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Originally published by Cassandra Willyard on October 12, 2023 C olor lithograph of the rear cross-section of a brain and spine superimposed on an old map. Stephanie Arnett/MITTR | Wellcome Collection This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review's weekly biotech newsletter. A massive suite of papers offers a high-res view of the human and non-human primate brain. When scientists first looked at brain tissue under a microscop e, they saw an impenetrable and jumbled mess. Santiago Ramon y Cajal , the father of modern neuroscience , likened the experience to walking into a forest with a hundred billion trees , “looking each day at blurry pieces of a few of those trees entangled with one another, and, after a few years of this, trying to write an illustrated field guide to the fore st,” according to the authors of The Beautiful Brain , a book about Cajal’s work. Today, scientists have a first draft of that guide . In a set of 21 new papers published acr...

Originally published by University of Bristol on September 27, 2023              Graph. Credit: Hermes Gadêlha Patterns of chemical interactions are thought t o create patterns in nature such as stripes and spots . A new study shows that the mathematical basis of these patterns also governs how sperm tail moves . The findings, published in Nature Communications , on September 27, 2023, reveal that flagella movement of—for example, sperm tails and cilia —follows the same template for pattern formation that was discovered by mathematician Alan Turing . Flagellar undulations make stripe patterns in space-tim e, generating waves that travel along the tail to drive the sperm and microbes forward . Alan Turing is most well-known for helping to break the enigma code during WWII . However he also developed a theory of pattern formation that predicted that chemical patterns may appear spontaneously with only two ingredients : chemicals sp...

Originally published by Marietta Fuhrmann-Koch, Heidelberg University, on September 29, 2023   Pictured is an early planula larval stage of the sea anemone Aiptasia (cyan nuclei and green stinging cells) preying on a crustacean nauplius (green) of the copepod Tisbe sp. Credit: Ira Mägele and Ulrike Engel Were the first animals predators or filter feeders like the sponges living in today's oceans? And what role did symbiosis with algae play, as with reef-building corals? Surprising findings by a research group led by Prof. Dr. Thomas W. Holstein of Heidelberg University on the development of sea anemones suggest that a predatory lifestyle molded their evolution and had a significant impact on the origin of their nervous system . As reported in a new article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , the researchers were able to show that the young life stages (larvae ) of the small sea anemone Aiptasia actively feed on living prey and are n...

Originally published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on September 28, 2023 Credit: Wikimedia Commons Alzheimer's disease affects more than 6 million people in the United States, and there are very few FDA-approved treatments that can slow the progression of the disease. In hopes of discovering new targets for potential Alzheimer's treatments , MIT researchers have performed the broadest analysis yet of the genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic changes that occur in every cell type in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Using more than 2 million cells from more than 400 postmortem brain samples , the researchers analyzed how gene expression is disrupted as Alzheimer's progresses . They also tracked changes in cells' epigenomic modifications , which help to determine which genes are turned on or off in a particular cell. Together, these approaches offer the most detailed picture yet of the genetic and molecular underpinnings of Alzheimer'...

  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...