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Brad Sutton, Technical Director of the Biomedical Imaging Center and Abel Bliss Faculty Scholar in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, delivered this Frontiers in Miniature Brain Machinery lecture January 26, 2022. Jennifer Walters, MBM Trainee and PhD candidate in Neuroscience, provided an introduction. The Q&A portion of this video was cut off due to technical difficulties during the Zoom recording.

For more information on the lecture and Brad Sutton: https://minibrain.beckman.illinois.edu/2021/12/02/brad-sutto…s-lecture/

Continue reading “Ultrafast functional MRI: A tool for examining spurious correlations in fMRI connectivity” »

Almost everything we do relies on our sense of touch, from simple household chores to navigating potentially dangerous terrain. Scientists have long been curious about how the touch information we obtain with our hands and other parts of our bodies makes its way to the brain to generate the sensations we feel.

However, key aspects of touch, such as how the spinal cord and brainstem are involved in receiving, processing, and transmitting signals, remain unknown.

Now, two studies from Harvard Medical School researchers provide significant new understandings of how the spinal cord and brainstem contribute to the sense of touch.

Summary: Remote fear memories, or memories of trauma formed in the distant past, are stored in the connections between neurons in the prefrontal cortex.

Source: UCR

A remote fear memory is a memory of traumatic events that occurred in the distant past—a few months to decades ago. A University of California, Riverside, mouse study published in Nature Neuroscience has now spelled out the fundamental mechanisms by which the brain consolidates remote fear memories.

From a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to an infusion that slowed down Alzheimer’s for some people with the disease, here are three momentous advances from 2022.

An RSV vaccine showed promise for the first time in 50-years

Two vaccines are poised to be approved for RSV by the end of 2023, according to their makers, after almost 50-years without any meaningful progress.

In a study examining the link between non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and brain dysfunction, scientists at the Roger Williams Institute of Hepatology, affiliated to King’s College London and the University of Lausanne, found an accumulation of fat in the liver causes a decrease in oxygen to the brain and inflammation to brain tissue—both of which have been proven to lead to the onset of severe brain diseases.

The paper appears in the Journal of Hepatology.

NAFLD affects approximately 25% of the population and more than 80% of morbidly obese people. Several studies have reported the negative effects of an unhealthy diet and obesity can have on brain function however this is believed to be the first study that clearly links NAFLD with brain deterioration and identifies a potential therapeutic target.

Summary: Researchers have developed a new specialized MRI sensor that detects light deep within brain tissue.

Source: MIT

Using a specialized MRI sensor, MIT researchers have shown that they can detect light deep within tissues such as the brain.

Severing the lower part of the vagus nerve that connects the brain and gut led to less myelin loss in a mouse model used to study MS.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Now you see them, now you don’t.

Some frogs found in South and Central America have the rare ability to turn on and off their nearly transparent appearance, researchers report Thursday in the journal Science.

During the day, these nocturnal frogs sleep by hanging underneath tree leaves. Their delicate, greenish transparent forms don’t cast shadows, rendering them almost invisible to birds and other predators passing overhead or underneath.

The technology has significantly progressed in the past 50 years.

Earlier this month, we reported that Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos-backed foundations (Gates Frontier and Bezos Expeditions) joined other companies.

Continue reading “Billionaires are investing in brain-computer-interface systems. Here’s why” »