Untangling the Wires
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:
And the original research, here.
My previous post on Connectomics.
The Magic Facebook Mirror
"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
Somewhere Over the Brainbow
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
A Peek at Parkinson’s: What’s New for the Old?
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
Dr. Kent Kiehl Dabbles in Psychopathology
Crime is a trillion-dollar-a-year problem with the average psychopath convicted of four violent crimes by the age of forty. Although psychopathy is one of the least-funded areas of psychology, Dr. Kent Kiehl, one of the leading investigators in this field, hopes to defy this standard.
In January 2007, he requested to have a portable fMRI brought into the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility; the first fMRI ever brought into a prison. Kiehl hopes to test his theory that psychopathology is caused by a defect in the paralimbic system, which is involved in processing emotion, inhibition, and attention control.
More
The Cost of Dementia
When a neuroscientist is asked about Alzheimer’s research, some of the first things that may come to mind are genetic predispositions, amyloid plaques, and tau proteins. One may think of researchers in labs running experiments on cultures of cells, or slice studies from brains of those affected with the disease. However, there is a whole other world of research being conducted on Alzheimer’s that I’m sure escapes many scientists’ minds. More
Discussion Preview: Culture-Bound Syndromes with BU Mind and Brain Society
Today, the concept of a 'culture-bound syndrome' seems almost mundane. Surely we already know that particular genes and environmental influences can predispose a population to certain diseases. For example, Ashkenazi Jews are at a much higher risk for developing the genetic defect associated with Tay-Sachs disease than other populations, and one is much more likely to contract malaria in tropical and subtropical regions than in, say, Massachusetts. However, these types of disease have biological causes. What is interesting about the phenomena of culture-bound syndromes is that they have no physical mechanism and arise only from the emerging characteristics of one's culture. More
Tumors on the Brain
August 25, 2009 marked the day that America, and most importantly Massachusetts, lost one of its greatest senators, Ted Kennedy. Kennedy was diagnosed with a type of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) in May 2008 after suffering from a seizure. GBM is a tumor formed in the glial, or supportive, brain cells; there is no current evidence for a genetic predisposition to this type of cancer. The American Cancer Society believes that 21,000 Americans are diagnosed with brain tumors, and about 10,000 are GBMs. They are the most aggressive and common type of brain tumor, which are resistant to many types of treatments. Only 3% of patients diagnosed with these tumors generally survive five years after diagnosis.
Almost two years after Kennedy’s death, doctors are using the drug Avastin to treat GMBs. Avastin blocks the growth of new blood vessels, a necessary component for the survival of tumors. More
The Hand That Never Was: Supernumerary Phantom Limbs
In early 2007, a 64-year-old Swiss woman was admitted to the emergency room of a local hospital after having suffered a moderate right hemispheric stroke. Several days following her hospitalization, the woman began to experience what she described to her physicians as a “pale,” “transparent” arm that began at her elbow, which she could move and utilize to complete actions. The phenomenon the Swiss woman experienced was a Supernumerary Phantom Limb (SPL), which is characterized by the sensation of possessing an extra limb that did not exist previously. Though uncommon, conditions such as SPL and phantom limb (the sensation that a missing limb is still attached to the body) typically arise due to some form of insult to the somatosensory region of the brain or from the removal or lack of body parts.
The third arm illusion at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
In the healthy brain, multisensory circuits organize visual, tactile, and proprioceptive inputs to the brain in order to compose a somatotopic map of which body parts are inherently our own. However, even the normal brain can be manipulated into believing in the existence of an extra limb. More
This Is Your Brain on RF-EMF
Can you hear me now? For years, it has been popular doctrine that cell phone use is bad for our brains, but we glue our phones to our ears anyway. Cell phones emit radio frequency-modulated electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) that are questioned for their potential danger when the brain is exposed to them. The oscillatory frequencies of RF-EMFs correspond to those measured in neural tissue, and thus could interfere with neural activity. The amount of electromagnetic radiation given off by our communication devices is small, but is radiation all the same. Radiation exposure is dangerous for any kind of cell in our body, and can penetrate cells and damage DNA either by crashing into the molecule directly or causing damage indirectly by forming free radicals from water that can have cancer-causing effects.
