Lifeboat Foundation

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder associated with difficulties in interacting with others, repetitive behaviors, restricted interests and other symptoms that can impact academic or professional performance. People diagnosed with ASD can present varying symptoms that differ in both their behavioral manifestations and intensity.

As a result, some autistic individuals often require far more support than others to complete their studies, learn new skills and lead a fulfilling life. Neuroscientists have been investigating the high variability of ASD for several decades, with the hope that this will aid the development of more effective therapeutic strategies tailored around the unique experiences of different patients.

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have recently used machine learning to investigate the molecular and neural mechanisms that could underlie these differences among individuals diagnosed with ASD. Their paper, published in Nature Neuroscience, identifies different subgroups of ASD associated with distinct functional connections in the brain and symptomatology, which could be related to the expression of different ASD-related genes.

Organoids aren’t nearly as complex as their full-sized counterparts, but they’re useful for research — scientists can study organ development, monitor disease progression, and even test new treatments on them.

What’s new: When human embryos are about five weeks old, they develop structures called “optic cups” that will eventually become retinas.

Researchers have grown optic cups in the lab before, and they’ve also grown mini brains. Now, researchers at University Hospital Düsseldorf have grown brain organoids with optic cups.

Summary: Brain areas that control movement are plugged into networks that orchestrate thinking and planning, and control involuntary bodily functions. The findings provide a link between the body and the “mind” in the brain’s structure.

Source: WUSTL

Calm body, calm mind, say the practitioners of mindfulness. A new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that the idea that the body and mind are inextricably intertwined is more than just an abstraction.

Findings point to brain areas that integrate planning, purpose, physiology, behavior, and movement.

Calm body, calm mind, say the practitioners of mindfulness. A new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that the idea that the body and mind are inextricably intertwined is more than just an abstraction. The study shows that parts of the brain area that control movement are plugged into networks involved in thinking and planning, and in control of involuntary bodily functions such as blood pressure and heartbeat. The findings represent a literal linkage of body and mind in the very structure of the brain.

The research, published on April 19 in the journal Nature, could help explain some baffling phenomena, such as why anxiety makes some people want to pace back and forth; why stimulating the vagus nerve, which regulates internal organ functions such as digestion and heart rate, may alleviate depression; and why people who exercise regularly report a more positive outlook on life.

DNA and self assembly of nanoparticles.

Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Never email yourself a file again!

Ed Boyden shows how, by inserting genes for light-sensitive proteins into brain cells, he can selectively activate or de-activate specific neurons with fiber-optic implants. With this unprecedented level of control, he’s managed to cure mice of analogs of PTSD and certain forms of blindness. On the horizon: neural prosthetics. Session host Juan Enriquez leads a brief post-talk Q&A.

Cortical Labs, an Australian startup developing a new type of artificial intelligence that combines lab-grown human brain cells with computer chips, has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm of Hong Kong’s richest person, Li Ka-shing.

Blackbird Ventures, Australia’s leading venture capital fund, has also taken part in the financing round, Cortical Labs said in a statement on Wednesday. Other investors include In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as U.S.-based LifeX Ventures and Australia-headquartered Radar Ventures, among others.

Cortical Labs said it will use the capital to commercialize its biological computer chips—human brain cells derived from stem cells that are grown on top of microelectrode arrays. Cortical Labs refers to their system as DishBrain, and says it’s capable of performing goal-directed tasks.

Researchers say previous cases of cancer, in particular blood and breast cancer, can increase a person’s risk of developing heart disease. There are lifestyle changes that can lower that risk.

Enter Fabian Voigt, a molecular biologist at Harvard University and inventor of the new design. He was reading a book about animal vision when he encountered the odd case of scallops’ eyes. Unlike most animals, whose eyes feature retinas that send images to the brain, scallops have mantles covered with hundreds of tiny blue dots, each of which contains a curved mirror at its back. As light passes through each eye’s lens, its inner mirror reflects the light back onto the creature’s photoreceptors to create an image that then allows the scallop to respond to its environment.

An amateur astronomer since he was a teenager, Voigt realized the scallop’s eye design resembled a kind of telescope invented nearly 100 years ago called the Schmidt telescope. The Kepler Space Telescope, which orbits Earth, uses a similar curved mirror design to magnify far-away light from exoplanets. Voigt realized that by shrinking the mirror, using lasers for light, and filling the space between the mirror and the detector with liquid to minimize light scattering, the design could be adapted to fit inside a microscope.

So, Voigt and colleagues built a prototype based on those specs. Light enters from the top, passes through a curved plate that corrects for the mirror’s curvature, then bounces off a mirror to hit a sample and magnify it. The curved mirror can magnify the image much like a lens, Voigt says. It allows researchers to look at samples suspended in any kind of liquid, simplifying the process. Voigt says the design could be particularly useful for researchers who study organs or even entire organisms, such as mice or embryos, that have been made completely transparent by artificially removing their pigment.