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In this episode, reporter Miryam Naddaf joins us to talk about the big science events to look out for in 2024. We’ll hear about the mass of the neutrino, the neural basis of consciousness and the climate lawsuits at the Hague, to name but a few.
Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 6 January 2023.
A new Northwestern Medicine study shows that RNA interference may play a key role in Alzheimer’s. For the first time, scientists have identified short strands of toxic RNAs that contribute to brain cell death and DNA damage in Alzheimer’s and aged brains. Short strands of protective RNAs are decreased during aging, the scientists report, which may allow Alzheimer’s to develop.
The study also found that older individuals with a superior memory capacity (known as SuperAgers) have higher amounts of protective short RNA strands in their brain cells. SuperAgers are individuals aged 80 and older with a memory capacity of individuals 20 to 30 years younger.
“Nobody has ever connected the activities of RNAs to Alzheimer’s,” said corresponding study author Marcus Peter, the Tom D. Spies Professor of Cancer Metabolism at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “We found that in aging brain cells, the balance between toxic and protective sRNAs shifts toward toxic ones.”
Across mammalian species, brain waves are slower in deep cortical layers, while superficial layers generate faster rhythms.
Throughout the brain’s cortex, neurons are arranged in six distinctive layers, which can be readily seen with a microscope. A team of MIT neuroscientists has now found that these layers also show distinct patterns of electrical activity, which are consistent over many brain regions and across several animal species, including humans.
The researchers found that in the topmost layers, neuron activity is dominated by rapid oscillations known as gamma waves. In the deeper layers, slower oscillations called alpha and beta waves predominate. The universality of these patterns suggests that these oscillations are likely playing an important role across the brain, the researchers say.
One of the fundamental and timeless questions of life concerns the mechanics of its inception. Take human development, for example: how do individual cells come together to form complex structures like skin, muscles, bones, or even a brain, a finger, or a spine?
Although the answers to such questions remain unknown, one line of scientific inquiry lies in understanding gastrulation — the stage at which embryo cells develop from a single layer to a multidimensional structure with a main body axis. In humans, gastrulation happens around 14 days after conception.
It’s not possible to study human embryos at this stage, so researchers at the University of California San Diego, the University of Dundee (UK), and Harvard University were able to study gastrulation in chick embryos, which have many similarities to human embryos at this stage.
Individuals with personality traits such as conscientiousness, extraversion, and positive affect are less likely to be diagnosed with dementia than those with neuroticism and negative affect, according to a new analysis by researchers at the University of California, Davis, and Northwestern University. The difference was not linked to physical damage to brain tissue found in dementia patients, but more likely to how certain personality traits help people navigate dementia-related impairments.
The work was recently published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Previous studies have tried to establish links between personality traits and dementia, but these were mostly small and represented only specific populations, said Emorie Beck, assistant professor of psychology at UC Davis and first author on the paper.
A hierarchical #Atlas of the human #cerebellum for functional precision #mapping
Contribute to DiedrichsenLab/cerebellar_atlases development by creating an account on GitHub.
Summary: A groundbreaking study by physicists and neuroscientists reveals that the connectivity among neurons stems from universal networking principles, not just biological specifics.
Analyzing various model organisms, researchers found a consistent “heavy-tailed” distribution of neural connections, guided by Hebbian dynamics, indicating that neuron connectivity relies on general network organization.
This discovery, transcending biology, potentially applies to non-biological networks like social interactions, offering insights into the fundamental nature of networking.
Alternative ways of powering, cooling, and constructing reactors could help get more nuclear energy on the grid.
I’ve got nuclear power on the brain this week.
