Lifeboat Foundation

Summary: Researchers provided new insights into brain development, revealing that different brain regions share a similar organizational structure in early stages rather than being pre-specialized. This finding, supported by advanced optical imaging, suggests a universal blueprint for brain development, which has significant implications for understanding neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and schizophrenia.

By observing synchronized activity in nerve cell networks across various brain regions, the study highlights a potential common foundation for brain disorders, offering a new perspective on their widespread impact. Future research will further explore how this shared developmental pattern evolves over time and across different brain areas.

High-intensity exercise induces brain-protective effects that have the potential to not just slow down but possibly reverse the neurodegeneration associated with Parkinson’s disease, a new pilot study suggests.

Prior research has shown that many forms of exercise are linked to improved symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. But there has been no evidence that hitting the gym could create changes at the brain level. Now, a small proof-of-concept study involving 10 patients showed that high-intensity aerobic exercise preserved dopamine-producing neurons, the brain cells that are most vulnerable to destruction in patients with the disease.

In fact, after six months of exercise, the neurons actually had grown healthier and produced stronger dopamine signals. Dopamine is a chemical that helps brain cells communicate with one another. The researchers published their findings in npj Parkinson’s Disease on February 9.

Knowing your “oldest organ” might also tell you more about your health trajectory — and the age-related diseases you could develop — than your biological age. The study found that individuals with accelerated heart aging, for example, have a 250% higher risk of heart failure. Every additional four years of age increased an individual’s risk of developing heart disease by almost 2.5-fold over 15 years, the study noted. It also found that accelerated brain and vascular aging in an individual can predict the progression of Alzheimer’s disease as strongly as the best biomarker test for the disease.

The technology to measure age organ-by-organ is far from ready to mainstream. Still, the concept has attracted the interest of those in longevity circles, according to The Wall Street Journal. Some researchers told the Journal that there may be a day when patients can test the age of their organs through a simple blood test. It’s not a far-off idea, given that there are already blood tests that can test for cancer.

However, some scientists believe there’s little merit in providing patients with these details before we devise interventions for them.

A groundbreaking study published in Nature Communications reveals how maternal and fetal genes, influenced by food availability, play a crucial role in the growth of a baby’s cerebral cortex, linking higher birth weight to an enlarged brain area. This research highlights the significant impact of genetics and environment on early brain development.

Stimulating gamma brain waves may protect cancer patients from memory impairment and other cognitive effects of chemotherapy.

Patients undergoing chemotherapy often experience cognitive effects such as memory impairment and difficulty concentrating — a condition commonly known as “chemo brain.”

MIT…

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The prospects of whole brain emulation.

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Very small solar panels placed on the eye can send electric signals directly to the brain and restore vision.

The human brain has billions of neurons. Working together, they enable higher-order brain functions such as cognition and complex behaviors. To study these higher-order brain functions, it is important to understand how neural activity is coordinated across various brain regions.

Although techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are able to provide insights into brain activity, they can show only so much information for a given time and area. Two-photon microscopy involving the use of cranial windows is a powerful tool for producing high-resolution images, but conventional cranial windows are small, making it difficult to study distant brain regions at the same time.

Now, a team of researchers led by the Exploratory Research Center on Life and Living Systems (ExCELLS) and the National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS) have introduced a new method for in vivo brain imaging, enabling large-scale and long-term observation of neuronal structures and activities in awake mice.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry have investigated how stress hormones affect the early development of brain cells in the cerebral cortex of the fetus. The cortex is the crucial area of the brain for thinking. The team was able to demonstrate causal links between stress hormones and altered brain structure, which relate to higher levels of educational attainment later in life.

The hormone group of glucocorticoids is crucial for the regulation of our metabolism and immune response, but also for the development of organs such as the brain and lungs before birth. The hormones are released in response to stress and can travel from the mother to the fetus. One of the best-known stress hormones is cortisol. Synthetic forms are prescribed, for example, in pregnancies at high risk for preterm delivery in order to help the maturation of the fetal lungs.

“We found that glucocorticoids, when present early in gestation in the first or early second trimester, increase the number of a particular type of brain cells that are formed very early in development (called basal progenitor cells)”, reports Anthi C. Krontira, who led the study published in Neuron. “These are cells that are important for the growth of the cerebral cortex.”