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Category: neuroscience – Page 10

Chinese researchers develop stiffness-tunable ‘Neurotentacle’ probe for brain-computer interface implantation

Chinese researchers have made significant progress in developing flexible invasive brain-computer interface implants, creating a stiffness-tunable “Neurotentacle” probe that can reduce implantation damage by 74 percent, Science and Technology Daily reported Tuesday.

The “Neurotentacle” probe developed by researchers at the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), contains a tiny hydraulic system. During the implantation, the hydraulically actuated “Neurotentacle” probe stiffens like an inflated balloon to precisely penetrate brain tissue. Once it is in place, it softens afterward to minimize damage and returns to a flexible state to adapt to the brain’s microenvironment, said the report.

The findings were published online in the international journal Advanced Science on July 21.

Many Worlds of Quantum Theory

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Quantum theory is very strange. No act is wholly sure. Everything works by probabilities, described by a wave function. But what is a wavefunction? One theory is that every possibility is in fact a real world of sorts. This is the Many Worlds interpretation of Hugh Everett and what it claims boggles the brain. You can’t imagine how many worlds there would be.

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David Elieser Deutsch, FRS is a British physicist at the University of Oxford. He is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation (CQC) in the Clarendon Laboratory of the University of Oxford.

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This Protein Slows the Aging Brain, and We Know How to Counter It

Aging is particularly harsh on the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for learning and memory.

Now, researchers at UC San Francisco have identified a protein that’s at the center of this decline.

They looked at how the genes and proteins in the hippocampus changed over time in mice and found just one protein that differed between old and young animals. It’s called FTL1. Old mice had more FTL1, as well as fewer connections between brain cells in the hippocampus and diminished cognitive abilities.

Scientists discover a protein that gets concentrated in the brain during aging, leading brain connections to wither and cognitive decline to accelerate — and a way to counter its effects.

Computational approach meets biology to connect neural progenitor cells with human disorders

For much of the 20th century it was thought that the adult brain was incapable of regeneration. This view has since shifted dramatically and neurogenesis—the birth of new neurons—is now a widely accepted phenomenon in the adult brain, offering promising avenues for treating many neurological conditions.

One of the main challenges in the field has been identifying neural stem and (NPCs) responsible for generating these new neurons. NPCs are rare, diverse and difficult to isolate from other due to overlapping molecular signatures. As a result, understanding their biology—and particularly their role in human brain disorders—has remained elusive.

In a study published in Stem Cell Reports, a team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital reveals that define NPCs.

Human neural organoid microphysiological systems show the building blocks necessary for basic learning and memory

Neural organoids exhibit key aspects of learning and memory, including input-specific synaptic plasticity, basal and evoked immediate early gene expression, and critical network dynamics, highlighting their value in modeling human neurophysiology.

Sleeping flies that still manage to escape shed light on inhibitory neuronal networks

Flies too need their sleep. In order to be able to react to dangers, however, they must not completely phase out the environment. Researchers at Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin have now deciphered how the animal’s brain produces this state. As they describe in the journal Nature, the fly brain filters out visual information rhythmically during sleep—so that strong visual stimuli can still wake the animal.

Periods of rest and sleep are vital—presumably for all animals.

“Sleep is essential for physical regeneration, and in humans and many animals it is also fundamental for memory formation,” explains Prof. David Owald, a scientist at Charité’s Institute of Neurophysiology and leader of the recently published study. It was previously unclear how an organism reduces its response to stimuli sufficiently to be able to regenerate, while still remaining alert enough to respond to external dangers.

Why do some people age faster than others? Study identifies genes at play

It’s a fact of life: Some people age better than others. Some ease into their 90s with mind and body intact, while others battle diabetes, Alzheimer’s or mobility issues decades earlier. Some can withstand a bad fall or bout of the flu with ease, while others never leave the hospital again.

New University of Colorado Boulder-led research, published in Nature Genetics, sheds light on why that is.

In it, an international team of co-authors identifies more than 400 genes associated with accelerated aging across seven different sub-types. The study reveals that different groups of genes underlie different kinds of disordered aging, a.k.a. frailty, ranging from cognitive decline to mobility issues to social isolation.

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