Robot Controlled By Rat Neurons

In some of the weirder news I've read lately, New Scientist Tech is reporting on a set of experiments being conducted at the University of Reading in the UK that involve using rat neurons to control a specialized robot. The neurons—about 300,000 of them—are in a nutrient-and-antibiotic bath in a control unit that controls the robot wirelessly via Bluetooth.

Because these are living cells, scientists are unable to program the robot. Instead, they are working on training it by sending electrical signals into the neurons in response to certain actions the robot takes. For example, an ultrasonic sensor on the robot can detect walls and other obstacles, and the brain cells receive an electrical input to let them know the wall is there. So far, they have "taught" the brain to avoid obstacles with about 80 percent reliability (another researcher at Georgia Tech has taught his robot to avoid obstacles with 90 percent reliability).

The results of this research could be interesting, in terms of re-training brains damaged by accidents, strokes, or diseases and allowing people who are currently disabled to live more active lives.

But could it also lead to rat brain-controlled robots taking over the world? That seems unlikely, but if it ever happens we can just give the robots mad cow (rat?) disease or Alzheimer's.

Researchers Identify Trigger for Brain Plasticity

During childhood, the human brain is more readily able to learn than during adulthood. During this period, the brain has an improved ability to form new connections, a state called neuroplasticity. Now neuroscientists at Children's Hospital Boston have discovered a protein called Otx2, which appears to trigger this heightened state of brain plasticity.

Their research, conducted in mice, demonstrates that Otx2, which is created in the retina, travels into the brain in response to stimuli and triggers the brain's ability to form new neural connections. In a series of experiments, they showed that mice kept in the dark—thus not triggering the sensory receptors to create Otx2—the Otx2 remains in the retinas, not migrating to the brain, preventing a type of cell known as parvalbumin cells, which are responsible for visual processing, from maturing.

Further research will be needed to determine if these results are applicable to other parts of the brain besides the parvalbumin cells and whether these results are also applicable to humans.

Better Understanding of the Brain

Popular Science details new initiatives that have created, for the first time ever, virtual maps of neural connections in the human brain. The maps—created in two separate studies—used a brain scanning technique called "diffusion imaging," which can be easily done on living, breathing human beings. The method involves following the flow of water molecules along the axons—long fibers of nerve cells—in a subject's brain.

The two teams used basically the same technique to create their maps, one of which is higher resolution than the other, and both found the same clusters of connections in the cerebral cortex, in a region of the brain that uses the most oxygen and glucose, especially when the brain is at rest.

The results of this research will undoubtedly lead to a much greater understanding of the organization and function of the brain, which could lead eventually to better treatments for mental illnesses, paralysis, and brain damage, as well as to such future technologies as mind-machine interfaces.

Researchers Develop Tool for Potentially Diagnosing Alzheimer's

Right now it is very difficult for doctors to know for sure if a patient has Alzheimer's disease. Plenty of other neurodegenerative diseases can cause dementia, so doctors are generally guessing when they diagnose patients. In fact, the only way to be sure is to cut the brain of the patient open after death and look for the amyloid beta plaques that are associated with the disease.

That may all be about to change.According to a study being conducted at the VA Medical Center in Massachusetts, a band of harmless lasers placed around a patient's head may be able to differentiate healthy brain tissue from tissue covered with amyloid beta plaques.

If the study confirms the results, it will be a huge boost in diagnosis of this terrible disease, and could allow doctors to get a jump on treatment, as well as prevent misdiagnoses that lead to treatments for the wrong illnesses. But while this technique could be used to spot the plaques in the brain, not all of the plaques cause Alzheimer's disease, so the device will still not have 100 percent accuracy. Still, anything is better than just guessing.

Breakthrough in Understanding Alzheimer's Disease

People who suffer from Alzheimer's disease are found to have plaques made up of a substance called Beta Amyloid in their brains. Some scientists have believed that Beta Amyloid is the cause of Alzheimer's, but because Beta Amyloid is also sometimes found in the brains of patients who don't have the disease, other scientists have believed that Beta Amyloid is part of the body's response to Alzheimer's.

According to a CNN report, researchers have now discovered that one specific form of Beta Amyloid, when injected into the brains of mice, caused Alzheimer's-like symptoms, but other forms did not. That could explain why some people with Beta Amyloid in their brains do not have Alzheimer's—they have one of the other two versions of the plaques.

The work will need to be duplicated, but this discovery could be just the breakthrough that was needed to help provide better understanding of Alzheimer's and eventually—hopefully—lead to better treatments and possibly a cure.

Researchers Discover Compound That Prods Stem Cells to Form Nerve Cells

Sometimes advances in science and technology are the result of happy accidents. Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center were attempting to discover small molecules that could prod stem cells to turn into heart cells, and in the process stumbled upon a new compound—called isoxazole-9, or Isx-9—that prods stem cells to turn into nerve cells. When exposed to Isx-9, nerve stem cells from rodent hippocampi clustered together and formed spiky appendages called neurites, which typically happens when nerve cells are growin in culture. The Isx-9 exposure also prevented the stem cells from developing into other tpes of cells, and was more potent than any other neurogenic substances ever researched at stimulating nerve cell development.

More work needs to be done with Isx-9, and much additional knowledge still remains to be gained. For example, scientists know that when mature nerve cells send chemical signals—called neurotransmitters—to stem cells, the stem cells begin to mature into nerve cells, but they do not know what biochemical pathways or genes are involved. Dr. Jenny Hsieh, who led the study, said, "The big gap in our knowledge is how to control these stem cells."

Treat Depression by Growing New Brain Cells

The Booster Shots blog at the Los Angeles Times reports that a company called BrainCells, Inc., has begun phase two testing of a compound to treat depression and anxiety. Nothing new so far, but BrainCells plans to treat these diseases by promoting neurogenesis—the growth of new neurons—in the brain.

Company co-founder Fred Gage rocked the scientific world about ten years ago with a paper showing that adult brain cells could regenerate over time. While those findings are fully accepted these days, some researchers are skeptical that neurogenesis will work as a treatment for depression. Whether it works for depression or not, this is a valuable area of research that could be use to treat a number of brain and nervous-system conditions.

Kavli Prizes Awarded

The Kavli Prizes were awarded today by the Kavli Foundation, and as promised, here are the winners:

The Kavli Prize for Astrophysics was awarded jointly to Maarten Schmidt, of the California Institute of Technology, US, and Donald Lynden-Bell, of Cambridge University, UK, for their work on Quasars. During the 1960s Schmidt analysed the visible light spectra of quasars and used the results to explain just how distant these extraordinarily bright galaxies are, while Lynden-Bell demonstrated how they were powered by the collapse of material into massive black holes.

The Kavli Prize for Nanoscience was awarded jointly to Louis E. Brus, of Columbia University, US, and Sumio Iijima, of Meijo University in Japan for their respective discoveries of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, also known as quantum dots, and carbon nanotubes. Major advances being predicted in fields as diverse as electronics, the environment, energy and biomedicine would not have been possible without Brus and Iijima’s contributions in explaining the unusual properties of particles so small that electron motion is confined to zero or one dimension.

The Kavli Prize for Neuroscience was awarded jointly to Pasko Rakic, of the Yale University School of Medicine, Thomas Jessell, of Columbia University, and Sten Grillner, of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden for work that helped decipher the basic mechanisms that govern the development and functioning of the networks of cells in the brain and spinal cord.

In addition to a scroll and a medal for each recipient, the award recipients for each of the three areas will split a $1 million prize.

Kavli Prizes to Be Awarded Tomorrow

Fred Kavli hopes to leave behind a legacy that will have a positive impact on humanity for centuries. And he's doing it the same way as Alfred Nobel. No, not by making better explosives (although Kavli did get his start developing technology for the military). Kavli is dedicating his fortune to the advancement of science through the formation of Kavli Institutes for science, and the Kavli Prizes, a set of very focused scientific prizes in the amount of $1 million for advances in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.

The prizes are awarded by the Kavli Foundation, and the first awardings of these prizes will be announced tomorrow morning in Oslo, Norway. Kavli's goal is to promote scientific research that will benefit mankind not in a few years but in a hundred years. The funds provided by the foundation are for basic research in the three target areas, not for quick results.

Check back tomorrow for information about the Kavli Prize winners.

Blood Pressure Drug Offers Hope for Parkinson's Treatment

Tests on mice at Northwestern University in Chicago showed isradipine, a drug commonly used to treat high blood pressure, can rejuvenate the brain neurons which are dying in Parkinson's patients.

Isradipine is a calcium-blocker which is usually used to tackle high blood pressure, angina and stroke.

But researchers at Northwestern University found mice, who had been engineered to develop a progressive Parkinson's-type disease, did not become ill when their condition was treated with the drug.

Their dopamine neurons - cells which start to die in Parkinson's patients - appeared to revert back to their original, youthful form. Dopamine is a critical substance which affects the control of movement. When it is lacking, that movement becomes increasingly difficult and unco-ordinated.

While these results are still very preliminary, and nothing has been tested in humans yet, isradipine is a medication that is currently on the market and readily available, with safety studies having already been completed. That could allow human testing to proceed at a rapid pace, which is good news for Parkinson's patients and their friends and families.

Studies Pinpoint Cause of ALS

Two studies published in Nature Neuroscience may show new ways to treat the degenerative nerve disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which slowly paralyzes its victims until they die.

Both studies showed that a specific type of nerve cells, called astrocytes, turn toxic when they carry a mutated gene called SOD1, which has previously been linked with ALS. When SOD1 is mutated in astrocytes, one of the nourishing proteins apparently turns toxic. When the researchers grew astrocytes with mutated SOD1, they killed the neighboring mouse motor neuron cells.

This research may lead to new methods of detecting ALS earlier, and eventually to options for arresting the progress of the disease by neutralizing the protein that causes the cells to die.

Exercise Helps Fight Aging-Related Memory Loss

A new study conducted by Columbia University Medical Center has uncovered direct evidence of the link between exercise and better memory.

Most people's memory begins to fade after age 30 due to degradation of an area of the brain known as the dentate gyrus. Exercise, the research shows, increases the flow of blood to this area of the brain, stimulating growth of new cells and allows for better memory retention.

So the next time you have something you need to remember, take a break from cramming and get some exercise... you'll be able to better remember the things you need to know.

Method Developed for Mapping Neural Connections

Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have developed a new method for identifying all of the connections to a single neuron in the human brain. Researchers have said they won’t be able to understand the brain until they can put together a map of how billions of neurons are interconnected.

The Salk researchers identified the connections by modifying the deadly rabies virus, turning it into a tool that can cross the synaptic space of a targeted nerve cell just once to identify all the neurons to which it is directly connected.

With luck and given time, neural science researchers will be able to map all of the connections in the human brain, which will lead to a better understanding of how the brain--and hopefully, human thought and sensory perception--works.