They found that neurons, cells that transmit information in the brain via electrical and chemical signals, showed changes following binge drinking were similar in many ways to those seen with cognitive decline.

These findings, published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, reveal that binge drinking early in life may have lasting impacts that are predictive of future health issues, like Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, the researchers said. The work could inform the development of therapeutics to help combat these changes — particularly in aging populations who may have given up alcohol decades earlier, according to Nikki Crowley, director of the Penn State Neuroscience Institute at University Park, Huck Early Career Chair in Neurobiology and Neural Engineering, assistant professor of biology in the Eberly College of Science, and the leader of the research team.

“We know from previous studies that there are immediate effects of binge drinking on the brain, but we didn’t have any sense of if these changes were long-lasting, or reversible over time,” said Crowley, who is also an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and of pharmacology. “We were interested in understanding if binge drinking during early adulthood may have lasting consequences that are not revealed until later in life — even if drinking had stopped for a very long period of time. This allows us to consider the effects of alcohol on an individual’s holistic health, in terms of their entire life history.”

An MRI scan shows a Chiari type-1 malformation, in which the cerebellum extends beyond the gap in the skull where it connects to the spinal cord.

Artificial intelligence identified 3 subtypes of Chiari type-1 malformations, could improve medical decision making.