Posts tagged science
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Researchers Find Evidence That Brain Compensates After Traumatic Injury
Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center have found that a special magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique may be able to predict which patients who have experienced concussions will improve. The results, which were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), suggest that, in some patients, the brain may change to compensate for the damage caused by the injury.
“This finding could lead to strategies for preventing and repairing the damage that accompanies traumatic brain injury,” said Michael Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., who led the study and is associate director of the Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center at Einstein and medical director of MRI services at Montefiore, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein.
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“In a traumatic brain injury, it’s not one specific area that is affected but multiple areas of the brain which are interconnected by axons,” said Dr. Lipton, who is also associate professor of radiology, of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience at Einstein. “Abnormally low FA within white matter has been correlated with cognitive impairment in concussion patients. We believe that high FA is evidence not of axonal injury, but of brain changes that are occurring in response to the trauma.”
Reading, Writing and Playing Games May Help Aging Brains Stay Healthy
Mental activities like reading and writing can preserve structural integrity in the brains of older people, according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
While previous research has shown an association between late-life cognitive activity and better mental acuity, the new study from Konstantinos Arfanakis, Ph.D., and colleagues from Rush University Medical Center and Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago studied what effect late-life cognitive activity might have on the brain’s white matter, which is composed of nerve fibers, or axons, that transmit information throughout the brain.
"Reading the newspaper, writing letters, visiting a library, attending a play or playing games, such as chess or checkers, are all simple activities that can contribute to a healthier brain," Dr. Arfanakis said.
The researchers used a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to generate data on diffusion anisotropy, a measure of how water molecules move through the brain. In white matter, diffusion anisotropy exploits the fact that water moves more easily in a direction parallel to the brain’s axons, and less easily perpendicular to the axons, because it is impeded by structures such as axonal membranes and myelin. “This difference in the diffusion rates along different directions increases diffusion anisotropy values,” Dr. Arfanakis said. “Diffusion anisotropy is higher when more diffusion is happening in one direction compared to others.”
The anisotropy values in white matter drop, however, with aging, injury and disease.
"In healthy white matter tissue, water can’t move as much in directions perpendicular to the nerve fibers," Dr. Arfanakis said. "But if, for example, you have lower neuronal density or less myelin, then the water has more freedom to move perpendicular to the fibers, so you would have reduced diffusion anisotropy. Lower diffusion anisotropy values are consistent with aging."
(Image credit: Flickr.com, Courtesy of Luis de Bethencourt)
Alzheimer’s Disease in Mice Alleviated Promising Therapeutic Approach for Humans
Pathological changes typical of Alzheimer’s disease were significantly reduced in mice by blockade of an immune system transmitter. A research team from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the University of Zurich has just published a new therapeutic approach in fighting Alzheimer’s disease in the current issue of Nature Medicine. This approach promises potential in prevention, as well as in cases where the disease has already set in.
The accumulation of particular abnormal proteins, including amyloid-ß (Aβ) among others, in patients’ brains plays a central role in this disease. Prof. Frank Heppner from the Department of Neuropathology at Charité and his colleague Prof. Burkhard Becher from the Institute for Experimental Immunology at the University of Zurich were able to show that turning off particular cytokines (immune system signal transmitters) reduced the Alzheimer’s typical amyloid-ß deposits in mice with the disease. As a result, the strongest effects were demonstrated after reducing amyloid-ß by approximately 65 percent, when the immune molecule p40 was affected, which is a component of the cytokines interleukin (IL)-12 and -23.
Brain Tissue Damage Experienced By Children With Fetal Alcohol Exposure
Drinking during pregnancy can have a severe, adverse effect on the central nervous systems of children after birth, researchers from Poland have discovered.
The study, which was presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), looked at 200 children who were exposed to alcohol during their fetal stage, as well as 30 other kids whose mothers did not drink while pregnant or during lactation.
The researchers used a trio of different MRI techniques in order to study the brain development of both groups of subjects. First, they used standard MRI scans to observe the size and shape of the corpus callosum, which is a group of nerve fibers that oversees communication between the two halves of the brain.
Fetal alcohol exposure is believed to be one of the primary causes of impaired development of the corpus callosum, and sure enough, the MRI scans revealed those who had been exposed to alcohol had “statistically significant thinning of the corpus callosum… compared with the other group,” the RSNA said in a statement.
They also used diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) to study six areas of the central nervous system in both groups. The DWI technique maps the diffusion of water in the brain and can be more successful in detecting tissue abnormalities than regular MRI scans, the researchers explained.
Again, children who had been exposed to alcohol “exhibited statistically significant increases in diffusion on DWI” than their counterparts — an indication there had been damage to the brain tissue, or the presence of neurological disorders, according to Dr Andrzej Urbanik, chair of the Department of Radiology at Jagiellonian University.
Finally, they used proton (hydrogen) magnetic resonance spectroscopy (HMRS) to study the metabolism in the youngsters’ brains. The results uncovered “a high degree of metabolic changes that were specific for particular locations within the brain,” according to Dr. Urbanik.
The RSNA, citing US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics, reports as many as 1.5 out of every 1,000 children born alive suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome, and the costs of treating those victims tops $4 billion annually in America alone.
(Source: redorbit.com)
Anatomical Wax Model cake based on the La Specola (Florence) museum collection of anatomical wax models from the late 18th century. This bizarre yet delicious human head cake was made by Conjurer’s Kitchen.
Wax anatomical model of human head, Europe, 1801-1900
The layers of this wax anatomical model of a human head have been peeled back to reveal the underlying structure of the brain and the meninges (the protective covering of the brain). The model may have been used to teach medical students the anatomy of the brain or have been made for medical exhibitions open to the general public.
Separation of a cell
This illustration shows a cell undergoing mitosis or “cell division.” The cell membrane is shown in blue, and the cell’s chromosomes are shown in yellow. Mitosis is a well-studied and well-imaged phenomenon in two-dimensional images, but it’s never before been seen quite like this. What makes this image special is the use of a new fluorescent protein called MiniSOG, shown flying out of the cell.
Image courtesy of Andrew Noske and Thomas Deerinck (National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, University of California, San Diego); Horng Ou and Clodagh O’Shea (Salk Institute).
(Source: MSNBC)
360 degree brain
This interactive feature gives visitors a chance to get a close-up of the brain’s structure. This brain was removed from a man’s skull shortly after his death and came from the Parkinson’s UK Brain Bank at Imperial College.
How Driving a Taxi Changes London Cabbies’ Brains
Every black-cab driver in central London has to have “The Knowledge” — a memorized map of the capital, including some 25,000 streets and thousands of landmarks, right down to the order of theaters on Shaftesbury Avenue.
It’s a brutal learning process that can take three to four years to complete, with a final test — the Knowledge of London Examination System — that often takes 12 attempts to pass. Even then, ultimately only half of the trainee cabbies ace the exam.
According to a report published in the journal Current Biology, successfully learning this mental atlas of London’s spaghetti streets causes structural changes in the brain, affects memory and creates a greater volume of nerve cells in the brain’s hippocampus.
Music to Your Brain by Dwayne Godwin and Jorge Cham