tldrdailynews.com logo
Tag

Neuroscience

All articles tagged with #neuroscience

Leg-Derived Mitochondria Injected Into Human Eyes Show Safety, Hint at Vision Therapy Potential
science1 day ago

Leg-Derived Mitochondria Injected Into Human Eyes Show Safety, Hint at Vision Therapy Potential

Scientists performed the first human ocular mitochondrial transplantation by injecting mitochondria isolated from a leg biopsy into both eyes of a 26-year-old woman with severe vision loss. The procedure appeared safe with no immune reaction, and post-treatment results included temporary improvements in pupil light responses and evidence of organized visual-cortex activity, though there was no restoration of visual acuity. The study is a single-patient, uncontrolled case, so causation cannot be established, but it suggests a potential for repeated mitochondrial dosing and warrants further, controlled trials to explore whether healthy mitochondria can energize damaged retinal cells.

via ScienceAlert|
#mitochondria#neuroscience#retina
Orexin Neurons Tie Reward Expectation to Motivated Action in Rats
science1 day ago

Orexin Neurons Tie Reward Expectation to Motivated Action in Rats

A Nagoya University–led study publishing in PNAS shows orexin-producing neurons in the hypothalamus regulate moment‑to‑moment food‑reward motivation in rats: activating these neurons makes animals work harder for food, while inhibiting them reduces motivation, suggesting orexin links reward prediction to sustained action and may inform understanding of human motivation and related disorders, though translation to humans remains to be clarified.

via ScienceAlert|
#hypothalamus#motivation#neuroscience
Consciousness Could Be Universal, Not Brain-Born, Says Neuroscientist
science5 days ago

Consciousness Could Be Universal, Not Brain-Born, Says Neuroscientist

Prominent neuroscientist Christof Koch argues that consciousness may be a fundamental aspect of reality rather than solely produced by the brain, challenging the long-held brain-centric view. In an unpublished ScienceAlert essay, he calls for rethinking baseline assumptions, exploring a mind-at-large, and translating these ideas into empirically testable hypotheses about consciousness.

via Yahoo|
#brain#christof-koch#consciousness
Five-Year Lab Brain Organoids Push the Boundaries of Maturation
science5 days ago

Five-Year Lab Brain Organoids Push the Boundaries of Maturation

Scientists grew human brain organoids in the lab for five years, finding that their biological age tracks closely with time in culture and mirrors the developmental sequence of a human brain from gestation onward. The study, which sequenced RNA every six months across 34 organoids, showed these “clumps of brain cells” can remember developmental steps and record elapsed time, a finding scientists call a time warp. While the results are unsettling, long-lived organoids offer insights for drug testing, viral effects on neurodevelopment, and brain evolution, and researchers aim to accelerate maturation even further.

via Yahoo|
#brain-maturation#brain-organoids#in-vitro
Common Brain Network Disruptions Link Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder
science5 days ago

Common Brain Network Disruptions Link Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

A study in Frontiers in Psychiatry compared resting-state fMRI from 89 people with schizophrenia, 57 with bipolar I disorder, and 45 healthy controls, finding reduced coordination among distant brain regions in both patient groups—more widespread changes in schizophrenia. This suggests overlapping patterns of brain-network disruption between the two conditions, though not a single wiring fault; results cannot diagnose individuals yet and highlight the need for larger, longitudinal research.

via Yahoo|
#bipolar-disorder#brain-imaging#mental-health
Psilocybin Reveals Hidden Order Beneath Brain Chaos, Study Finds
science5 days ago

Psilocybin Reveals Hidden Order Beneath Brain Chaos, Study Finds

Monash University researchers conducted a five-year, open-label study with 62 healthy adults to map brain changes after psilocybin using fMRI, EEG, machine learning and questionnaires. They found a reduction in modular brain organization and a reconfiguration of networks—especially the default mode network—producing a “hidden order” linked to participants’ positive experiences and a sense of unity. The strongest global brain changes occurred when listening to ethereal music and were attenuated by visual input like watching a movie, highlighting the role of context in psychedelic effects. While findings may inform psychedelic therapies, the study lacked a placebo group and involved healthy volunteers, not patients.

via ScienceAlert|
#brain-networks#default-mode-network#neuroscience
Lab-Grown Brain Organoids Reveal Time Memory and Long-Term Maturation
science5 days ago

Lab-Grown Brain Organoids Reveal Time Memory and Long-Term Maturation

Researchers have created brain organoids that can sense the passage of time, retain a developmental age, and remain viable for up to six years in culture. Using epigenetic clocks and experiments where different-aged organoid components were reassembled into “chimeroids,” the study shows cells preserve a memory of their maturation history and can influence the pace of development, providing a powerful model for studying human brain maturation and neoteny in vitro.

via ScienceAlert|
#aging#brain#epigenetics
Psychedelics reshape brain networks, revealing an 'embedded' sense of self
science7 days ago

Psychedelics reshape brain networks, revealing an 'embedded' sense of self

A Nature study with 62 healthy adults shows psilocybin reorganizes brain networks across rest, mindfulness-like states, music, and cloud-watching, reducing the usual separation between self and world and revealing an 'embeddedness' signature that correlates with next-day positive changes. Using MRI/EEG and machine-learning mapped patterns, the research highlights context’s role in psychedelic experiences while noting limitations: participants were healthy volunteers, study was open-label and lacked a placebo, and results may not generalize to patients.

via theconversation.com|
#brain-imaging#embeddedness#neuroscience
Consciousness May Be Reality’s Foundation, Not the Brain’s Output
science7 days ago

Consciousness May Be Reality’s Foundation, Not the Brain’s Output

Renowned neuroscientist Christof Koch argues that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality rather than a product of brain activity, proposing that the brain acts as a filter within an underlying field of awareness. He identifies three gaps in standard science—the reduction of experience, the physics of reality, and outlier phenomena—and points to frameworks like analytic idealism, panpsychism, and Integrated Information Theory. The idea implications for AI are discussed, though Koch emphasizes his views remain testable hypotheses.

via geekspin|
#artificial-intelligence#consciousness#integrated-information-theory
Lab-grown brain organoids reveal an intrinsic developmental clock that records years in culture
neuroscience7 days ago

Lab-grown brain organoids reveal an intrinsic developmental clock that records years in culture

Researchers cultured human cortical organoids for over five years and found that they age along with in vivo humans, showing transcriptional maturation and DNA methylation changes that track culture time. Epigenetic clocks predicted the organoids’ age with high accuracy, and mixed-age (heterochronic) organoids demonstrated that older progenitors retain a memory of past development and can be steered to produce late-stage neurons, skipping earlier fates. This work positions long-term organoid culture as a powerful in vitro model to study postnatal human brain maturation and neoteny.

via Nature|
#aging#brain-organoids#developmental-timing
Brain-border immune hubs: skull bone marrow hosts germinal-center–like niches that surveil the CNS and boost anti-tumor immunity
neuroscience7 days ago

Brain-border immune hubs: skull bone marrow hosts germinal-center–like niches that surveil the CNS and boost anti-tumor immunity

A study reveals the skull bone marrow harbors organized, germinal center–like lymphoid structures with follicular helper T cells that promote B cell activation and humoral responses to CNS-derived antigens. Brain-derived antigens reach these skull niches via glymphatic routes, enabling local antigen presentation, T/B cell interactions, clonal B cell expansion and somatic hypermutation. In mouse brain tumor models, skull BM responses contribute to anti-tumor immunity and can function independently of traditional secondary lymphoid organs; local CD40 agonism combined with IL-21 and IFN-γ enhances skull B cell activity and IgG responses, boosting intratumoral immunity and survival. The findings position skull bone marrow as a CNS border immunosurveillance site with potential relevance to human brain immunity and therapy.

via Nature|
#brain-tumor-immunity#cns-immunosurveillance#follicular-helper-t-cells
Brain's modular toolkit enables flexible cognition in mice and artificial networks
neuroscience9 days ago

Brain's modular toolkit enables flexible cognition in mice and artificial networks

A Nature Neuroscience study shows mice performing a delayed match-to-sample task reuse separate neural subspaces for stimulus processing and memory maintenance, each supported by distinct neuron clusters in the medial prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. These subspaces are largely orthogonal and are repurposed across inputs and memories within the same task. Analyses of data-constrained recurrent networks reveal that silencing the corresponding clusters causes modular, task-specific deficits, providing evidence for a brain-wide reusable architecture of cognitive components that parallels modular ideas in artificial networks.

via Nature|
#modularity#neural-subspaces#neuroscience
Aging erodes microglial chromatin, unleashing retroelements to fuel inflammation and senescence
neuroscience9 days ago

Aging erodes microglial chromatin, unleashing retroelements to fuel inflammation and senescence

Aging reduces chromatin compaction and downregulates the histone chaperone DAXX in microglia, enabling derepression of endogenous retroelements and shifting microglia from a homeostatic to a reactive, inflammatory state. Loss of DAXX drives chromatin decompaction at LTR-RTEs, loss of homeostatic markers, cell-cycle re-entry and DNA damage, followed by microglial depletion and replacement by DAXX-deficient, ApoE-high microglia exhibiting senescence features. Sustained senescence relies on PML and interferon targets, underscoring chromatin maintenance as key to microglial identity, brain homeostasis and aging-related behavioral changes.

via Nature|
#aging#cellular-senescence#daxx