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A device that delivers a small electrical current to the brain has beneficial effects in cases of depression that doesn't respond to drugs or therapy. Originally published by Miryam Naddaf on 21 October 2024 A healthy brain (fMRI image). Researchers are investigating the effects of stimulating regions of the brain linked to depression. Credit: Mark & Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute/Science Photo Library A remote clinical trial involving more than 150 people has shown that an experimental treatment for depression — which uses a swimming-cap-like device to gently stimulate the brain — can be effective when carried out at home . The non-invasive therapy , known as t ranscranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) , is designed to stimulate areas of the brain linked to mood regulation , and delivers a painless, weak electrical current through electrodes placed on the scalp . It could be a game-changer for the more than one-third of people with depressi...

OHSU study uses imaging in neurosurgery patients to show how brain’s glymphatic system clears waste; lifestyle measures can keep system sharp Originally published by Erik Robinson on October 07, 2024 Portland, Oregon Erin Yamamoto, M.D., and Juan Piantino, M.D., are among the co-authors of a new study from Oregon Health & Science University that used imaging of neurosurgery patients to definitively reveal the existence of waste-clearance pathways in the human brain known as the glymphatic system . (OHSU/Christine Torres Hicks). Scientists have long theorized about a network of pathways in the brain that are believed to clear metabolic proteins that would otherwise build up and potentially lead to Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia . But they had never definitively revealed this network in people — until now. A new study involving five patients undergoing brain surgery at Oregon Health & Science University provides imaging of this network of perivascular spac...

Originally published by Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience - KNAW   on September 10, 2024    Credit: Current Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.091 A new study from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience shows how flickering light can cause hallucinations in our brain : it produces " standing waves " of brain activity. The work is published in the journal Current Biology. You're sitting on the bus or train and close your eyes. Sunlight flickering through the trees suddenly fills your mind with kaleidoscopic hallucinatory patterns . This is what Brion Gysin experienced during his trip to Marseille in the late 1960s. The fact that flashing lights can cause hallucinations was not surprising to scientists . Stroboscopic light, familiar to many from dance floors, has been used in neuroscience research for 200 years. In 1819, neuroscientist Jan Purkinje discovered that bright full-field light flashes can make our brain spontaneously perceive geometr...

Originally published by Hannah Thomasy, PhD, for the Scientist on June 14, 2024 Scientists turned a deadly virus into a crucial tool for understanding the wiring of the brain.   Rabies labeling helps scientists identify neurons in the primary visual cortex that connect to two different higher visual brain regions. Marina Garrett  In 1906 , pathologist Camillo Golgi and neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal won the Nobel Prize for their work on the structure of the nervous system . More than a century later, the puzzle of nervous system organization —the intricately tangled mess that results from each neuron’s connections to thousands of others— remains incomplete . Yet, fully developing scientific understanding of these connections is crucial , said Edward Callaway , a systems neurobiologist at the Salk Institute . “If you don’t have some knowledge about how the different parts are interacting , there’s no way to generate a hypothesis about how they’re working toget...

  Originally published by Rice University on September 27, 2023 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Rice University researchers tested the safety and feasibility of gene delivery to multiple brain regions using a noninvasive, ultrasound-based technique in rodents, and their findings suggest that the efficiency of gene delivery improves within each targeted site when more sites are opened. Shirin Nouraein, a doctoral student working in the lab of Rice bioengineer Jerzy Szablowski, is the lead author on the study recently published in the journal Gene Therapy. The paper, "Acoustically Targeted Noninvasive Gene Therapy in Large Brain Volumes," continues the Szablowski lab's work using f ocused ultrasound energy to safely make the blood-brain barrier permeable . The technique is known as focused ultrasound blood-brain barrier opening (FUS-BBBO). Read more

Originally published by University of Lausanne on September 6, 2023   Credit: Public Domain A research team from University of Lausanne (UNIL) and the Wyss Center, has discovered a new type of cell essential for brain function . Hybrid in composition and function, in between the two types of brain cells known so far—the neurons and the glial cells—these cells of a new order are present in several brain regions in mice and humans . The study published in the journal Nature shows that these cells promote the ability to memorize , the brain control of movements , and contrast the insurgence of epileptic seizures . Neuroscience is in great upheava l. The two major families of cells that make up the brain, neurons and glial cells, secretly hid a hybrid cell, halfway between these two categories. For as long as neuroscience has existed, it has been recognized that the brain works primarily thanks to the neurons and their ability to rapidly elaborate and transmit info...

Originally published by Delthia Ricks , Medical Xpress, on August 30, 2023 Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Losing the activity of a key ion channel in the brain may contribute to the buildup of a devastating and toxic protein responsible for the clumps of plaque that accumulate in Alzheimer's disease , a team of neurobiologists in China has found. Stunningly, this team has also shown—at least in animal-model studies—that this protein, a key hallmark of Alzheimer's, can be diminished in the living brain by manipulating the ion channel . The suspect protein is amyloid-beta , which becomes pervasive in the brain tissue of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Toxic, gooey amyloid-β accumulates in wads between neurons and disrupts the function of these vital brain cells . The ion channel is known simply as TRPM7 , and it may contribute to the buildup of toxic amyloid-β when the channel itself ceases to function properly, according to scientists at State Key Laborator...

  Originally published by University of Sydney on August 24, 2023 Nanoscale scan image showing protein condensate interaction. Credit: The University of Sydney Many diseases affecting the brain and nervous system are linked to the formation of protein aggregates , or solid condensates , in cells from their liquid form condensate, but little is known about this process . This liquid-to-solid transition can trigger the formation of what are called amyloid fibrils . These can further form plaques in neurons causing neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's . Biomedical engineers at the University of Sydney , in collaboration with scientists at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University , have now developed sophisticated optical techniques to monitor at close range the process by which these protein aggregates form. By testing a protein associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—ALS disease, which affected astrophysicist Professor Stephen Hawking—...