NT/ Artificial synapses on design
Neuroscience biweekly, 1st May — 15th May
- The brain has a powerful ability to remember and connect events separated in time. And now, in a new study in mice, scientists have shed light on how the brain can form such enduring links.
- A manually constructed 3D atlas offers a cellular-level view of the entire mouse brain. This reference brain, called the Allen Mouse Brain Common Coordinate Framework (CCFv3), is derived from serial two-photon tomography images of 1,675 mice.
- A new brain imaging study of prairie voles — which are among only about 5% of mammalian species besides humans who are monogamous — found that when it comes to forming bonds, longing may be as important as being together. The study also sheds light on why it’s so hard to social distance, and could lead to new therapies for conditions like autism and depression.
- Researchers have now discovered how to systematically control the functional behavior of these elements. The smallest differences in material composition are found crucial: differences so small that until now experts had failed to notice them.
- Measures of cognition and gait speed largely paralleled each other in a San Antonio study of 370 participants that included 9½ years of follow-up. One-fifth of participants were classified into a cognitive and physical vulnerability group. Mexican American participants were almost four times more likely than European Americans to be in the cognitive and physical vulnerability group.
- Researchers have used synchrotron light to study what happens to the nerves in diabetes. The technique shows the 3D-structure of nerve fibers in very high resolution.
- A lipid metabolism enzyme controls brain stem cell activity and lifelong brain development. If the enzyme does not work correctly, it causes learning and memory deficits in humans and mice, as researchers have discovered. - Regulating stem cell activity via lipid metabolism could lead to new treatments for brain diseases.
- Highly excitable brain neurons in the visual cortex may reduce a person’s ability to visualise things clearly, neuroscience study finds.
- Daniel Colón-Ramos reveals the mysteries of worms’ memories: The Yale neuroscientist seeks to understand the brain’s architecture and function using C. elegans.
- Researchers find that a specific population of brainstem neurons act to control left–right turning of locomotor movements in mammals through distinct axial- and limb-based mechanisms. This turning pathway is the dominant system for natural directional movements.
- Scientists establish the claustrum-Cre transgenic mouse line and demonstrate that the claustrum orchestrates cortical slow-wave activity by synchronously driving the inhibitory interneurons in widespread cortical areas.
- The study reveals a self-corrective mechanism within synapses that is activated by neurodegeneration and slows disease progression in animal models of ALS.
- Scientists show that regions of the genome adopt a noncanonical Z-DNA state in the prefrontal cortex in response to fear learning and that binding of Adar1 reduces Z-DNA during extinction learning, which is required for memory flexibility.
- Infographic: How the Brain Keeps Track of Time in Memories: Signals from the lateral entorhinal cortex help create “time cells” in the hippocampus, according to some researchers.
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https://medium.com/paradigm-fund/nt-artificial-synapses-on-design-89933107bb03