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In recent research published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, Northwestern Medicine scientists identified a new pathway in the brain that can be manipulated to alleviate depression.

The pathway offers a promising new target for developing a drug that could be effective in individuals for whom other antidepressants have failed.

New antidepressant options are important because a significant number of patients don’t adequately improve with currently available antidepressant drugs.

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New version of this out: https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/01/02/americas-r…-cold-war/ #transhumanism #biohacking


Unlike other epic scientific advances…the immediate effect of genetic editing technology is not dangerous. Yet, it stands to be just as divisive to humans as the 70-year proliferation of nuclear weaponry.

The playing field of geopolitics is pretty simple: If China or another country vows to increase its children’s intelligence via genetic editing, and America chooses to remain “au naturel” because they insist that’s how God made them, a conflict species-deep will quickly arise.

This type of idea takes racism and immigration to a whole new level. Will America close off its borders, its jobs, its schools, and its general openness to the world to stay pure, old-fashioned human?

In a breakthrough for regenerative medicine, scientists have grown intestinal tissues with functional nerves in a laboratory setup using human pluripotent stem cells. The synthesized tissue was used to study Hirschsprung’s disease, a congenital condition where nerve cells are missing from the colon, causing complications in passing stool. The research is detailed in Nature Medicine.

A pluripotent stem cell is a precursor cell to all the other types of cells in the body. In a petri dish, the stem cells were treated in a biochemical bath that triggered the formation into intestinal tissue. The novel part of the study was the construction of a nervous system on the intestinal organoid. The researchers manipulated neural crest cells to grow a system of nerves. By putting together the neural crest cells and the intestinal tissue at the exact time, they successfully grew together into a complex functional system.

The tissues were transplanted into mice. They worked successfully and showed a structure “remarkably similar” to that of a natural human intestine.

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This could be a huge deal, a game changer even.

Definitely research to follow closely.


A composite image showing newly discovered immune cells in the brain (credit: Sachin Gadani | University of Virginia School of Medicine)

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have discovered a rare and powerful type of immune cell in the meninges (protective covering) of the brain that are activated in response to central nervous system injury — suggesting that these cells may play a critical role in battling Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, meningitis, and other neurological diseases, and in supporting healthy mental functioning.

A man with deadly brain cancer that had spread to his spine saw his tumors shrink and, for a time, completely vanish after a novel treatment to help his immune system attack his disease — another first in this promising field.

The type of immunotherapy that 50-year-old Richard Grady received already has helped some people with blood cancers such as leukemia. But the way he was given it is new, and may allow its use not just for brain tumors but also other cancers that can spread, such as breast and lung.

Grady was the first person to get the treatment dripped through a tube into a space in the brain where spinal fluid is made, sending it down the path the cancer traveled to his spine.

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Summary: A new study explores how neural activity influences CREB dynamics.

Source: Osaka University.

Neuronal activity mediates the formation of neuronal circuits in the cerebral cortex. These processes are regulated by the transcription factor CREB, which regulates gene expression in neuronal activity-dependent processes. Neuronal activity enhances CREB-mediated transcription but the mechanisms remain unclear. CREB binds to a cAMP response element (CRE) in the promoter region of its target genes. Assembly and disassembly of CREB-CRE interactions control spatiotemporal gene expression in the nucleus. However, how CREB interacts with CRE in activity-dependent mechanisms is not known.

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