Loss of the Y chromosome in both tumor and immune cells may hamper immune protections and lead to poorer outcomes for men with different types of cancer.
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Brain circuit needed to incorporate new information may be linked to schizophrenia
One of the symptoms of schizophrenia is difficulty incorporating new information about the world. This can lead people with schizophrenia to struggle with making decisions and, eventually, to lose touch with reality.
MIT neuroscientists have now identified a gene mutation that appears to give rise to this type of difficulty. In a study of mice, the researchers found that the mutated gene impairs the function of a brain circuit that is responsible for updating beliefs based on new input.
This mutation, in a gene called grin2a, was originally identified in a large-scale screen of patients with schizophrenia. The new study suggests that drugs targeting this brain circuit could help with some of the cognitive impairments seen in people with schizophrenia.
We May Be Surrounded by Trillions of Conscious Beings, Research Suggests—And They Aren’t Human
We might need to reconsider our position in the consciousness hierarchy.
Brain keeps familiar routes intact as new experiences get layered on top, study suggests
Every time we move through a familiar environment, the hippocampus consults an internal map, a detailed spatial representation built up through repeated experience. But what happens when something unexpected occurs on a well-known route? Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn demonstrated in a mouse model that the brain does not redraw its maps from scratch. Instead, it annotates them, preserving the underlying spatial layout while overlaying new information on top of the existing map. The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The hippocampus, the brain’s working memory, is shaped like a seahorse and is located in the temporal lobe of both the left and right hemispheres. Hippocampal CA3 circuits, which link information and support the recognition of memories, keep their spatial maps stable while layering new annotations on top, much like a navigation app that preserves your route while flagging an incident ahead.
A Bonn-based research team arrived at these findings by recording the activity of CA3 axons in mice traversing a familiar linear running route. At a fixed point along the route, the scientists introduced a mildly aversive but harmless air puff stimulus, comparable to an unexpected obstacle on a road, and tracked how the hippocampal network updated its representation before, during and after the event.
AI-assisted, real-time deep-brain stimulation therapy for walking impairments in Parkinson’s disease
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been used for more than three decades to treat motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Today, more than 200,000 patients worldwide have been implanted with these systems, which continuously deliver electrical stimulation to specific deep-brain regions to reduce rigidity and tremor. Yet despite its clinical success, conventional deep brain stimulation remains limited in its ability to address one of the disease’s most disabling symptoms: walking impairments.
Researchers from EPFL and Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) have developed a new approach, published in Nature Medicine, that adapts DBS in real time to the patient’s mobility in everyday situations. Thanks to artificial intelligence, the system continuously interprets the patient’s activity and adjusts stimulation in real time, improving walking, climbing stairs and even the simple act of standing up.
US scientists’ new electron microscopy tech delivers 10,000x magnification
Researchers in the United States have built a technology that boosts the performance of electron microscopes. Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley physicists’ new technique offers detailed images of the small molecules and cell structures that are crucial to understanding biology and disease.
They have adapted the phase-contrast technique to cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), which has about 10,000 times the magnification of light microscopy. Their laser-based phase plate produces sharp images of molecules that today’s cutting-edge cryo-EM systems struggle to capture.
The research team revealed that the new technology was brought to fruition by more than 15 years of theoretical and experimental work by leading microscopy scientists, collaboration with expert machinists, and support from Biohub.
