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Category: neuroscience – Page 20

Oxytocin reverses anxiety-like behavior after three months of isolation in mice

Periods of prolonged social isolation have long been associated with difficult emotions and, in some cases, with the emergence of psychiatric symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and difficulties connecting with others. Some past psychology studies have suggested that chronic isolation during adolescence, the critical stage between childhood and adulthood, can disrupt the structure and functioning of a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

The PFC is known to play a critical role in various mental functions, including decision-making and the regulation of emotions. Disruptions to this brain region could thus explain the emotional and social difficulties experienced by many people after long periods of isolation.

Researchers at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and other institutes recently carried out a study involving mice that investigated the potential of oxytocin (OXT), a hormone released when bonding or cuddling with others, as a therapeutic target for the mental health symptoms arising from chronic isolation. Their findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, suggest that this hormone could reverse some of the adverse effects of prolonged isolation.

The shingles vaccine may reduce your dementia risk—here’s why

Shingles, a viral rash, can be incredibly painful. Vaccination can help prevent the infection, but new research is showing the shingles vaccine may also have another benefit: protection against the development of dementia. With more than 40 percent of Americans estimated to develop dementia at some point in their lives, this discovery could have groundbreaking implications for our health. But what explains the link between the shingles vaccine and reduced dementia risk?

Recent research is part of a growing body of evidence that vaccination against shingles—and potentially other infections—can help prevent and delay the progression of dementia.

A bonobo’s imaginary tea party suggests apes can play pretend

The findings add to a growing body of work suggesting that ape minds can imagine scenarios beyond the “here-and-now,” a skill once thought to be unique to humans. Human children begin playing pretend as early as 12 months old and master the ability to build imaginary worlds by age 3. Many high-level thinking tasks are possible only because we can imagine things that aren’t really there.

The study centered on Kanzi, a remarkable bonobo who could communicate using word-linked symbols called lexigrams. Amalia Bastos, a comparative psychologist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, first met him in 2023. “We were starstruck by Kanzi,” she says.

During their first meeting, the bonobo used his lexigram-studded board to ask Bastos and a colleague to chase each other. Bastos noticed that even though they only pretended to play, Kanzi still enjoyed watching them. This kick-started a series of make-believe tests that Bastos and Christopher Krupenye, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, designed for Kanzi.

In the first of these tests, Kanzi sat at a table with two glasses. An experimenter pretended to pour a glass of “juice” — Kanzi’s tipple of choice — into both cups from a see-through empty jug. The experimenter then poured the nonexistent contents of one cup back into the jug, before asking Kanzi which cup still held the “juice.” Kanzi guessed correctly 68 percent of the time, significantly above chance, the researchers report.

The guesses, Bastos says, may not have been definitive evidence of Kanzi’s internal imagination. “Kanzi is an old bonobo. Maybe his vision isn’t very good. Maybe he thinks that there’s real juice in these things,” she says.

The researchers retested Kanzi to see if he could identify real from fake juice. They presented him with two cups: one containing orange juice and an empty one that they filled with pretend juice. When asked which cup he wanted, Kanzi picked the real juice nearly 80 percent of the time, suggesting he had little issue identifying his reward. A third test that mimicked the first, but with pretend grapes rather than juice, again suggested Kanzi understood where pretend food was located.

Continue reading “A bonobo’s imaginary tea party suggests apes can play pretend” | >

Eyes may be a window into early Alzheimer’s detection

The eyes—specifically, the outer area of the retina—may provide a window into early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) long before irreversible brain damage has occurred, according to new research from Houston Methodist. This discovery could dramatically change how the disease is diagnosed, monitored and treated.

“Retinal Müller glia alterations and their impact on ocular glymphatic clearance in an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model,” is online and will appear in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Led by Stephen Wong, Ph.D., the John S. Dunn Presidential Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Engineering at Houston Methodist and director of T. T. & W. F. Chao Center for BRAIN, the study reveals how the peripheral retina (versus the central retina) could be a window into early diagnosis of AD.

“The eyes are indeed a window into the brain, but our study reveals that we have been looking at the wrong part of the window,” Wong said. “While most clinical eye exams focus on the central retina, the most critical early indicators of AD appear to be hidden at the periphery of the eye. By identifying these retinal changes that occur before the brain’s ‘plumbing’ system fails, doctors may eventually be able to use routine eye exams to catch and treat the disease years before memory loss begins.”

Alzheimer’s ‘Clock’ Uses Blood Test to Forecast Symptom Onset

Researchers developed a “clock” model that based on a single blood test can estimate Alzheimer’s symptom onset in cognitively unimpaired adults.

The model predicted onset age with a roughly 3-year median margin of error.

— Findings could streamline enrollment for Alzheimer’s clinical trials.

Radiologic Biomarkers in Multiple Sclerosis: Improving Detection and Diagnosis

MRI is central to modern MultipleSclerosis diagnosis.

A review article by Drs. Elfasi and Fagundo highlights radiologic lbiomarkers in the 2024 McDonald criteria—including the central vein sign, paramagnetic rim lesions, cortical lesions, and optic nerve imaging.

https://ow.ly/cZrC50Yj69O National Multiple Sclerosis Society ACTRIMS American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) University of South Florida.

Imaging biomarkers, including cortical lesions, the central vein sign, and paramagnetic rim lesions, allow for more timely and accurate diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

Scientists Believe Quantum Computers AreAbout to Cross a Major Line

We began this inquiry by looking at the mismatch between our computers and our brains. We realized that we were trying to run biological software on the wrong hardware. That era is ending. As we refine these quantum processors, we are finally building a mirror that is accurate enough to reflect the true nature of the mind. We are not just building faster computers. We are building a vessel that can hold the physics of thought.

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Timestamps:
0:00 Quantum Computers.
1:18 The Scale Problem.
4:40 The Thermodynamic Wall.
8:11 Quantum Mechanics in Wetware.
13:58 The \

Scientists Grew Mini Brains, Then Trained Them to Solve an Engineering Problem

A few blobs of lab-grown brain tissue have demonstrated a striking proof of concept: living neural circuits can be nudged toward solving a classic control problem through carefully structured feedback.

In a closed-loop system that delivered electrical feedback based on performance, cortical organoids could steadily improve their control of a classic engineering benchmark: balancing an unstable virtual pole.

The improvement is far from a functioning hybrid biocomputer. But as a proof of concept, it shows that neural tissue in a dish can be adaptively tuned through structured feedback – a result that could help researchers probe how neurological disease alters the brain’s capacity for plasticity.

Frontiers: Psoriasis is a complex, chronic relapsing and inflammatory skin disorder with a prevalence of approximately 2% in the general population worldwide

Psoriasis can be triggered by infections, physical injury and certain drugs. The most common type of psoriasis is psoriasis vulgaris, which primarily features dry, well-demarcated, raised red lesions with adherent silvery scales on the skin and joints. Over the past few decades, scientific research has helped us reveal that innate and adaptive immune cells contribute to the chronic inflammatory pathological process of psoriasis. In particular, dysfunctional helper T cells (Th1, Th17, Th22, and Treg cells) are indispensable factors in psoriasis development. When stimulated by certain triggers, antigen-presenting cells (APCs) can release pro-inflammatory factors (IL-23, IFN-α and IL-12), which further activate naive T cells and polarize them into distinct helper T cell subsets that produce numerous cytokines, such as TNF, IFN-γ, IL-17 and IL-22, which act on keratinocytes to amplify psoriatic inflammation. In this review, we describe the function of helper T cells in psoriasis and summarize currently targeted anti-psoriatic therapies.

Psoriasis is a complex, chronic relapsing and inflammatory skin disorder with an overall prevalence of 2% in the general population worldwide (1). The most common type of psoriasis is psoriasis vulgaris, which primarily manifests as dry, well-demarcated, raised red lesions with adherent silvery scales on the skin and joints and accounts for nearly 90% of all psoriasis cases. Psoriasis is also associated with multiple comorbidities, such as arthritis, obesity, diabetes mellitus, depression, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and reduced quality of life (2).

Although the exact mechanism that triggers psoriasis remains unclear, it is currently accepted that psoriasis is induced or exacerbated by either nonspecific triggers, such as infections [such as Streptococcus ], physical injury [such as scratching and tattoos ], drugs [such as β blockers, lithium and antimalarials (5, 6)] or some specific autoantigens [such as cathelicidin LL-37, melanocytic ADAMTSL5, lipid antigen PLA2G4D and keratin 17 ]. Pathologically, psoriasis is characterized by epidermal acanthosis (thickening of the viable layers), hyperkeratosis (thickened cornified layer), and parakeratosis (cell nuclei present in the cornified layer).

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