Recent Articles | Brain Most Recent Thoughts Derailed By Tanya Lewis | April 18, 2016 The same brain mechanism by which surprising events interrupt movements may also be involved in disrupting cognition, according to a study. 0 Comments Analyzing resting brain scans, researchers can anticipate the brain activities of a person performing a range of tasks. 0 Comments Neural Basis of Risk Aversion By Catherine Offord | March 24, 2016 Researchers identify and manipulate a signal in the brains of rats that controls risky behavior. 1 Comment More Mini Brains By Jef Akst | February 17, 2016 Simple versions of brain organoids could serve as new models for testing the effects of drugs, researchers reported at this year’s AAAS meeting. 0 Comments Processing Faces By Jef Akst | January 21, 2016 Other people’s faces are mapped onto our brains. 0 Comments Bioresorbable Brain Implants By Catherine Offord | January 20, 2016 0 Comments Practical Proteomes By Ruth Williams | January 1, 2016 0 Comments Brain Fold Tied to Hallucinations 0 Comments
Brain Information, Facts -- National Geographic Making sense of the brain's mind-boggling complexity isn't easy. What we do know is that it's the organ that makes us human, giving people the capacity for art, language, moral judgments, and rational thought. It's also responsible for each individual's personality, memories, movements, and how we sense the world. All this comes from a jellylike mass of fat and protein weighing about 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms). It is, nevertheless, one of the body's biggest organs, consisting of some 100 billion nerve cells that not only put together thoughts and highly coordinated physical actions but regulate our unconscious body processes, such as digestion and breathing. The brain's nerve cells are known as neurons, which make up the organ's so-called "gray matter." The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain, accounting for 85 percent of the organ's weight. The cerebrum has two halves, or hemispheres. Movement and Balance The diencephalon is located in the core of the brain.
Innovative Brain Imaging Combines Sound And Light Lihong Wang uses light and sound to create highly detailed images of the living brain. Chris Nickels for NPR hide caption toggle caption Chris Nickels for NPR Lihong Wang uses light and sound to create highly detailed images of the living brain. Chris Nickels for NPR Lihong Wang creates the sort of medical technology you'd expect to find on the starship Enterprise. Wang, a professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. "It's really about turning some of these ideas that we thought were science fiction into fact," says Richard Conroy, who directs the Division of Applied Science & Technology at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Wang's ultimate goal is to use a combination of light and sound to solve the mysteries of the human brain. Wang describes himself as a toolmaker. "We want to conquer the brain," Wang says. Current brain-imaging techniques such as functional MRI or PET scans all have drawbacks. Wang's initial idea was to use light.
Controlling RNA in living cells MIT researchers have devised a new set of proteins that can be customized to bind arbitrary RNA sequences, making it possible to image RNA inside living cells, monitor what a particular RNA strand is doing, and even control RNA activity. The new strategy is based on human RNA-binding proteins that normally help guide embryonic development. The research team adapted the proteins so that they can be easily targeted to desired RNA sequences. “You could use these proteins to do measurements of RNA generation, for example, or of the translation of RNA to proteins,” says Edward Boyden, an associate professor of biological engineering and brain and cognitive sciences at the MIT Media Lab. “This could have broad utility throughout biology and bioengineering.” Unlike previous efforts to control RNA with proteins, the new MIT system consists of modular components, which the researchers believe will make it easier to perform a wide variety of RNA manipulations. Modular code RNA manipulation
New cryopreservation procedure wins Brain Preservation Prize (Left): Control rabbit brain, showing neuropil near the CA1 band in the hippocampus. (Right): Vitrified rabbit brain, same location. Synapses, vesicles, and microfilaments are clear. The myelinated axon shows excellent preservation. (credit: Robert L. McIntyre and Gregory M. The Brain Preservation Foundation (BPF) has announced that a team at 21st Century Medicine led by Robert McIntyre, PhD., has won the Small Mammal Brain Preservation Prize, which carries an award of $26,735. The Small Mammalian Brain Preservation Prize was awarded after the determination that the protocol developed by McIntyre, termed Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation, was able to preserve an entire rabbit brain with well-preserved ultrastructure, including cell membranes, synapses, and intracellular structures such as synaptic vesicles (full protocol here). First preservation of the connectome Winning the award also required that the procedure be published in a peer reviewed scientific publication.
If We’re Going to Talk About Brainwaves, We Should Know What They Are Brainwaves come up in conversation a lot, especially when you’re talking about mindfulness, creativity, falling asleep, and other processes we’re trying to understand. But do you know what a brainwave actually is? It’s kind of surprising. Most of us have heard about at least some of these major brainwave categories (there are sub-categories, too): gamma brainwaves — 40 to 100 cycles, or Hertz (Hz) per second, associated with learning memory, and information processingbeta brainwaves — 12 to 40 Hz, associated with conscious thought and logical thinkingalpha brainwaves — 8 to 12 Hz, associated with light daydreaming and relaxationtheta brainwaves — 4 to 8 Hz, associated with deeper daydreaming and sleepdelta brainwaves — 0 to 4 Hz, associated with deep relaxation and restorative deep sleep, also with unconscious body functions ZEISS, a rat neuron An electroencephalogram, or EEG, can measure this electricity through electrodes temporarily stuck to a subject’s scalp. Thuglas Der Lange
Why Aspirin May be the Most Powerful Weapon in the War on Brain Cancer Less than 20 percent of people with brain cancer survive more than five years after their diagnosis. It’s one of the most deadly forms of cancer because there are very few treatments for it available. The brain-blood barrier is a massive hurdle because it prevents powerful cancer drugs such as chemotherapy from reaching cancerous tumors. The barrier is a membrane that keeps us safe by separating circulating blood from brain fluid and preventing bacteria and pathogens from reaching the brain. It’s made of high-density cells and is extremely selective about what it allows to pass through and most medications find it nearly impenetrable. The blood-brain barrier only allows gasses, fat-soluble molecules, water, amino acids. and glucose to pass through. The reformulated, soluble aspirin significantly increases the compound’s ability to cross the brain-blood barrier and attack cancerous tumors.
Updated Brain Map Identifies Nearly 100 New Regions The first hints of the brain’s hidden geography emerged more than 150 years ago. In the 1860s, the physician Pierre Paul Broca was intrigued by two of his patients who were unable to speak. After they died, Broca examined their brains. On the outer layer, called the cortex, he found that both had suffered damage to the same patch of tissue. That region came to be known as Broca’s area. Photo In the late 1800s, a group of German researchers identified other regions of the cortex, each having distinct types of cells packed together in unique ways. Neuroscientists have relied on his hand-drawn map ever since, adding a modest number of new regions with their own research. Three years ago, Dr. The project team recorded high-resolution images of each participant’s brain, and then recorded its activity during hours of tests on memory, language and other kinds of thought. In addition to looking at the activity of the brain, the scientists also looked at its anatomy. Dr. Dr.
Human Connectome Project What brain mapping hopes to accomplish We’ve mapped the human genome, tread on every last bit of earth, landed on the moon and plunged the oceans. There are few untrammeled frontiers left, aside from space and the human brain. It is a touch ironic that that which makes us who we are, which has been with us from the very beginning, is one of the biggest mysteries to humanity. There’s little wonder. The human brain is comprised of 80 billion neurons, not to mention the oodles of support cells it needs to function. Neuroscientists aren’t even sure how many different types of brain cells there are. Even though we now have imaging and computer technology up to the task, experts say it will take decades before the brain is fully mapped. One particular project known as the BRAIN Initiative has moved to fill in the gaps. President Obama’s “moonshot” BRAIN Initiative. Investigators will use four traits to categorize brain cells: shape, position inside the organ, electrical activity, and gene expression. Dr. Director of the NIH Dr.
Been Traumatized? Here's How PTSD Rewires the Brain We tend to float about our lives, worrying about little inconveniences. But if the space inside your head is generally a peaceful one, count yourself lucky indeed. If instead, you are wrestling in the aftermath of some terrible trauma, it might seem like you’re the only one, but you are far from alone. According to the nonprofit PTSD United, Inc., 70% of U.S. adults have experienced a significant trauma at least once in their lifetime . That equates to 223.4 million people. 20% of those victims develop PTSD. When we picture the disorder, we often see a returned soldier, usually male, wrestling with emotional scars from the battlefield. When a trauma occurs, the reptilian brain takes over. Several in-depth studies, using neuroimaging technology to map the brains of PTSD sufferers, have been conducted. The most impacted region is the hippocampus, responsible for memory. Substantial loss of volume also takes place in the vmPFC. The good news is, this condition is reversible.
Scientists Unveil a New Map of the Brain With Unrivaled Resolution In Brief The Allen Institute for Brain Science has published and released a comprehensive, high-resolution map of the brain anyone can access online. They mapped 862 brain structures from a single donor brain. Even with our growing knowledge of the cosmos, we are relatively clueless about how our own brains function. The Allen Institute for Brain Science has just created one of the best maps ever. “This is the most structurally complete atlas to date and we hope it will serve as a new reference standard for the human brain across different disciplines,” said Ed Lein, investigator at the Allen Institute, in a press release. The researchers put a donor brain through MRI and diffusion tensor imaging and then sliced it up by specific regions. Studying the brain is so complex that researchers also had to create an entirely new scanner. The new brain atlas fills a niche in a surprising vacuum of reliable brain maps.
Scientists Attempt to Reanimate the Brain Dead. What are the Implications? Imagine this, your loved one gets into a serious accident. You and your family gather at the hospital. In the I.C.U. the doctor makes a grim announcement, they‘re brain dead. It is highly unlikely they will ever come out of a vegetative state. Today, there is no way past such horror, save for a miracle. The idea originates from nature, as certain fish and amphibians can actually heal whole sections of the brain, brain stem, and other portions of the central nervous system, even after significant injury. This study surrounds Bioquark, Inc., a Philadelphia-based company, who has received ethical approval by a U.S. and Indian Institutional Review Board. Traumatic brain injury under an MRI. The CEO of Bioquark Inc. According to Dr. Model of the human brain. Those on life support deemed brain dead still have active bodies which grow, mature, heal, digest, circulate blood, and excrete waste. Dr. Beyond that, advancements in science are always a mixed blessing. To learn more click here: