by Andrew Smith, Rutgers University Graphical abstract. Credit: Journal of Clinical Investigation (2023). DOI: 10.1172/JCI171468A team of Rutgers undergraduates has shown that an experimental drug known as Yoda1 may help drain cranial waste plus neurotoxins that cause Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. “The brain’s lymphatic system is one of the hottest research areas in...
by Melissa Rohman, Northwestern University Spike threshold heterogeneity affects the function generation properties of spiking neural networks. (A) Reservoir computing architecture used for function generation. A pulse is fed into a recurrent neural network and a linear readout is trained to minimize the mean squared error between a target time-dependent function and a network output obtained...
by Matt Chittum, Virginia Tech Targeting & acoustic modeling. Credit: Pain (2024). DOI: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003171You feel a pain, so you pop a couple of ibuprofen or acetaminophen. If the pain is severe or chronic, you might be prescribed something stronger—an opioid pain killer that can be addictive under some circumstances. But what if you could ease pain...
by Kurt Bodenmüller, University of Zurich Cross section of nerve fibers in the mouse optic nerve. Credit: Zoe Looser and Aiman Saab, University of ZurichBrain function depends on the swift movement of electrical signals along axons, the long extensions of nerve cells that connect billions of brain cells. The nerve fibers are insulated by a fatty...
by Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience Superior colliculus is involved in figure detection. (A) The stimulus types that were used for the figure detection task. The stimulus consisted of a static grating that differed from the background in either contrast (top left), orientation (top right), or phase (bottom). (B) Two example stimuli (both orientation task). Licking on...
By Shelly Fan It’s easy to vilify body fat as just a layer of unwanted padding sitting silently beneath the skin. But these cells are surprisingly active. Beyond being storage containers for energy, they pump out a wide range of hormones that interact with multiple organs to control metabolism, immune responses, and even reproduction. They...
by Oregon Health & Science University Credit: CC0 Public DomainNew research from Oregon Health & Science University for the first time reveals the function of a little-understood junction between cells in the brain that could have important treatment implications for conditions ranging from multiple sclerosis to Alzheimer’s disease, to a type of brain cancer known as...
by Kayt Sukel, Rice University Scan of mouse hippocampus and cortex, where the red signal derives from immunostaining for the synthetic marker developed by the Szablowski lab and the blue from the immunostaining of c-Fos, an endogenous protein whose production is heightened by increased neuronal activity. Credit: Szablowski lab/Rice UniversityThe brain is the most protected organ...
By Paul McClure A study has found that a person’s drug beliefs can produce a dose-dependent effect in the brainDepositphotos Researchers have shown, for the first time, that a person’s beliefs about nicotine influences brain activity, producing a dose-dependent effect that was only thought to occur with pharmaceutical agents. In addition to providing an explanation for...
by Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute Graphical abstract. Credit: Cell Metabolism (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2023.11.009 Researcher Dr. Daniel Drucker has much to be proud of, as the GLP-1-based diabetes drugs hailing from his early research are named the 2023 breakthrough of the year by the Science Magazine. Not only have millions of people with type 2 diabetes benefitted from...
