Can the Mind Control the Brain?

March 30th, 2011 in Article, News 4 comments


Research has been conducted that proves that our thoughts can control the rate of firing of neurons in our brain. This research reveals the crucial advancement of brain-operated machines in the field. John P. Donoghue at Brown University has conducted research that uses neural interface systems (NISs) to aid paraplegics. NISs allows people to control artificial limbs; individuals simply need to think about commanding their artificial limbs and signals are sent down from their brain to control the movement of these limbs! This great feat is not the only applicable result of current research done by brain-machine interfaces. Dr. Frank Guenther of Boston University uses implanted electrodes in a part of the brain that controls speech to tentatively give a voice back to those who have been struck mute by brain injuries. The signals produced from these electrodes are sent wirelessly to a machine that is able to synthesize and interpret these signals into speech. This is specifically useful for patients suffering from locked in syndrome, wherein an individual with a perfectly normal brain is unable to communicate due to specific brain damage, and thus allowing these individuals to communicate with the world! These discoveries are not only incredibly useful, but they also reveal the astonishing feats that the field of computational neuroscience is accomplishing in the world today.

On-line, voluntary control of human temporal lobe neurons

Guenther, Boston University

Donoghue, Brown University



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I <3 Kim Kardashian

March 24th, 2011 in Pop Culture 12 comments


They can’t stop talking about her. “Look at how popular and successful she is!” “Look at how stupid and ditsy she is!” “What has she done to be so famous?” … Well, I don’t care if she’s smart or stupid, rich or poor. The only things I see when she’s on the screen are those voluptuous curves. Regardless of what you think of her, Kim Kardashian has what most men dream of. Since this is a nerds’ blog, we’re going to take the moment to examine why we men like those curves so much.

Men like women with large curves because these provide an adaptive advantage, increasing the likelihood of the propagation of genes. Wide hips are adaptive because they make child birthing easier (more successful); large breasts may provide more nutrition during nursing. The men who go for the curves are more likely to make successful offspring; those offspring incidentally share the same instinct for curves and eventually make more progeny; and the cycle continues.
Kim Kardashian
Now, Kim Kardashian is what you call a supernormal stimulus. She has everything that normally elicits a positive response but exaggerated. “Supernormal stimulus,” by the way, is attributed to the famous ethologist Niko Timbergen, who found that substituting a mamma-seagull’s white beak with its one red spot for a stick with three red spots made the chicks way more excited for food. Many more such examples have been described in a variety of animals. More

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Genome or Connectome?

March 22nd, 2011 in News, Pop Culture 5 comments


Sebastian Seung is a professor of computational neuroscience and physics at MIT. His research in the neuroscience field involves "connectomes," or the map of connections between and among neurons. The endeavor of investigating and mapping connectomes began in the 1980s and jumped off with the elucidation of the complete connectome of the worm C. elegans in 1986. While C. elegans has about 300 neurons, humans have about 10 billion neurons and ten times that number of connections. These connections can grow and change with and from neural activity and experience, combining to permutations exponentially greater that those of DNA and its four bases. Seung proposes that we "are our connectomes" rather than our genomes, implying that our thoughts, experiences, emotions, and consciousness itself may have a purely neural basis. To refrain from any more spoilers, he artfully expands and explains his hypothesis in the above TED talk that it is surely worth viewing. For a greater philosophical inquiry inspired by his ideas, is our matter all that matters?


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Infectious Emotions?

March 18th, 2011 in Uncategorized 2 comments



Biological systems, such as the circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems, are groups of organs that function together to perform a common task. Some can also participate in crosstalk with other organ systems. The respiratory system, for example, brings in the oxygen that the circulatory system delivers to all the cells of the body, and maintains blood pH. The endocrine and nervous systems are signaling systems that facilitate communication between different parts of the body by use of hormones and neurotransmitters, respectively. These connections are numerous and complex, but it was previously thought that the immune system and the nervous systems were separate and largely autonomous.

In June 2010, Mauricio Vargas and colleagues from Stanford University School of Medicine reported research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that endogenous antibodies play an important role in repairing peripheral nervous system (PNS) damage. Antibodies are a principal part of the adaptive immune response to infection, but this research suggested that antibodies are also able to clear degenerating myelin which inhibits axon regeneration, akin to a homeostasis function. This repair was only present after PNS injury, whereas myelin debris remained in the central nervous system (CNS) white matter for years. The well known blood-brain barrier concurs with this separation in responses, as it is understood to be impermeable to large proteins such as antibodies.

Various new studies, howeveantibodyr, have shown that behavior, mood, and memory can all be influenced by aspects of the immune system, suggesting that antibodies can somehow infiltrate the brain.

Sammy Maloney was a happy and outgoing 12-year-old boy. In 2002, however, his mother started to notice curious deviations in his personality. In six months, he underwent complete mental deterioration and was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette’s syndrome. Shortly afterwards, he was found to be harboring a streptococcal infection, although he exhibited no physical symptoms of one. Interestingly, when he started taking the prescribed antibiotics, his behavior markedly improved.

Madeline Cunningham at the University of Oklahoma has spent several years investigating various behavioral disorders associated with streptococcal infections. Cunningham has shown that antibodies against one group of streptococcal bacteria are able to bind to a site in the brain that controls movement, and consequently trigger the release of dopamine. This could explain the emotional disturbances associated with these types of disorders (1).

Studies also suggest that an activated immune system has other perceivable effects on the nervous system. For example, Jonathan Kipnis of the University of Virginia and his colleagues have shown that learning triggers a stress response in the brain, which causes CD4 cells, a type of T lymphocytes, to gather at the meninges and release interleukin-4. IL-4 switches off the stress response and causes a release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which facilitates memory formation. Interestingly, cancer pdn19953-1_220atients treated with chemotherapy drugs often experience various cognitive defects and some memory loss.  This is commonly called “chemobrain”, and these studies raise the possibility that it is a consequence of immunosuppression. Finally, an immune response against Mycobacterium vaccae has been shown to improve mood by causing neurons in the prefrontal cortex to release excess seratonin.

So it could be that the blood-brain barrier is kind of leaky after all. Understanding the connections between the immune system and the brain could lead to all sorts of ingenious treatments for various disorders. Perhaps those scientists at Stanford will utilize antibodies to develop a treatment for central nervous system repair. Perhaps we’ll one day be faced with immuno-emotive treatments for depression. Who knows? Anything is possible when a long-standing “truth” turns out not to be absolute - I'm optimistic since scientific advancement is often built on the refinement of prior knowledge.

Happiness is Catching - New Scientist

Endogenous Antibodies Promote Rapid Myelin Clearance and Effective Axon Regeneration after Nerve Injury - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Previous The Nerve Blog post About PNAS Article

Footnote:

(1) Antibodies raised against the Streptococcal M protein and human myocardial tissue, and Guillain-Barre syndrome in response to Campylobacter infection, are well studied examples of cross-reactivity between anti-pathogen antibodies with host tissues.


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Neuroscience Shirt Designs!

March 14th, 2011 in Pop Culture 57 comments


BU's Mind and Brain Society is choosing among three (so far!) shirt designs to represent neuroscience at BU. Here they are! Please comment on which you like best!

by Devyn Buckley

by Devyn Buckley

by Sam Mckenzie

by Sam Mckenzie


Web


Smokescreen: Scanning the Addict's Brain

March 11th, 2011 in Uncategorized 11 comments


The neuroscience of addiction has been extensively studied, giving priceless insight into what is happening in the addict's brain and what keeps people hooked on drug-seeking behavior. Most of the research, though, has been all about the chemical changes in the brain, delving into the molecular level of receptors, neurotransmitters, and reward pathways, etc. But a new approach is being taken from research focusing on extended applications of neuroscience, such as linking neuroscience and "social research and communication studies." In this video, primary researcher Emily Falk explains the work that is being done at the University of Michigan to try to use the brain as a More

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Untangling the Wires

March 10th, 2011 in Uncategorized 0 comments


Here's a great video summary from Nature on the recent advances in the field of connectomics by researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and Harvard University:

The video on Nature Blogs

And the original research, here.

My previous post on Connectomics.


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The Magic Facebook Mirror

March 10th, 2011 in Article 1 comment


"Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all" says the evil Queen of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I don't deny that growing up on Disney gave me a somewhat skewed sense of reality at times. Wouldn't it be nice to all have our own magic mirrors, constantly reminding us how wonderful and beautiful we are in the midst of the stress that is life?

A recent study by researchers at Cornell University have shown that we may actually have such a magic mirror - Facebook, as fate would have it. There are varying opinions concerning internet use on our personalities, but this study shows that Facebook can have a short term positive effect on self esteem. More

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Somewhere Over the Brainbow

March 9th, 2011 in Article, News 0 comments


Because of the brain's amazing and incomprehensible complexity, there are billions of neurons that connect and network all the major areas of the brain with the small intricate parts as well. So how can we distinguish one of these neurons from the billions of others?

Well, within the past five years more advanced techniques have been discovered and used on various organisms. The most prevalent, and probably the most revolutionary, has been staining. This process was pioneered in the late nineteenth century by Camillo Golgi and allowed for the staining of whole, random cells.

Since then, much progress has been made and today the viewing of even more complex and minute parts that make up the brain is possible. One extraordinary technique was developed by a team of Harvard researchers a few years ago, and it is truly beautiful.

Known as the Brainbow technique, these investigators were able to use genetics to visualize complete neuronal circuits in unprecedented detail. Up to four differently colored fluorescent proteins were used, generating  a palette of 100 distinct hues that labeled individual neurons.

/Here are the fluorescent proteins in their full glory illuminating the many neurons that make up the brain of a mouse. More

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A Peek at Parkinson’s: What’s New for the Old?

March 8th, 2011 in Article, News 0 comments


With the Pancakes for Parkinson’s event at Boston University nearing, on April 2nd, I thought it would be a good time to check up on the latest in Parkinson’s research.

Firstly, Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a motor disorder that affects dopaminergic neurons of the brain, which are necessary in the coordination of movement. Onset is usually around age 60, starting with symptoms including tremor, stiffness, slowness of movement, and poor balance and coordination. While current treatments can help alleviate the symptoms in patients, none provide a cure.

Second off, the mission of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and other support groups is to find better treatments for those suffering from the disease. With the Baby Boomer generation entering late adulthood and old age, more research needs to be done to better understand the disease and help those with it find relief. Consider stopping by the GSU Alley for some pancakes to show your support for the Foundation and its cause next month!

Ranging from studying food intake to using technology, many approaches have been used in PD research. More

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