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By Esther Landhuis Last month, researchers discovered cells in the brainstem that regulate inflammation throughout the body. In response to an injury, these nerve cells not only sense inflammatory molecules, but also dial their circulating levels up and down to keep infections from harming healthy tissues. The discovery adds control of the immune system to the brainstem’s core functions — a list that also includes monitoring heart rate, breathing and aspects of taste — and suggests new potential targets for treating inflammatory disorders like arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. During an intense workout or high-stakes exam, your brain can sense the spike in your heart rate and help restore a normal rhythm. Likewise, the brain can help stabilize your blood pressure by triggering chemical signals that widen or constrict blood vessels. Such feats often go unnoticed, but they illustrate a fundamental concept of physiology known as homeostasis — the capacity of organisms to keep their internal systems working smoothly and stably amid shifting circumstances. Now, in a paper published on May 1 in Nature, researchers describe how homeostatic control extends even to the sprawl of cells and tissues that comprise our immune system. The team applied a clever genetic approach in mice to identify cells in the brainstem that adjust immune reactions to pathogens and other outside triggers. These neurons operate like a “volume controller” that keeps the animals’ inflammatory responses within a physiological range, said paper author Hao Jin, a neuroimmunologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. © 2024 Simons Foundation.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 13: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 9: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment; Chapter 11: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Link ID: 29361 - Posted: 06.15.2024

By Emily Underwood You’re driving somewhere, eyes on the road, when you start to feel a tingling sensation in your lower abdomen. That extra-large Coke you drank an hour ago has made its way through your kidneys into your bladder. “Time to pull over,” you think, scanning for an exit ramp. To most people, pulling into a highway rest stop is a profoundly mundane experience. But not to neuroscientist Rita Valentino, who has studied how the brain senses, interprets and acts on the bladder’s signals. She’s fascinated by the brain’s ability to take in sensations from the bladder, combine them with signals from outside of the body, like the sights and sounds of the road, then use that information to act — in this scenario, to find a safe, socially appropriate place to pee. “To me, it’s really an example of one of the beautiful things that the brain does,” she says. Scientists used to think that our bladders were ruled by a relatively straightforward reflex — an “on-off” switch between storing urine and letting it go. “Now we realize it’s much more complex than that,” says Valentino, now director of the division of neuroscience and behavior at the National Institute of Drug Abuse. An intricate network of brain regions that contribute to functions like decision-making, social interactions and awareness of our body’s internal state, also called interoception, participates in making the call. In addition to being mind-bogglingly complex, the system is also delicate. Scientists estimate, for example, that more than 1 in 10 adults have overactive bladder syndrome — a common constellation of symptoms that includes urinary urgency (the sensation of needing to pee even when the bladder isn’t full), nocturia (the need for frequent nightly bathroom visits) and incontinence. Although existing treatments can improve symptoms for some, they don’t work for many people, says Martin Michel, a pharmacologist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, who researches therapies for bladder disorders. Developing better drugs has proven so challenging that all major pharmaceutical companies have abandoned the effort, he adds.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 13: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment; Chapter 8: General Principles of Sensory Processing, Touch, and Pain
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 9: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 29337 - Posted: 06.02.2024

By The Transmitter It has been a year of many firsts for the Transmitter team. Despite launching this site just over a month ago, though, we published dozens of news stories on a range of important topics in neuroscience research earlier in the year in Spectrum. Here, we bring you a short list of some of our favorites, which broke news about changes in research leadership, exposed issues in studies involving human participants, provided new insights into the brain’s neuropeptide signaling network and memory-encoding mechanisms, and gave glimpses into the lives neuroscientists lead outside of work. ‘Wireless’ connectomes detail signaling outside synapses Connectomes were once again all the rage this year. As some teams continued to map the complete circuitry of increasingly larger brains — including those of a larval and an adult fruit fly — other teams went back to basics, plugging some invisible gaps of the humble roundworm’s synaptic connectome. Those latter efforts detail how neurons communicate using short proteins called neuropeptides outside synapses, helping to address key criticisms of conventional wiring diagrams. Neural ‘barcodes’ help seed-stashing birds recall their hidden haul As we enter the throes of winter here in New York City, some of the resident non-migratory birds may begin to seek out the seeds they stashed earlier in the year to help them survive for the next few months. Their ability to relocate their caches may stem from memories stored in the hippocampus in the form of non-overlapping patterns of brain activity, or “barcodes,” new research suggests. These barcodes originate when a bird hides a seed and reappear only when the bird returns to that same seed — and may represent the basis for episodic memories of specific events in time. © 2023 Simons Foundation.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook; Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Cells and Structure of the Nervous System
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System; Chapter 2: Neurophysiology: The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals
Link ID: 29068 - Posted: 12.27.2023

ByKatherine Kornei In the summer of 2021, a 54-year-old man was brought to a hospital in Northern California after an unexplained seizure. When an MRI revealed a mysterious mass in the left side of his brain, he was transferred to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Medical Center. A brain biopsy and other tests revealed not a tumor, but an incredibly rare infection of the central nervous system caused by the amoeba Balamuthia mandrillaris. One of several “brain-eating” amoebae that occasionally spark headlines, the pathogen kills more than 90% of people who contract it. But despite initial setbacks, the patient survived and has largely recovered after experimental treatment with a decades-old drug. As his UCSF medical team recounted in a paper last month, a desperate hunt for a cure led them to a study published several years ago in which researchers showed a drug originally developed in Europe to quell urinary tract infections was effective against Balamuthia in the laboratory. That discovery sent the medical team rushing to obtain the drug, nitroxoline, from abroad so it could be given for the first time to a Balamuthia patient. Researchers not involved with the case call the man’s recovery a breakthrough in treating a brain infection that’s long been presumed to be a death sentence. “It’s the best that I ever remember seeing with Balamuthia,” says Dennis Kyle, a cell biologist at the University of Georgia, Athens, who studies amoebic diseases. The drug, which is not approved for regular use in the United States, has also been effective against other pathogenic amoebae in laboratory tests, according to the UCSF team. Balamuthia mandrillaris was first identified in 1986—not in a hospital but at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, where staff were eagerly anticipating the birth of a mandrill, the largest species of monkey. But one day, Nyani, the mother-to-be, began dragging her right arm on the ground. Within 48 hours she became lethargic, and she eventually stopped moving and died. A postmortem evaluation of Nyani’s brain tissue revealed hemorrhaging and centimeter-scale lesions. The culprits were plainly visible: Amoebae were eating Nyani’s brain.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 28656 - Posted: 02.04.2023

By Eduardo Medina An infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba killed a child who swam in a Nebraska river over the weekend, health officials said Friday. It was the first such death in the state’s history and the second in the Midwest this summer. The child, whose name was not released by officials, contracted the infection, known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis, while swimming with family in a shallow part of the Elkhorn River in eastern Nebraska on Sunday, according to the Douglas County Health Department. At a news conference on Thursday, health officials said the typically fatal infection is caused by Naegleria fowleri, also known as brain-eating amoeba, and most likely led to the child’s death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Friday that it had found Naegleria fowleri in the child’s cerebrospinal fluid. Last month, a person in Missouri died because of the same amoeba infection, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. The person had been swimming at the beach at Lake of Three Fires State Park in Iowa. Out of precaution, the Iowa Department of Public Health closed the lake’s beach for about three weeks. The brain-eating amoebas, which are single-cell organisms, usually thrive in warm freshwater lakes, rivers, canals and ponds, though they can also be present in soil. They enter the body through the nose and then move into the brain. People usually become infected while swimming in lakes and rivers, according to the C.D.C. Infections from brain-eating amoeba are extremely rare: From 2012 to 2021, only 31 cases were reported in the U.S., according to the C.D.C. An infection, however, almost always leads to death. In the United States, there were 143 infections from 1962 through 2017. All but four of them were fatal, the C.D.C. said. More than half of the infections occurred in Texas and Florida, where the climate is warm and water activities are popular. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook; Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Cells and Structure of the Nervous System
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System; Chapter 2: Neurophysiology: The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals
Link ID: 28437 - Posted: 08.20.2022

Bill Chappell Its name alone is terrifying. Add the fact that it kills most people it infects — and that while infections are rare, the parasite is fairly common — it's not surprising that a confirmed case of Naegleria fowleri infection in a swimmer in Iowa is drawing attention. Iowa officials closed the beach at Lake of Three Fires State Park on Thursday after confirming that a person who swam there was infected with Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba that causes a disease called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). It's both extremely rare — and extremely deadly. "The fatality rate is over 97%," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says of PAM infections. "Only four people out of 154 known infected individuals in the United States from 1962 to 2021 have survived." Details about the Iowa case have not yet been released. The person was visiting from Missouri, which is just over the border from the park in Iowa's southwest. Iowa's Department of Health and Human Services says it's working with the CDC to confirm whether Naegleria fowleri is present in the lake — a process that takes several days. The state agency is also in contact with the Missouri Department of Health, an Iowa representative told NPR. "It's strongly believed by public health experts that the lake is a likely source," Missouri's health department said on Friday. But it added, "Additional public water sources in Missouri are being tested." © 2022 npr

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Cells and Structure of the Nervous System; Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 2: Neurophysiology: The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals; Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System
Link ID: 28392 - Posted: 07.12.2022

By Rachel Nuwer Whether we’ve got the flu or have had too much to drink, most of us have experienced nausea. Unlike other universal sensations such as hunger and thirst, however, scientists still don’t understand the biology behind the feeling—or how to stop it. A new study in mice identifies a possible key player: specialized brain cells that communicate with the gut to turn off the feeling of nausea. It’s an “elegant” study, says Nancy Thornberry, CEO of Kallyope, a biotechnology company focused on the interplay between the gut and the brain. Further research is needed to translate the finding into antinausea therapies, says Thornberry, who was not involved with the work, but the data suggest possible leads for designing new interventions. To conduct the research, Chuchu Zhang, a neuroscience postdoc at Harvard University, and her colleagues focused on the “area postrema,” a tiny structure in the brainstem first linked to nausea in the 1950s. Electrical stimulation of the region induces vomiting in animals. Last year, Zhang’s team identified two types of specialized excitatory neurons in the area postrema that induce nausea behavior in mice. Rodents can’t throw up, but they curl up in discomfort when they feel nauseous. Zhang and her colleagues showed the excitatory neurons in the area postrema are responsible for these behaviors by stimulating the cells. Genetic sequencing of cells in the area postrema also revealed inhibitory neurons in the region, which the scientists suspected may suppress the activity of the excitatory neurons and play a role in stopping the feeling of nausea. So in the new study, Zhang’s team injected mice with glucose insulinotropic peptide (GIP), a gut-derived hormone that humans and other animals produce after we ingest sugar and fat. Previous research in ferrets has shown GIP inhibits vomiting, and Zhang hypothesizes it may suppress nausea to prevent us from losing precious nutrients. She also thought it might play a role in activating nausea-inhibiting neurons. © 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 13: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 9: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment; Chapter 11: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Link ID: 28384 - Posted: 06.30.2022

Jon Hamilton Researchers appear to have shown how the brain creates two different kinds of thirst. The process involves two types of brain cells, one that responds to a decline in fluid in our bodies, while the other monitors levels of salt and other minerals, a team reports in the journal Nature. Together, these specialized thirst cells seem to determine whether animals and people crave pure water or something like a sports drink, which contains salt and other minerals. "Our brain can detect these two distinct stimuli with different cell types," says Yuki Oka, a professor of biology at Caltech and the study's lead author. The finding appears to help answer "this question that we've been trying to ask for decades and decades and decades," says Sean Stocker, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies water and salt balance in the body. Stocker was not involved in the study. Oka's research is part of an effort to understand the brain biology underlying behavior that's seen in people and many animals. Article continues after sponsor message For example, people who've just finished a long, sweaty workout often experience a special kind of thirst. "Pure water doesn't do it, right? It's not enough," Oka says. "You need water and salt to recover. And we can easily imagine that under such condition, we crave [a] sport drink." Sports drinks like Gatorade generally include a mix of salt and sugar, as well as water. To understand what triggers this type of thirst, Oka's team studied cells in two regions of mouse brains. Both regions are known to contain neurons involved in the sensation of thirst. © 2020 npr

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 13: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 9: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment
Link ID: 27527 - Posted: 10.16.2020

Paulina Villegas Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration in Brazoria County on Sunday after the discovery in the local water supply system of an amoeba that can cause a rare and deadly infection of the brain. “The state of Texas is taking swift action to respond to the situation and support the communities whose water systems have been impacted by this ameba,” Abbott (R) in a news release Sunday. “I urge Texans in Lake Jackson to follow the guidance of local officials and take the appropriate precautions to protect their health and safety as we work to restore safe tap water in the community.” The governor’s declaration follows an investigation of the death of 6-year-old Josiah McIntyre in Lake Jackson this month after he contracted the brain-eating microbe, which prompted local authorities and experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test the water. The preliminary results came back Friday, showing that three out of 11 samples collected tested positive. One of the samples came from a hose bib at the boy’s home, Lake Jackson City Manager Modesto Mundo said, according to CBS News. The others came from a “splash pad” play fountain and a hydrant. “The notification to us at that time was that he had played at one of [the] play fountains and he may have also played with a water hose at the home,” Mundo said. On Friday night, the Brazosport Water Authority issued a do-not-use advisory for eight communities after confirmation of the presence of Naegleria fowleri, which destroys brain tissue, then causes swelling of the brain, known as amebic meningoencephalitis. It urged residents to not use the tap water for drinking and cooking. © 1996-2020 The Washington Post

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System
Link ID: 27499 - Posted: 09.30.2020

By Sam Roberts Donald Kennedy, a neurobiologist who headed the Food and Drug Administration before becoming president of Stanford University, where he oversaw major expansions of its campus and curriculum and weathered a crisis over research spending, died on April 21 in Redwood City, Calif. He was 88. His death, at a residential care facility, was caused by complications of the new coronavirus, his wife, Robin Kennedy, said. He had suffered a severe stroke in 2015. Stanford had been Dr. Kennedy’s life since 1960, when, not yet 30, he joined its faculty as an assistant professor of biology. And except for a stint in the late 1970s as head of the F.D.A. under President Jimmy Carter, he remained wedded to the university, becoming provost and then president in 1980, beginning an 11-year tenure. It was a productive one. During his presidency the university opened the Stanford Humanities Center and campuses in Oxford, England; Kyoto, Japan; and Washington; diversified the Western culture curriculum; and raised $1.2 billion in a five-year centennial campaign, although by the end of the decade the university was facing deficits. His tenure also coincided with fiery debates over antiwar protests and academic freedom by both professors and students, divestiture of the university’s holdings in companys doing business in South Africa, and $160 million in damage inflicted by the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989. A would-be writer who had become a neurobiologist in college adventitiously, Dr. Kennedy found his leadership under the microscope in the early 1990s, when the university was accused — and later cleared — of improperly billing the Navy for research expenses. The accusations were aired by federal auditors and Representative John D. Dingell Jr., a tenacious Michigan Democrat, who said that Stanford may have billed the government for as much as $200 million in improper expenses on research contracts for over a decade. © 2020 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 20:
Link ID: 27214 - Posted: 04.27.2020

By Laura Sanders Neuroscientists love a good metaphor. Through the years, plumbing, telegraph wires and computers have all been enlisted to help explain how the brain operates, neurobiologist and historian Matthew Cobb writes in The Idea of the Brain. And like any metaphor, those approximations all fall short. Cobb leads a fascinating tour of how concepts of the brain have morphed over time. His writing is clear, thoughtful and, when called for, funny. He describes experiments by neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, who zapped awake patients’ brains with electricity to provoke reactions. Zapping certain places consistently dredged up memories, which Cobb calls “oneiric experiences.” His footnote on the term: “Look it up. It’s exactly the right word.” I did, and it was. Cobb runs though the history of certain concepts used to explain how the brain works, including electricity, evolution and neurons. Next comes a section on the present, which includes discussions of memory, circuits and consciousness. Cobb offers tastes of the latest research, and a heavy dose of realism. Memory studies have made progress, but “we are still far from understanding what is happening when we remember,” Cobb writes. Despite big efforts, “we still only dimly understand what is going on when we see.” Our understanding of how antidepressants work? “Virtually non-existent.” This real talk is refreshing, and Cobb uses it to great effect to argue that neuroscience is stymied. “There have been many similar moments in the past, when brain researchers became uncertain about how to proceed,” he writes. Scientists have amassed an impressive stockpile of brain facts, but a true understanding of how the brain works eludes us. © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2020

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook; Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 20: ; Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 27206 - Posted: 04.22.2020

Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press A 58-year-old woman hospitalized in the Henry Ford Health System who has the new coronavirus developed a rare complication: encephalitis. In a case report published online Tuesday in the journal Radiology, a team of doctors say the woman tested positive for the coronavirus, but also developed a case of acute necrotizing encephalitis, or ANE, a central nervous infection that mostly afflicts young children. It is believed to be the first published case linking COVID-19 and acute necrotizing encephalitis. The rare and serious brain disease can develop in people who have a viral infection, and causes lesions to form in the brain, tissue death and symptoms such as seizures, drowsiness, confusion and coma. The woman, who was identified as an airline worker, had several days of fever, cough and muscle aches, and was taken by ambulance March 19 to a Henry Ford emergency room, said Dr. Elissa Fory, a Henry Ford neurologist. The patient also showed signs of confusion, lethargy and disorientation. A flu test turned up negative but a rapid COVID-19 test, developed in-house by Henry Ford’s clinical microbiology lab, confirmed she had the coronavirus, Fory said. When the woman remained lethargic, doctors ordered repeat CT and MRI scans, which revealed abnormal lesions in both thalami and temporal lobes, parts of the brain that control consciousness, sensation and memory function. These scans confirmed doctors’ early suspicions.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Cells and Structure of the Nervous System
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System
Link ID: 27160 - Posted: 04.02.2020

Eric Haseltine A recent bulletin from physicians in the UK described the loss of smell and taste in COVID-19 patients, suggesting that the virus might affect parts of the central nervous system, in addition to its well-known affinity for the respiratory system. Indeed, in an earlier outbreak of coronavirus in China, Hong Kong researcher Dr. K.K. Lau and co-workers found that some patients exhibited convulsions, delirium and restlessness, while Dr. Jun Xu, of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases estimated that 4-5% of all SARS coronavirus patients displayed central nervous system symptoms. Some SARS coronavirus patients have even exhibited marked brain damage on CAT scans. In the latest outbreak of coronavirus, evidence of central nervous system involvement is accumulating, such as a March 21st report by Dr. Asia Filatov of Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, that a COVID-19 patient exhibited encephalopathy (brain disease). And recent data from Wuhan, described in the March 12 edition of Neurology Today, indicate that neurological symptoms, such as "altered consciousness," occur in up to one third of COVID-19 cases. But could central nervous system action of COVID-19 directly contribute to the acute respiratory distress associated with the disease? The answer might be “yes” according to recent collaborative research from Drs. Y.C. LI and W.Z. Bai Dr. T. and Hashikawa in Japan. Writing in the Feb 27 edition of the Journal of Medical Virology, Li and colleagues, cite research on coronavirus showing that sometimes SARS-Cov infects brainstem centers that control respiration, making it difficult for infected patients to breathe spontaneously. © 2020 Sussex Publishers, LLC

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Cells and Structure of the Nervous System
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System
Link ID: 27142 - Posted: 03.25.2020

By Brian Platzer Three years ago I wrote an essay for Well about the chronic dizziness that had devastated my life. In response, I received thousands of letters, calls, tweets, emails and messages from Times readers who were grateful to see a version of their own story made public. Their symptoms varied. While some experienced a constant disequilibrium and brain fog that were similar to mine, others had become accustomed to a pattern of short periods of relative health alternating with longer periods of vertigo. Most of them, like me, felt that family and friends often didn’t understand how dizziness could be so debilitating. They told me that the combination of the loneliness and feelings of uselessness that come from an inability to work or spend time with family led to despair and depression. And, most commonly, they felt that the medical system made them feel responsible for their own suffering. “Doctors began to suggest that anxiety or depression were the cause of my symptoms,” a young woman from Connecticut wrote. “I eventually gave up on the quest for answers, as their attitudes added stress to an already stressful reality.” “Have been to so many doctors that keep saying, ‘It’s all in your head. There’s nothing wrong with you,’” wrote an older woman from Ohio. “Mostly been told there is nothing they can find,” wrote a middle-aged woman from Illinois. Her doctor told her it was probably just depression and anxiety. Dizziness is among the most common reasons people visit their doctor in the United States. When patients first experience prolonged dizziness, they may go to an emergency room or to see their primary care physician. That’s what I did. And I heard what most patients hear: “People get dizzy for all sorts of reasons, and it should resolve itself soon.” It’s true that dizziness often is a temporary symptom. The most common causes of dizziness are benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (caused by displaced pieces of small bone-like calcium in the inner ear), and vestibular neuritis (dizziness attributed to a viral infection or tiny stroke of the vestibular nerve), both of which typically last only weeks or months. © 2020 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 9: Hearing, Balance, Taste, and Smell
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 6: Hearing, Balance, Taste, and Smell
Link ID: 27036 - Posted: 02.13.2020

By Bradley Berman The day is approaching when commuters stuck in soul-crushing traffic will be freed from the drudgery of driving. Companies are investing billions to devise sensors and algorithms so motorists can turn our attention to where we like it these days: our phones. But before the great promise of multitasking on the road can be realized, we need to overcome an age-old problem: motion sickness. “The autonomous-vehicle community understands this is a real problem it has to deal with,” said Monica Jones, a transportation researcher at the University of Michigan. “That motivates me to be very systematic.” So starting in 2017, Ms. Jones led a series of studies in which more than 150 people were strapped into the front seat of a 2007 Honda Accord. They were wired with sensors and set on a ride that included roughly 50 left-hand turns and other maneuvers. Each subject was tossed along the same twisty route for a second time but also asked to complete a set of 13 simple cognitive and visual tasks on an iPad Mini. About 11 percent of the riders got nauseated or, for other reasons, asked that the car be stopped. Four percent vomited. Ms. Jones takes no joy in documenting her subjects’ getting dizzy, hyperventilating or losing their lunch. She feels their pain. Ms. Jones, a chronic sufferer of motion sickness, has experienced those discomforts in car back seats all her life. “I don’t remember not experiencing it,” she said. “As I’m getting older, it’s getting worse.” It’s also getting worse for the legions of commuters hailing Ubers or taxis and hopping in, barely lifting their gaze from a screen in the process. © 2020 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 9: Hearing, Balance, Taste, and Smell
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 6: Hearing, Balance, Taste, and Smell
Link ID: 26976 - Posted: 01.21.2020

Lateshia Beachum A Chinese man sought medical attention for seizures and a headache that lasted nearly a month. Doctors found that tapeworms from undercooked meat were causing his pain. Researchers at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University published a paper last week that details the plight of 46-year-old construction worker Zhu (an alias for the patient) in the eastern Zhejiang province of China who bought pork and mutton about a month ago for a spicy hot pot broth. Days later, the man started feeling dizzy, having headaches and experiencing epilepsy-like symptoms such as limb twitching and mouth foaming while trying to sleep at night, according to the report. Co-workers witnessed one of Zhu’s episodes and dialed for emergency help. He was seen at a hospital where scans and tests showed that he had multiple intracranial calcifications, abnormal deposits of calcium in blood vessels to the brain; and multiple intracranial lesions, according to researchers. Medical staff wanted to examine him further, but he dismissed their concerns because he didn’t want to spend more money, according to the report. The symptoms that sent Zhu to the hospital persisted after he left, researchers reported. He became frightened. He spoke with his relatives about seeking medical treatment before deciding on care at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University Medical College. Huang Jianrong, the hospital’s chief doctor, consulted Zhu and learned that he had eaten pork and mutton not too long ago, according to the report.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 20:
Link ID: 26855 - Posted: 11.29.2019

By Michelle Roberts Health editor, BBC News online An infectious disease that can harm the brain and is spread to people by tick bites has been identified in ticks in the UK for the first time. Public Health England (PHE) says it has confirmed cases of tick-borne encephalitis virus in ticks from two parts of England - Thetford Forest and an area on the Hampshire-Dorset border. PHE says the risk to people is still "very low". It is monitoring the situation to check how common the infected ticks may be. What is it? A tick is a tiny, spider-like creature that lives in undergrowth and on animals, including deer and dogs. People who spend time walking in countryside areas where infected ticks can be found are at risk of being bitten and catching diseases they carry. Tick-borne encephalitis virus is already circulating in mainland Europe and Scandinavia, as well as Asia. Evidence now shows it has reached the UK. How it got here is less clear. Experts say infected ticks may have hitched a ride on migratory birds. Earlier this year, a European visitor, who has since recovered, became ill after being bitten by a tick while in the New Forest area, Public Health England says. Further investigations revealed infected ticks were present in two locations in England. Should I worry? Ticks are becoming more common across many parts of the UK, largely due to increasing deer numbers. Being bitten by one doesn't necessarily mean you will get sick. Dr Nick Phin, from Public Health England, said: ''These are early research findings and indicate the need for further work. However, the risk to the general public is currently assessed to be very low." Most people who catch the virus will have no or only mild flu-like symptoms. But the disease can progress to affect the brain and central nervous system and can sometimes be fatal. © 2019 BBC

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Cells and Structure of the Nervous System; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 1: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System; Chapter 11: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Link ID: 26782 - Posted: 11.02.2019

By Gary Stix Sigmund Freud never uttered the word neuroscience. Neither did Santiago Ramón y Cajal. It was biophysicist Francis Schmitt who grafted “neuro” with “science” in 1962 when he established the Neurosciences Research Program at MIT. The new moniker was intended to encompass a merging of relevant neuro disciplines, ranging as far afield as physiology, psychology, immunology, physics and chemistry. Brains and behaviors have been scrutinized for millennia. But as psychology blogger Vaughn Bell has pointed out, the 1960s marked a shift in perspective. Neuroscience was the formal name given by Schmitt. But the period represented the beginnings of a “neuroculture,” that put brain science on a pedestal —even leading to the familiar meme proclaiming “my brain made me do it.” One example was rooted in pharmaceutical companies’ development of psychiatric drugs that resulted in their investing “millions both into divining the neurochemistry of experience and into massive marketing campaigns that linked brain functions to the psyche,” Bell notes. The field received an adrenaline boost precisely 50 years ago with the founding of the Society for Neuroscience, allowing Schmitt’s collaborative vision to be globally shared. SFN’s first annual meeting in 1971 drew 1,395 attendees to Washington, D.C. This year’s wrapped up on October 23, bringing more than 27,500 to Chicago—and the annual numbers have occasionally topped 30,000. SFN now boasts 37,000 members from more than 95 countries. © 2019 Scientific American

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 20: ; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 26766 - Posted: 10.30.2019

By Kate Murphy Maybe it was because when the waiter asked, “Still or sparkling?” you chose sparkling. It could have also been that you were ravenous and ate a little too much. Or, possibly, it was your ex, who happened to be dining at the same restaurant and stood a little too long over your table making awkward small talk. All of these things, hic, might cause spasms, hic, in your diaphragm, hic. Referred to in the medical literature as singultus (from the Latin singult, which means gasp or sob), hiccups are familiar to anyone who has ever taken a breath. In fact, you begin to hiccup while still in the womb. Most people hiccup the most during childhood, with the bouts becoming less frequent over time, but even in adulthood, hiccups are still a common, and annoying, occurrence. Just as we all have our own particular way of sneezing, we all have a unique way of hiccuping that can range from four to 60 hiccups per minute. Most hiccups are benign and last only a few minutes or hours. But sometimes hiccups are indicative of a more serious health issue, particularly when they recur or don’t go away for days, weeks or years. Beyond being embarrassing, the muscle contractions can be physically exhausting. They can interrupt sleep and make it hard to eat. Approximately 4,000 people in the United States are admitted to the hospital every year for hiccups. The patient with the longest recorded case, according to Guinness World Records, was Charles Osborne of Anthon, Iowa, who hiccuped for 68 years straight. He claimed it started while attempting to weigh a hog before slaughtering it. Doctors say there are as many causes for hiccups as there are crazy remedies, including tugging on your tongue, standing on your head and swallowing granulated sugar. Some actually work. Others are more likely just entertainment for friends and family who watch while you try to cure yourself. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook; Chapter 13: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 20: ; Chapter 9: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment
Link ID: 26503 - Posted: 08.15.2019

By Jennifer Leman, Liz Tormes Art and neuroscience have been intertwined for centuries. Early surgeons and scientists who poked and prodded inside cranial cavities—such as Santiago Ramón y Cajal—often drew what they saw. These artistic renderings played a critical role in helping researchers grapple with the mysteries of our most vital organ. (Cajal even shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for his drawings.) Methods for exploring the brain have (thankfully) changed, and our understanding has evolved. The desire to visualize what we discover, however, has persisted. For the ninth year in a row, the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam has published the winners of its annual Art of Neuroscience competition. The contest celebrates artists and scientists who strive to illustrate the brain’s complexities. This year’s entrants questioned the origins of imagination, imaged collagen fiber, modeled starlike brain cells called astrocytes and explored other intricacies. Presented below—selected from 87 submissions representing 25 countries—are the winning entry, four honorable mentions and five works selected by Scientific American’s editors.* This video employs three artificial-intelligence-based computing systems inspired by human brain networks. The resulting three neural networks simulate the brain’s ability to generate abstract images, sounds and concepts inspired by prior experiences, a phenomenon better known as imagination. In the winning video, produced by members of the pt9 art group at Far Eastern Federal University in Russia, one neural network produces a string of jarring images prompted by a catalogue of existing photographs; a second neural network generates image descriptions; and the third neural network reads the descriptions aloud. © 2019 Scientific American

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 20:
Link ID: 26466 - Posted: 07.30.2019