By BENEDICT CAREY Scientists have developed a brain implant that noticeably boosted memory in its first serious test run, perhaps offering a promising new strategy to treat dementia, traumatic brain injuries and other conditions that damage memory. The device works like a pacemaker, sending electrical pulses to aid the brain when it is struggling to store new information, but remaining quiet when it senses that the brain is functioning well. In the test, reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, the device improved word recall by 15 percent — roughly the amount that Alzheimer’s disease steals over two and half years. The implant is still experimental; the researchers are currently in discussions to commercialize the technology. And its broad applicability is unknown, having been tested so far only in people with epilepsy. Experts cautioned that the potential for misuse of any “memory booster” is enormous — A.D.H.D. drugs are widely used as study aids. They also said that a 15 percent improvement is fairly modest. Still, the research marks the arrival of new kind of device: an autonomous aid that enhances normal, but less than optimal, cognitive function. Doctors have used similar implants for years to block abnormal bursts of activity in the brain, most commonly in people with Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. “The exciting thing about this is that, if it can be replicated and extended, then we can use the same method to figure out what features of brain activity predict good performance,” said Bradley Voytek, an assistant professor of cognitive and data science at the University of California, San Diego. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Robotics
Link ID: 24629 - Posted: 02.07.2018

Kratom, a coffee-like plant native to southeast Asia which has similar properties to heroin and morphine is readily available in Canada. (Earth Kratom) U.S. health authorities say an herbal supplement promoted as an alternative pain remedy contains the same chemicals found in opioids, the addictive family of drugs at the centre of a national addiction crisis. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration analysis, published Tuesday, makes it more likely that the supplement, kratom, could be banned by the federal government. The FDA also said it has identified 44 reports of death involving kratom since 2011, up from 36 reported in November. Sold in various capsules and powders, kratom has gained popularity in the U.S. as a treatment for pain, anxiety and drug dependence. Proponents argue that the substance is safer than opioid painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin, which have contributed to an epidemic of drug abuse. More than 63,000 Americans died in 2016 from drug overdoses, mostly from opioids. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb reiterated that there are no FDA-approved medical uses for kratom, which is derived from a plant native to Southeast Asia. "Claiming that kratom is benign because it's 'just a plant' is shortsighted and dangerous," Gottlieb said in a statement. "It's an opioid. And it's an opioid that's associated with novel risks because of the variability in how it's being formulated, sold and used recreationally." ©2018 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24628 - Posted: 02.07.2018

The supplement nicotinamide riboside (NR) – a form of vitamin B3 – prevented neurological damage and improved cognitive and physical function in a new mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. The results of the study, conducted by researchers at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) part of the National Institutes of Health, suggest a potential new target for treating Alzheimer’s disease. The findings appear in the Feb. 5, 2018, issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. NR acts on the brain by normalizing levels of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), a metabolite vital to cellular energy, stem cell self-renewal, resistance to neuronal stress and DNA repair. In Alzheimer’s disease, the brain’s usual DNA repair activity is impaired, leading to mitochondrial dysfunction, lower neuron production, and increased neuronal dysfunction and inflammation. “The pursuit of interventions to prevent or delay Alzheimer’s and related dementias is an important national priority,” said Richard J. Hodes, M.D., director of the NIA. “We are encouraging the testing of a variety of new approaches, and this study’s positive results suggest one avenue to pursue further.” Based on their studies in human postmortem brain, they developed a new strain of mice mimicking major features of human Alzheimer’s such as tau pathology, failing synapses, neuronal death and cognitive impairment. Using this animal model, the researchers tested the effects of an NR supplement by adding it to the drinking water of the mice. Over a three-month period, researchers found that mice who received NR showed reduced tau in their brains, but no change in amyloid-beta.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 24627 - Posted: 02.07.2018

By PAM BELLUCK More American children than previously thought may be suffering from neurological damage because their mothers drank alcohol during pregnancy, according to a new study. The study, published Tuesday in the journal JAMA, estimates that fetal alcohol syndrome and other alcohol-related disorders among American children are at least as common as autism. The disorders can cause cognitive, behavioral and physical problems that hurt children’s development and learning ability. The researchers evaluated about 3,000 children in schools in four communities across the United States and interviewed many of their mothers. Based on their findings, they estimated conservatively that fetal alcohol spectrum disorders affect 1.1 to 5 percent of children in the country, up to five times previous estimates. About 1.5 percent of children are currently diagnosed with autism. “This is an equally common, or more common, disorder and one that’s completely preventable and one that we are missing,” said Christina Chambers, one of the study authors and a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego. “If it truly is affecting a substantial proportion of the population, then we can do something about it. We can provide better services for those kids, and we can do a better job of preventing the disorders to begin with.” The range of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (also called FASDs) can cause cognitive, behavioral and physical difficulties. The most severe is fetal alcohol syndrome, in which children have smaller-than-typical heads and bodies, as well as eyes unusually short in width, thin upper lips, and smoother-than-usual skin between the nose and mouth, Dr. Chambers said. A moderate form is partial fetal alcohol syndrome. Less severe is alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder, in which children have neurological but not physical characteristics and it is known that their mothers drank during pregnancy. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24626 - Posted: 02.07.2018

By Daniel Barron When my son was born a few months ago, he quickly established himself as the tyrant of our household, one that ruled with a singular phonetic ultimatum (“Oooo—whaaah”), tiny iron fists clutched in fury, and a face that roiled like the churning sea. His placid silence instantly devolved to wrath, wrath (once appeased) acquiesced to staring, staring occasionally melted into surprise, an overabundance of which puddled into an outstretched, fearful startle. In his tough, all-work-no-play gig, he presided for weeks without smiling, cooing, giggling or any apparent sign of happiness. During these overtures, I often wondered why he never cracked a smile. His well fashioned grimace—complete with frown, furrow and squint—proved that his facial muscles were strong enough and coordinated enough to make any number of expressions. In the absence of expressions of happiness, was he unhappy? I thought on the idea for a while and, in the end, consulted a couple of my neuroscientist colleagues at Yale: Al Kaye, a fourth-year psychiatry resident and Dustin Scheinost, an assistant professor with appointments in the Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging and in Yale’s Child Study Center. The three of us have young sons and (I hope) enjoyed the back and forth about whether, during their first weeks, our little men were in fact not happy. © 2018 Scientific America

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Emotions
Link ID: 24625 - Posted: 02.07.2018

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR People with acne are at substantially higher risk for depression in the first years after the condition appears, a new study reports. Researchers used a British database of 134,427 men and women with acne and 1,731,608 without and followed them for 15 years. Most were under 19 at the start of the study, though they ranged in age from 7 to 50. The study is in the British Journal of Dermatology. Over the 15-year study period, the probability of developing major depression was 18.5 percent among patients with acne and 12 percent in those without. People with acne were more likely to be female, younger, nonsmokers and of higher socioeconomic status. They were also less likely to use alcohol or be obese. After adjusting for these factors, the scientists found that the increased risk for depression persisted only for the first five years after diagnosis. The risk was highest in the first year, when there was a 63 percent increased risk of depression in a person with acne compared to someone without. The reason for the association is unclear. The lead author, Isabelle A. Vallerand, an epidemiologist at the University of Calgary, said she was surprised to see such a markedly increased risk. “It appears that acne is a lot more than just skin deep,” she said. “It can have a substantial impact on overall mental health.” © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 24624 - Posted: 02.07.2018

By NATALIE ANGIER Every night during breeding season, the male túngara frog of Central America will stake out a performance patch in the local pond and spend unbroken hours broadcasting his splendor to the world. The mud-brown frog is barely the size of a shelled pecan, but his call is large and dynamic, a long downward sweep that sounds remarkably like a phaser weapon on “Star Trek,” followed by a brief, twangy, harmonically dense chuck. Unless, that is, a competing male starts calling nearby, in which case the first frog is likely to add two chucks to the tail of his sweep. And should his rival respond likewise, Male A will tack on three chucks. Back and forth they go, call and raise, until the frogs hit their respiratory limit at six to seven rapid-fire chucks. The acoustic one-upfrogship is energetically draining and risks attracting predators like bats. Yet the male frogs have no choice but to keep count of the competition, for the simple reason that female túngaras are doing the same: listening, counting and ultimately mating with the male of maximum chucks. Behind the frog’s surprisingly sophisticated number sense, scientists have found, are specialized cells located in the amphibian midbrain that tally up sound signals and the intervals between them. “The neurons are counting the number of appropriate pulses, and they’re highly selective,” said Gary Rose, a biologist at the University of Utah. If the timing between pulses is off by just a fraction of a second, the neurons don’t fire and the counting process breaks down. “It’s game over,” Dr. Rose said. “Just as in human communication, an inappropriate comment can end the whole conversation.” © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention; Evolution
Link ID: 24623 - Posted: 02.06.2018

By Helen Shen Noninvasive brain stimulation is having its heyday, as scientists and hobbyists alike look for ways to change the activity of neurons without cutting into the brain and implanting electrodes. One popular set of techniques, called transcranial electrical stimulation (TES), delivers electrical current via electrodes stuck to the scalp, typically above the target brain area. In recent years a number of studies have attributed wide-ranging benefits to TES including enhancing memory, improving math skills, alleviating depression and even speeding recovery from stroke. Such results have also spawned a cottage industry providing commercial TES kits for DIY brain hackers seeking to boost their mind power. But little is known about how TES actually interacts with the brain, and some studies have raised serious doubts about the effectiveness of these techniques. A study published on February 2 in Nature Communications ups the ante, reporting that conventional TES techniques do not deliver enough current to activate brain circuits or modulate brain rhythms. The electrical currents mostly fizzle out as they pass through the scalp and skull. “Anybody who has published a positive effect in this field is probably not going to like our paper,” says György Buzsáki, a neuroscientist at New York University and a senior author of the study. The mechanisms behind TES have remained mysterious, in part because without penetrating the skull, researchers cannot measure neural responses while they apply stimulation. Conventional TES methods produce electrical noise that swamps any brain activity detected on the scalp. © 2018 Scientific American

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 24622 - Posted: 02.06.2018

By LISA SANDERS, M.D. “Something’s wrong,” the woman told the young doctor, her face lined with worry. “This is not my husband.” The 68-year-old man lay unmoving in the hospital bed, his eyes dull, his face expressionless. His wife stood by him, as she had for nearly four decades of marriage. You don’t know him, she said, but if you did, you’d know that something is not right. George Goshua, a doctor in his first year of residency, looked at the distressed woman and then back at the man in the bed. He had spent nearly an hour reviewing the man’s hospital chart before coming to see him, and he knew the patient had been dangerously ill in the intensive-care unit for the last week. It all began about two weeks before, the wife explained. They were preparing for their son’s wedding, and her husband, normally a workhorse, was not feeling well. He was a tough guy — he worked as an estimator for a local builder and constructed his own house pretty much single-handedly. But now he said he was exhausted. At one point, just two days before the wedding, he said, “I think I might die.” At the time, she was irritated, because she thought he was just trying to get out of the work. Now she knew otherwise. They made it through the wedding, but the next day he was a wreck. His neck was stiff, as if there were a crick on both sides. He went to the local urgent-care center. They thought it was probably just a sore muscle and gave him something for the pain. The day after that, he had a fever. And the following day he was so weak he couldn’t walk. When his wife realized he was too sick to see his own doctor, she called an ambulance. As she struggled to get him out of his pajamas and into his clothes, he slid off the couch onto the floor. He just lay there, unable to even sit up. She couldn’t lift him. When the E.M.T.s arrived, they loaded him into an ambulance, and she followed them to Yale New Haven Hospital, in New Haven, Conn. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Movement Disorders
Link ID: 24621 - Posted: 02.06.2018

Ina Jaffe A study published Monday by Human Rights Watch finds that about 179,000 nursing home residents are being given antipsychotic drugs, even though they don't have schizophrenia or other serious mental illnesses that those drugs are designed to treat. Most of these residents have Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia and antipsychotics aren't approved for that. What's more, antipsychotic drugs come with a "black box warning" from the FDA, stating that they increase the risk of death in older people with dementia. The study concluded that antipsychotic drugs were often administered without informed consent and for the purpose of making dementia patients easier to handle in understaffed facilities. Researchers focused on six states, including California and Texas, which have the most skilled nursing facilities. They used publicly available data, along with hundreds of interviews with residents, families and state ombudsmen, the officials who deal with complaints about long term care facilities. In 2012, the federal government began a program to reduce the use of antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes, in partnership with the nursing home industry, and advocacy organizations. Since then, the use of the drugs has dropped by about a third nationwide, from 23.9 percent of residents in 2012 to 15.7 percent at the beginning of 2017. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have called for an additional 15 percent reduction by 2019 for those nursing homes that have lagged in curtailing their use of antipsychotics. © 2018 npr

Keyword: Alzheimers; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 24620 - Posted: 02.06.2018

Beth Marsh, Lilla Porffy, Meryem Grabski, Will Lawn January 2018 has come to an end and with it the month that people increasingly use to abstain from alcohol. It is still unknown whether Dry January has a lasting effect on drinking behaviours, and people with an alcohol dependency problem should always seek support from their GP before going through detox. Nonetheless, Dry January undoubtedly drives a critical conversation about alcohol use and provides an opportunity for us to reconsider our relationship with alcohol (one of the main goals of the charity Alcohol Concern, who support the challenge). While overall alcohol consumption in the UK is falling, alcohol abuse still represents the fifth biggest risk factor for illness, death and disability across all ages. With current treatments often failing to prevent relapse in the long term, researchers are investigating the possibility of using ketamine combined with psychological therapy to help people stay dry, and not just for January. Despite its often cited use as a recreational drug and “horse-tranquilizer” ketamine is also the most widely used anaesthetic in humans. Administered appropriately in a controlled and safe medical environment, ketamine may also have benefits in the treatment of drug problems. Evidence for this originally came from a research group in Russia in the 1980s. In this study, patients who had alcohol problems were given three weekly ketamine treatments in conjunction with psychological therapy. After one year, 66% of patients who underwent this treatment regime were abstinent, in comparison to 24% of patients who received treatment as usual, without any ketamine. This abstinence rate is much greater than those documented with any other relapse prevention method. © 2018 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24619 - Posted: 02.06.2018

Dana Boebinger Roughly 15 percent of Americans report some sort of hearing difficulty; trouble understanding conversations in noisy environments is one of the most common complaints. Unfortunately, there’s not much doctors or audiologists can do. Hearing aids can amplify things for ears that can’t quite pick up certain sounds, but they don’t distinguish between the voice of a friend at a party and the music in the background. The problem is not only one of technology, but also of brain wiring. Most hearing aid users say that even with their hearing aids, they still have difficulty communicating in noisy environments. As a neuroscientist who studies speech perception, this issue is prominent in much of my own research, as well as that of many others. The reason isn’t that they can’t hear the sounds; it’s that their brains can’t pick out the conversation from the background chatter. Harvard neuroscientists Dan Polley and Jonathon Whitton may have found a solution, by harnessing the brain’s incredible ability to learn and change itself. They have discovered that it may be possible for the brain to relearn how to distinguish between speech and noise. And the key to learning that skill could be a video game. People with hearing aids often report being frustrated with how their hearing aids handle noisy situations; it’s a key reason many people with hearing loss don’t wear hearing aids, even if they own them. People with untreated hearing loss – including those who don’t wear their hearing aids – are at increased risk of social isolation, depression and even dementia. © 2010–2018, The Conversation US, Inc.

Keyword: Hearing; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 24618 - Posted: 02.06.2018

By Jim Daley Researchers at the D’Or Institute for Research and Education in Brazil have created an algorithm that can use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to identify which musical pieces participants are listening to. The study, published last Friday (February 2) in Scientific Reports, involved six participants listening to 40 pieces of music from various genres, including classical, rock, pop, and jazz. “Our approach was capable of identifying musical pieces with improving accuracy across time and spatial coverage,” the researchers write in the paper. “It is worth noting that these results were obtained for a heterogeneous stimulus set . . . including distinct emotional categories of joy and tenderness.” The researchers first played different musical pieces for the participants and used fMRI to measure the neural signatures of each song. With that data, they taught a computer to identify brain activity that corresponded with the musical dimensions of each piece, including tonality, rhythm, and timbre, as well as a set of lower-level acoustic features. Then, the researchers played the pieces for the participants again while the computer tried to identify the music each person was listening to, based on fMRI responses. The computer was successful in decoding the fMRI information and identifying the musical pieces around 77 percent of the time when it had two options to choose from. When the researchers presented 10 possibilities, the computer was correct 74 percent of the time. © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Hearing; Brain imaging
Link ID: 24617 - Posted: 02.06.2018

By VERONIQUE GREENWOOD Of the five tastes — sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami — sour is one of the most mysterious. Bite into a piece of lemon and — bing! — your brain gets a message that something sour has arrived. But unlike sweet and bitter, for example, for which biologists have identified proteins on the tongue’s taste cells that detect the molecules involved, the sourness of acids like lemon juice and vinegar has remained enigmatic, with the exact details of how we pick up on it little understood. Now, however, in a paper published last month in Science, researchers report that they have found a protein in mouse taste cells that is likely a key player in the detection of sour flavors. There’s just one strange thing, though: Biologists have known about this protein for years. It was previously identified in the inner ear, or vestibular system, of mice, humans and many other creatures, where it is required for developing a sense of balance. The results suggest a fascinating truth about evolution: The first place something is discovered may not be the last place it turns up. If it has proved advantageous over the eons, a protein whose purpose we thought we understood may have a rich private life of its own elsewhere in the body, just waiting to be found. Similar discoveries have cropped up more and more in the last decade as researchers look more closely at which genes cells are using. This approach has led to the revelations that smell receptors are alive and well in the kidneys, bitter taste receptors dot the sinuses and testes, and sweet taste receptors are found in the bladder. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Hearing
Link ID: 24616 - Posted: 02.05.2018

Allison Aubrey To age well, we must eat well — there's been a lot of evidence that heart-healthy diets help protect the brain. The latest good news: A study recently published in Neurology finds that healthy seniors who had daily helpings of leafy green vegetables — such as spinach, kale and collard greens — had a slower rate of cognitive decline, compared to those who tended to eat little or no greens. "The association is quite strong," says study author Martha Clare Morris, a professor of nutrition science at Rush Medical College in Chicago. She also directs the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging. The research included 960 participants of the Memory and Aging Project. Their average age is 81, and none of them have dementia. Each year the participants undergo a battery of tests to assess their memory. Scientists also keep track their eating habits and lifestyle habits. To analyze the relationship between leafy greens and age-related cognitive changes, the researchers assigned each participant to one of five groups, according to the amount of greens eaten. Those who tended to eat the most greens comprised the top quintile, consuming, on average, about 1.3 servings per day. Those in the bottom quintile said they consume little or no greens. After about five years of follow-up/observation, "the rate of decline for [those] in the top quintile was about half the decline rate of those in the lowest quintile," Morris says. So, what's the most convenient way to get these greens into your diet? © 2018 npr

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 24615 - Posted: 02.05.2018

By Brian Resnick Football isn’t just a contact sport — it’s a dangerous game of massive bodies colliding into one another. And while it may seem obvious that this sport can do extraordinary damage to brains and bodies, it’s taken far too long for the NFL, the medical community, and football fans to fully reckon with this. And there’s no question that the legacy — and persistent threat — of brain injuries will haunt this Sunday’s Super Bowl match between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. The Patriots’ star tight end, Rob Gronkowski, was only cleared earlier this week for play after sustaining a concussion in the NFL Conference Championships win over the Jacksonville Jaguars on January 21. On game day, the NFL will have in place four concussion specialists around the field to ensure player safety. Even halftime performer Justin Timberlake told reporters his 3-year-old son will never play football, though it wasn’t entirely clear if he was joking. Doctors have learned a tremendous amount about concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain condition believed to be caused by repeated hits to the head, since the first former NFL player was diagnosed with CTE in the early 2000s. Concern around the issue has only grown now that more than 100 former NFL players have received a postmortem diagnosis of CTE. All the evidence we now have about the very serious risk of brain injuries in football casts a dim light on the future of the sport.

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 24614 - Posted: 02.05.2018

By EMILY KELLY My husband, Rob Kelly, is a retired N.F.L. player. After five seasons as a safety beginning in the late 1990s, four with the New Orleans Saints and one with the New England Patriots, he sustained an injury to a nerve between his neck and shoulder during training camp that ended his career. By the time he retired in 2002 at 28, he had been playing tackle football for about two decades. Rob had no idea, however, that all those years of playing would have such serious consequences. Safeties are the last line of defense and among the hardest hitters in the game. One tackle he attempted while playing for the Saints was so damaging, he doesn’t remember the rest of the game. He got up, ran off the field and tried to go back in — as an offensive player. He knows this only because people told him the next day. Professional football is a brutal sport, he knew that. But he loved it anyway. And he accepted the risks of bruises and broken bones. What he didn’t know was that along with a battered body can come a battered mind. For decades, it was not well understood that football can permanently harm the brain. Otherwise, many parents would most likely not have signed their boys up to play. But this reality was obscured by the N.F.L.’s top medical experts, who for years had denied any link between the sport and long-term degenerative brain diseases like chronic traumatic encephalopathy. That started to change in late 2009 when, for the first time, the N.F.L. publicly acknowledged that concussions can have long-term effects. In 2016, a top league official admitted that there is a connection between football and C.T.E., which has now been found in the brains of more than 100 deceased players. But for Rob, and countless other players, those admissions came too late. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 24613 - Posted: 02.05.2018

By Kendall Powell “It’s impossible that we still struggle to decide if coffee is healthy or unhealthy,” says Giuseppe Grosso, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Catania in Italy: Good for hypertension one week. Bad for hypertension the next. To address this vexing situation, Grosso and his colleagues collected all studies on the health effects of coffee, systematically reviewed the evidence, then offered up their bottom line in the Annual Review of Nutrition. Specifically, they looked at 127 meta-analyses, which lump together and statistically analyze studies on similar topics. A few of the studies were randomized controlled trials on coffee or caffeine administration, but most were observational studies of real-world coffee and caffeine consumption habits. (None of the review’s authors were paid by any food or beverage company.) For each meta-analysis, the team calculated the strength of the study’s designs and conclusions and then ranked its evidence for relationships between coffee and health on a scale from “convincing” all the way down to “limited.” No studies showed a “convincing” level of evidence — not surprisingly, since observational studies lack the rigor of ­gold-standard trials that use placebo controls. But several found “probable” evidence that coffee-drinking is associated with a decreased risk of many common cancers — including breast, colorectal, colon, endometrial and prostate — with a 2 to 20 percent reduction in risk, depending on the cancer type. © 1996-2018 The Washington Post

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24612 - Posted: 02.05.2018

By JOANNA KLEIN Plants don’t get enough credit. They move. You know this. Your houseplant salutes the sun each morning. At night, it returns to center. You probably don’t think much of it. This is simply what plants do: Get light. Photosynthesize. Make food. Live. But what about all the signs of plant intelligence that have been observed? Under poor soil conditions, the pea seems to be able to assess risk. The sensitive plant can make memories and learn to stop recoiling if you mess with it enough. The Venus fly trap appears to count when insects trigger its trap. And plants can communicate with one another and with caterpillars. Now, a study published recently in Annals of Botany has shown that plants can be frozen in place with a range of anesthetics, including the types that are used when you undergo surgery. Insights gleaned from the study may help doctors better understand the variety of anesthetics used in surgeries. But the research also highlights that plants are complex organisms, perhaps less different from animals than is often assumed. “Plants are not just robotic, stimulus-response devices,” said Frantisek Baluska, a plant cell biologist at the University of Bonn in Germany and co-author of the study. “They’re living organisms which have their own problems, maybe something like with humans feeling pain or joy.” “In order to navigate this complex life, they must have some compass.” © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Consciousness; Sleep
Link ID: 24611 - Posted: 02.03.2018

By Katie Langin Woodpeckers repeatedly whack their heads against trees with a force 10 times that of a concussion-inducing football tackle, yet they seem no worse for the wear. That has inspired some athletic companies to model helmets and neck collars on the head-banging birds. But woodpeckers may not be immune to head trauma after all. A new study shows that a protein whose abnormal buildup is considered a sign of human brain damage also accumulates in woodpecker brains. That raises an intriguing question: Could the newly discovered “tangles” of this protein, tau, be protecting the woodpecker brain from injury? The idea of concussionless woodpeckers dates back to 1976, when a seminal study that examined sections of the birds’ brains found no evidence of injury. That research spurred “a cascade of papers” on woodpecker biomechanics and their force-resisting adaptations, says George Farah, a neurobiologist at Boston University. Because the old study used an outdated staining method to reveal damage in the brain, he and his colleagues decided to redo the work with 21st century technology. They asked several museums for woodpecker specimens whose brains they could study. Their final haul: six downy woodpeckers, one yellow-bellied sapsucker, one northern flicker, one pale-billed woodpecker, and one lineated woodpecker. For comparison, they also got five brains from a non–head-banging species, the red-winged blackbird. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 24610 - Posted: 02.03.2018