Researchers have discovered hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the brain lining of individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, suggesting a possible link between infection and psychiatric symptoms.
Category: neuroscience – Page 14
GIST Research reveals a promising new target to thwart Alzheimer’s decades before symptoms start
A person will have Alzheimer’s years before ever knowing it. The disorienting erasure of memories, language, thoughts—in essence, all that makes up one’s unique sense of self—is the final act of this enigmatic disease that spends decades disrupting vital processes and dismantling the brain’s delicate structure.
Once symptoms surface and doctors make a diagnosis, though, it can often be too late. Damage is widespread, impossible to reverse. No cure exists.
Attempts to develop drugs that clear away toxic accumulations of amyloid-beta and tau proteins—hallmarks of the disease that cause neurons to die—have ended in hundreds of failed clinical trials. Today, some scientists are skeptical over whether removing amyloid plaques is even enough. Others have a hunch that the best line of attack won’t target just one aspect of the disease, but many of them, all at once.
Microendovascular Neural Recording from Cortical and Deep Vessels with High Precision and Minimal Invasiveness
Interesting paper where microintravascular electrodes were inserted into cortical veins of pigs to record somatosensory and visual neuronal activity as well as selectively stimulate motor areas. Compared to electrocorticography, this is a less invasive approach with similar capabilities. #neurotech [ https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202500487](https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202500487)
Intravascular electroencephalography (ivEEG) with microintravascular electrodes enhances neural monitoring, functional mapping, and brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), offering a minimally invasive approach to assess cortical activities; however, this approach remains unrealized. Current ivEEG methods using electrode-attached stents are limited to recording from large vessels, such as the superior sagittal sinus (SSS), restricting access to cortical regions essential for precise BCI control, such as those for hand and mouth movements. Here, ivEEG signals from small and soft cortical veins (CV-ivEEGs) in eight pigs using microintravascular electrodes are recorded, achieving higher resting-state signal power and greater spatial resolution of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) compared to SSS-based ivEEG. Additionally, ivEEG recorded from deep veins clearly captures visual evoked potentials. Furthermore, comparisons between CV-ivEEG and electrocorticography (ECoG) using epidural and subdural electrodes in two pigs demonstrate that CV-ivEEG captures cortical SEPs comparable to ECoG. Targeted electrical stimulation via cortical vein electrodes induces specific contralateral muscle contractions in five anesthetized pigs, confirming selective motor-region stimulation with minimal invasiveness. The findings suggest that ivEEG with microintravascular electrodes is capable of accessing diverse cortical areas and capturing localized neural activity with high signal fidelity for minimally invasive cortical mapping and BCI.
Forewarned Is Forearmed: The single- and dual-brain mechanisms in Detectors from Dyads of Varying Social Distance During Deceptive Outcomes Evaluation
The study investigates how people (“receivers” / “detectors”) evaluate deceptive information depending on social distance (friend vs. stranger) and context (whether the outcome involves gains or losses).
Receivers were more likely to fall for deception in gain contexts than in loss contexts. That is, when there is a possible reward, people are less vigilant / more prone to be deceived.
Key brain regions involved: Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC, risk evaluation), Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC, reward processing), Frontal Pole Area (FPA, intention understanding). Differences in activity/connectivity in these regions were associated with how people evaluated deceptive vs truthful information, and depending on social distance.
Preventing deception requires understanding how lie detectors process social information across social distance. Although the outcomes of such information are crucial, how detectors evaluate gains or losses from close versus distant others remains unclear. Using a sender-receiver paradigm and fNIRS hyperscanning, we recruited 66 healthy adult dyads (32 male and 34 female dyads) to investigate how perceived social distance modulates the neural basis in receivers (the detector) during deceptive gain–loss evaluation. The results showed that detectors were more prone to deception in gain contexts, with these differences mediated by connectivity in risk evaluation (Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, DLPFC), reward-processing (Orbitofrontal Cortex, OFC), and intention-understanding regions (Frontal Pole Area, FPA). Hyperscanning analyses revealed that friend dyads exhibited higher interpersonal neural synchrony (INS) in these regions than stranger dyads. In gain contexts, friend dyads showed enhanced INS in the OFC, whereas in loss contexts, enhanced INS was observed in the DLPFC. Trial-level analysis revealed that the INS during the current trial effectively predicted the successful deception of that trial. We constructed a series of regression models and found that INS provides superior predictive power over single-brain measures. The INS-based Support Vector Regression model achieved an accuracy of 86.66% in predicting deception. This indicates that increased trust at closer social distances reduces vigilance and fosters relationship-oriented social information processing. As the first to identify INS as a neural marker for deception from the detector’s perspective, this work advances Interpersonal Deception Theory and offers a neuroscientific basis for credit risk management.
Significance Statement Using a sender–receiver paradigm and fNIRS hyperscanning, we investigated deception from the detector’s perspective across social distances and gain–loss contexts. Our findings reveal that interpersonal neural synchrony (INS) between the dorsolateral and orbitofrontal prefrontal cortices reliably predicts whether deception succeeds. We further analyzed the predictive power of INS at the trial level and found that deception susceptibility was first apparent in the early stages of verbal communication. These results suggest that deception is not solely shaped by individual vigilance but emerges from dynamic neural coupling during interaction. This study identifies INS as a neural signature of deception susceptibility and bridges behavioral models with neural computation, offering implications for deception detection in real-world social contexts.
Loneliness and anxiety fuel smartphone and social media addiction in ‘night owls,’ new study finds
Young adult “night owls” (or “evening types”—those who prefer to stay up late) are significantly more at risk of developing problematic relationships with smartphones and social media, according to a new study.
Problematic smartphone use is characterized by anxiety when separated from one’s phone, neglecting responsibilities in favor of phone use, and compulsively checking notifications. Social media addiction is similarly marked by excessive, uncontrolled usage that interferes with daily life.
Nearly 40% of U.K. students are now believed to exhibit signs of social media addiction, with young women at particularly high risk. Past research has linked eveningness to a range of adverse outcomes, including poor sleep quality, depression, and addictive behaviors. But until now, no study has investigated the mechanisms underlying the link between being an evening person and problematic technology use.
Dormant no more: Brain protein’s hidden role may reshape psychiatric and neurological treatments
In a new research report, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have identified a potential target for drugs that could dial up or down the activity of certain brain proteins in efforts to treat psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety and schizophrenia, and a neurological condition that affects movement.
The proteins, called delta-type ionotropic glutamate receptors, or GluDs, have long been understood to play a major role in signaling between neurons. Mutations in GluD proteins are thought to drive psychiatric conditions, including anxiety and schizophrenia, the scientists say. Yet, scientists had few clues as to how GluDs function, hampering the ability to find treatments to regulate them.
“This class of protein has long been thought to be sitting dormant in the brain,” says Edward Twomey, Ph.D., assistant professor of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Our findings indicate they are very much active and offer a potential channel to develop new therapies.”
‘Drop-printing’ shows potential for constructing bioelectronic interfaces that conform to complex surfaces
With the rapid development of wearable electronics, neurorehabilitation, and brain-machine interfaces in recent years, there has been an urgent need for methods to conformally wrap thin-film electronic devices onto biological tissues to enable precise acquisition and regulation of physiological signals.
Conventional methods typically rely on external pressure to force devices onto conformal contact. However, when applied to uneven three-dimensional surfaces such as skin, brain, or nerves, they generate significant internal stress which can easily damage fragile metal circuits and inorganic chips. This is an obstacle to the advancement of flexible electronics.
In a study published in Science, Prof. Song Yanlin’s team from the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with collaborators from Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Nanyang Technological University, and Tianjin University, propose a new film transfer strategy named as drop-printing, which has potential applications in bioelectronics, flexible displays, and micro-/nano-manufacturing.
Lab-grown human brain tissue directs butterfly simulation
Could organoid-driven computing be the future of AI power?
This deadly brain disorder can develop a decade after you get the measles — and it just killed a child
A school-aged child in L.A. recently died after developing a rare neurological disease years after contracting the measles.
Authorities didn’t reveal many details about the case, except that the child was infected with measles as an infant, before they were eligible for the vaccine.
Measles is a respiratory disease that spreads easily from person to person. The first dose of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is routinely recommended for kids between 12 and 15 months old. A second dose is given before kindergarten or first grade.