Lifeboat Foundation

On 28 March it’s the 60th anniversary of the discovery of Epstein-Barr virus, the most common viral infection in humans. The virus was first discovered in association with a rare type of cancer located in Africa, but is now understood to be implicated in 1% of cancers, as well as the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis. Ian Sample meets Lawrence Young, professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School, to hear the story of this virus, and how it might help us prevent and treat cancer and other illnesses.

Working memory (WM) is a kind of advanced cognitive function, which requires the participation and cooperation of multiple brain regions. Hippocampus and prefrontal cortex are the main responsible brain regions for WM. Exploring information coordination between hippocampus and prefrontal cortex during WM is a frontier problem in cognitive neuroscience. In this paper, an advanced information theory analysis based on bimodal neural electrical signals (local field potentials, LFPs and spikes) was employed to characterize the transcerebral information coordination across the two brain regions. Firstly, LFPs and spikes were recorded simultaneously from rat hippocampus and prefrontal cortex during the WM task by using multi-channel in vivo recording technique. Then, from the perspective of information theory, directional hippocampus-prefrontal cortex networks were constructed by using transfer entropy algorithm based on spectral coherence between LFPs and spikes. Finally, transcerebral coordination of bimodal information at the brain-network level was investigated during acquisition and performance of the WM task. The results show that the transfer entropy in directional hippocampus-prefrontal cortex networks is related to the acquisition and performance of WM. During the acquisition of WM, the information flow, local information transmission ability and information transmission efficiency of the directional hippocampus-prefrontal networks increase over learning days. During the performance of WM, the transfer entropy from the hippocampus to prefrontal cortex plays a leading role for bimodal information coordination across brain regions and hippocampus has a driving effect on prefrontal cortex. Furthermore, bimodal information coordination in the hippocampus → prefrontal cortex network could predict WM during the successful performance of WM.

Keywords: Bimodal neural electrical signals; Graph theory; Transcerebral information coordination; Transfer entropy; Working memory.

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022.

In this podcast, we chat with Simeon Bamford, who’s currently working on tactile neuromorphic sensors, about creating circuits to perform functions lost to brain damage, Bamford’s involvement with the commercialization of dynamic vision sensors and more.

“We hope our work will contribute to informed decisions regarding regulatory measures or behavioral interventions to minimize chemical exposure and protect human health,” Tesar said in a statement.

1.8 million. That’s how many people globally have multiple sclerosis, according to the World Health Organization. The agency also found around one in 100 children worldwide have been diagnosed with autism.

“Rigorous safety tests are in place for human health that are evaluated by [the] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for approval and compliance with all regulatory guidelines,” Brian Sansoni, senior vice president for Communications, Outreach and Membership for the American Cleaning Institute, told Forbes. The ACI represents top cleaning product manufacturers like the Clorox Company and Procter & Gamble. “ACI member company manufacturers make product safety a top priority.” Quats have been known to be effective at killing bacteria, germs, viruses and mold. “The use of cleaning products, disinfectants and their chemistries contribute to public health in homes, schools, healthcare settings and communities every single day,” the ACI said.

This video is part of the open course “Neuroscience for machine learners”. Find out more at https://neuro4ml.github.io/

Summary: Researchers unveiled a groundbreaking discovery that DNA damage and brain inflammation are vital processes for forming long-term memories, particularly within the brain’s hippocampus.

Contrary to previous beliefs associating inflammation with neurological diseases, this study highlights inflammation’s critical role in memory formation through the activation of the Toll-Like Receptor 9 (TLR9) pathway following DNA damage in hippocampal neurons.

These findings not only challenge conventional views on brain inflammation but also caution against indiscriminate inhibition of the TLR9 pathway, given its importance in memory encoding and the potential risks of genomic instability.

March 27, 2024—(BRONX, NY)— Just as you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have found that you can’t make long-term memories without DNA damage and brain inflammation. Their surprising findings were published online today in the journal Nature.

“Inflammation of brain neurons is usually considered to be a bad thing, since it can lead to neurological problems such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease,” said study leader Jelena Radulovic, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and the Sylvia and Robert S. Olnick Chair in Neuroscience at Einstein. “But our findings suggest that inflammation in certain neurons in the brain’s hippocampal region is essential for making long-lasting memories.”

The hippocampus has long been known as the brain’s memory center. Dr. Radulovic and her colleagues found that a stimulus sets off a cycle of DNA damage and repair within certain hippocampal neurons that leads to stable memory assemblies—clusters of brain cells that represent our past experiences. Elizabeth Wood, a Ph.D. student, and Ana Cicvaric, a postdoc in the Radulovic lab, were the study’s first authors at Einstein.

Medical office procedure identifies key biomarker that may lead to more reliable diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders.

Gert-Jan Oskam was living in China in 2011 when he was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down.

In a new study, researchers describe a device that connects the intentions of a paralyzed patient to his physical movements.