Lifeboat Foundation

As the brain ages, it becomes less efficient at recycling and eliminating build up of waste; ‘removal vans’ fail to do the rounds, and accumulation starts to overtake removal.

“We found that people in their 30s typically take about four hours to clear half the amyloid beta 42 from the brain,” says Randall J. Bateman. “In this new study, we show that at over 80 years old, it takes more than 10 hours.”

Research has uncovered that a protein called amyloid beta 42 (a natural byproduct of neural activity), is normally removed effectively in youth but the rate of clearance was found to slow progressively with age. Accumulation of amyloid beta 42 can lead to aggregation and consequent plaque formation and a slowdown in removal was tied to symptoms of dysfunction including memory loss and personality change. The study found that the brain disposes of this protein through a number of channels, and more work could uncover ways of boosting waste mangement in ailing brains, thus avoiding this toxic accumulation.

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The brain’s glymphatic pathway clears harmful wastes, especially during sleep. This lateral position could prove to be the best position for the brain-waste clearance process (credit: Stony Brook University)

Sleeping in the lateral, or side position, as compared to sleeping on one’s back or stomach, may more effectively remove brain waste, and could reduce the chances of developing Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurological diseases, according to researchers at Stony Brook University.

Stony Brook University researchers discovered this in experiments with rodents by using dynamic contrast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to image the brain’s glymphatic pathway, a complex system that clears wastes and other harmful chemical solutes from the brain. They also used kinetic modeling to quantify the CSF-ISF exchange rates in anesthetized rodents’ brains in lateral, prone, and supine positions.

Continue reading “Sleeping on your side may clear waste from your brain most effectively” »

The K supercomputer in Japan. The human brain is arguably the most complex structure in the Universe. To unlock its secrets, scientists all over the world are mapping and simulating parts of the human brain. The latest breakthrough comes from Japan where scientists using the K supercomputer, the fourth most powerful in world, accurately mapped one second’s worth of brain activity. It took the computer 40 minutes to undertake this task, for one percent of the brain activity!

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Bioviva a Seattle, WA, based biotech is ambitiously moving forward with gene therapy in people to mitigate the consequences of aging. They have not gone for the low hanging fruit either, they are being supported by Maximum Life Foundation to raise enough to run a clinical trial to try to cure Alzheimer’s! They are targeting the supporting Microglia cells in the brain to help regenerate them and hopefully reverse the effects of the disease. A worthy cause if ever I saw one and if it works could translate to other similar conditions like Parkinson’s and ALS. Lets hope they can get this vital work underway. This will then be the first example of regenerative medicine in a person that treats the dysfunction of aging.

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Fun article with lots of AI thoughts in it:

The future is here — and a little scary.

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Free Will Does Not Exist — Should it be a Transhumanist Enhancement?

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/pellissier20150727.

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This death penalty story continuing to get coverage. This article below is nice as it mentions another idea I wrote about, which is that of death row prisoners and the possibility of cryonics.

He also suggests putting violent criminals in the Matrix for the rest of their lives.

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Advances in the field of artificial intelligence are invariably greeted with concern about an imminent robot uprising. Similarly, when we hear about developments in the field of brain-to-brain communication, we imagine any number of outlandish scenarios: perhaps a government marching us unquestioningly into battle via a process of insidious mind control, or an erotic thought we had about a work colleague being unwittingly transmitted to our partner.

When Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced this week during one of his regular Q&A sessions that Facebook is working in the field of thought transmission, we found ourselves momentarily transported to a horrific telepathic future. “You’ll just be able to think of something and your friends will immediately be able to experience it too,” he said, as people thought to themselves “under no circumstances do I want anyone to know the dark, unsettling images that flash through my mind on an hourly basis”. We are troubled by that vision. But it’s only a vision. Read more

Researchers in the US have been testing a new type of antidepressant medication on rats, and say it’s able to treat the symptoms of depression in less than a day, compared to the three to eight weeks it takes current drugs to work. If the results can be replicated in humans, the drug could offer a much more effective option than treatments such as Prozac and Lexapro, which are only effective in only a third of patients who have been diagnosed with depression.

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