New research reveals that hunger can flip female mice from nurturing to aggressive—but only during specific hormonal phases.
Category: neuroscience – Page 9
Scientists find ways to boost memory in aging brains
Memory loss may not simply be a symptom of getting older. New research from Virginia Tech shows that it’s tied to specific molecular changes in the brain and that adjusting those processes can improve memory.
In two complementary studies, Timothy Jarome, associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ School of Animal Sciences, and his graduate students used gene-editing tools to target those age-related changes to improve memory performance in older subjects. The work was conducted on rats, a standard model for studying how memory changes with age.
“Memory loss affects more than a third of people over 70, and it’s a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Jarome, who also holds an appointment in the School of Neuroscience. “This work shows that memory decline is linked to specific molecular changes that can be targeted and studied. If we can understand what’s driving it at the molecular level, we can start to understand what goes wrong in dementia and eventually use that knowledge to guide new approaches to treatment.”
How to advance technology without cognitive overload
A new paper explores how managing cognitive load distribution is vital for navigating complex technologies and enabling their effective use.
In October 1935, the U.S. Army held a flying competition. On paper, Boeing’s entry, nicknamed the Flying Fortress, appeared to be the clear favorite. It was bigger, faster, and could fly farther than other bombers. Captained by an experienced test pilot, the Flying Fortress took off, rose 300 meters, stalled, and then came crashing down to Earth, killing the pilot and another crew member.
The problem was not mechanical. Nor was it poor training. Instead, as one newspaper put it, the bomber was “too much airplane for one man to fly.” With four engines and an array of complicated controls, the Flying Fortress required many intricate operations to be performed at once—more than even the most competent pilot could remember.
Lab-boosted olfactory receptor reveals new insights about how our sense of smell works
Humans have about 400 odorant receptors (ORs), but scientists have had trouble finding ligands that match up with most of these ORs in lab settings—leaving them with a murky understanding of how certain smells are recognized in our brains. Only 71 human receptor-ligand interactions have been identified in studies thus far, often with low sensitivity in assays. Scientists have struggled with poor in vitro expression of ORs in lab conditions, limiting identification of receptor–odorant pairs.
In 2004, the field of olfactory science appeared to gain some progress in the form of a Nobel-winning hypothesis called the “combinatorial model,” which suggested that multiple ORs contribute to the perception of a single odorant. However, a new study, published recently in Current Biology, paints a somewhat different picture.
For their study, a group of Swiss researchers tweaked the C-terminal domains of ORs, which resulted in dramatically boosted OR cell-surface expression and sensitivity in lab conditions. This allowed the group to test out which ORs respond to various scents, like ambergris, rose, vanilla, and corked wine. Using this method, they were able to “de-orphanize” several ORs, or find matching ligands for them, resulting in novel OR identification for odorants.
Karl J. Friston
Professors Karl Friston & Mark Solms, pioneers in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and theoretical biology, delve into the frontiers of consciousness: “Can We Engineer Artificial Consciousness?”. From mimicry to qualia, this historic conversation tackles whether artificial consciousness is achievable — and how. Essential viewing/listening for anyone interested in the mind, AI ethics, and the future of sentience. Subscribe to the channel for more profound discussions!
Professor Karl Friston is one of the most highly cited living neuroscientists in history. He is Professor of Neuroscience at University College London and holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Zurich, University of York and Radboud University. He is the world expert on brain imaging, neuroscience, and theoretical neurobiology, and pioneers the Free-Energy Principle for action and perception, with well-over 300,000 citations. Friston was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999). In 2000 he was President of the international Organization of Human Brain Mapping. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2006. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2012 and was elected as a member of EMBO (excellence in the life sciences) in 2014 and the Academia Europaea in (2015).
Professor Mark Solms is director of Neuropsychology in the Neuroscience Institute of the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital (Departments of Psychology and Neurology), an Honorary Lecturer in Neurosurgery at the Royal London Hospital School of Medicine, an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists, and the President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association. He is also Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association (since 2013). He founded the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society in 2000 and he was a Founding Editor (with Ed Nersessian) of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. He is Director of the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. He is also Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation in New York, a Trustee of the Neuropsychoanalysis Fund in London, and Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Trust in Cape Town.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 — Introduction.
0:45 — Defining Consciousness & Intelligence.
8:20 — Minimizing Free Energy + Maximizing Affective States.
9:07 — Knowing if Something is Conscious.
13:40 — Mimicry & Zombies.
17:13 — Homology in Consciousness Inference.
21:27 — Functional Criteria for Consciousness.
25:10 — Structure vs Function Debate.
29:35 — Mortal Computation & Substrate.
35:33 — Biological Naturalism vs Functionalism.
42:42 — Functional Architectures & Independence.
48:34 — Is Artificial Consciousness Possible?
55:12 — Reportability as Empirical Criterion.
57:28 — Feeling as Empirical Consciousness.
59:40 — Mechanistic Basis of Feeling.
1:06:24 — Constraints that Shape Us.
1:12:24 — Actively Building Artificial Consciousness (Mark’s current project)
1:24:51 — Hedonic Place Preference Test & Ethics.
1:30:51 — Conclusion.
EPISODE LINKS:
- Karl’s Round 1: https://youtu.be/Kb5X8xOWgpc.
- Karl’s Round 2: https://youtu.be/mqzyKs2Qvug.
- Karl’s Lecture 1: https://youtu.be/Gp9Sqvx4H7w.
- Karl’s Lecture 2: https://youtu.be/Sfjw41TBnRM
- Karl’s Lecture 3: https://youtu.be/dM3YINvDZsY
- Mark’s Round 1: https://youtu.be/qqM76ZHIR-o.
- Mark’s Round 2: https://youtu.be/rkbeaxjAZm4
CONNECT:
Like radar, a brain wave sweeps a cortical region to read out information held in working memory
Imagine you are a security guard in one of those casino heist movies where your ability to recognize an emerging crime will depend on whether you notice a subtle change on one of the many security monitors arrayed on your desk. That’s a challenge of visual working memory.
According to a new study by neuroscientists in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, the ability to quickly spot the anomaly could depend on a theta-frequency brain wave (3–6 Hz) that scans through a region of the cortex that maps your field of view.
The findings in animals, published in Neuron, help to explain how the brain implements visual working memory and why performance is both limited and variable.
Key nervous system components shown to influence gastrointestinal tumor growth
Australian researchers have identified two nervous system components that drive tumor growth in gastrointestinal cancers, creating promising new avenues for treatment with existing approved therapies.
Our gut contains its very own nervous system and is commonly regarded as the second brain. Key players of this system are neuropeptides, the signaling factors that are produced and released by nerves. These factors relay messages throughout our nervous system by connecting to receptors on the outside of cells, influencing a variety of processes.
The team at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute (ONJCRI) and La Trobe School of Cancer Medicine discovered that CGRP, a common neuropeptide, and its receptor RAMP1 influence tumor growth in colorectal and stomach cancers.
Gluten sensitivity linked to gut–brain interaction, not gluten itself, study finds
A study has revealed that gluten sensitivity, which affects approximately 10% of the global population, is not actually about gluten but part of the way the gut and brain interact.
The findings are expected to set a new benchmark for how gluten sensitivity is defined, diagnosed and treated.
The research review, published today in The Lancet, examined current published evidence for non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) to better understand this highly prevalent condition.