Down Syndrome In A Dish
Harvard scientists have created stems cells for 10 genetic disorders. These stems cells will allow these researchers to watch the diseases develop in a lab. This new technique could help to find treatments for some of the genetic diseases. Dr. George Daley and his colleagues at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute produced these stem cells by using skin cells and bone marrow from people with diseases such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Down syndrome. The new technique of re-programing cells gives these cells the qualities like embryonic stem cells, which can morph into all kinds of tissue, such as heart, nerve and brain. So researchers can see progression of each diseases in a dish. This technique can help to find a cure by knowing what goes right or wrong in a dish.
Photo Source: www.wellcome.ac.uk
Athletes Have Better Brain
Athletes not only get better and healthy body, they also have better brains. It has been found that a balanced diet and regular exercise can protect the brain and help prevent mental disorders. A person who does exercise regularly learn faster, remember more, think clearer and when brain injuries such as a stroke occurs they can bounce back more easily. They are also less affected by depression or any other age-related cognitive decline problems. When we exercise more, electric messages will be sent more often to the brain and eventually triggers a release of chemicals called growth factors. These growth factors make neurons stronger, healthier and improve one’s ability to learn.
Rare Foreign Accent Syndrome From Stroke
A woman from southern Ontario Canada, recovering from a rare brain syndrome due to stroke, starts to speak with a different accent, and this is the first reported cases in Canada. This woman’s family noticed the accent change while the woman was recovering from a stroke. Her Ontario accent now sounds like Maritime Canadian English.
Researcher Alexandre Sévigny, a cognitive scientist at McMaster University in Ontario said that this women never visited the Maritimes, nor has she been exposed to anyone with an East Coast accent. Karin Humphreys, a psychologist at McMaster University reported that the woman didn’t notice any changes in her accent. As strange as it sounds, the ongoing research at McMaster University will open a new perspective of FAS.
Revolutioned Brain Surgery
Sicentists from Howard Florey Institute, Melbourne are developing a revolutionized technology to create individualized brain maps to diagnosis diseases and guide the brain surgery. Current coarse maps of the brain’s structure do not allow for differences that occur between people. This brain mapping technology will provide microscopic level investigation of individual brains, and it will be available in the next 2-3 years.
Coma Is Equal To Daydreaming?
To find out whether brain-damaged patients will regain consciousness, researchers conducted a study on brain-injured patients with a variety of different levels of consciousness. Some part of the brain can stay active even the brain is severely damaged, and this could help to understand the chances of recovery. The “default network” in the brain seems to match the level of consciousness, and it is more active when the brain is not actively working and that links with daydreaming. With the help of default network, there is a 10% fall in normal activity in in minimally conscious patients, while in coma and “persistent vegetative state” patients, it falls by 35%, and no activity in the brain-dead patients.
Researchers believe that activity within the network will help to confirm the level of consciousness, and help the medical team to decide whether or not to treat the patient.
Photo Source: www.abc.net.au
Marriage Of Brain Science And The Internet
Researchers at Keio University have developed the world’s first demonstration experiment to help a disabled person to to chat and stroll through the virtual world by using brainwave. This technology will help motion-impaired people to communicate with others. This technology is a “marriage of brain science and the Internet”, and it opens an opportunity to meet with people and have chat in the virtual world.
The tech. uses electrodes attached to the scalp, and a computer detects brainwaves from the cortex when the subject slightly moves fingers, and it moves the avatar accordingly.
Reason For Irrational Fear
We worry too much about man-made catastrophe. We are disproportionately afraid of some things but can ignore others. The reason for this is how our brains are wired, which allow us to respond to danger before we’ve even had time to think about it.
Asteroids are natural and dangerous, but we are more terrified by risks such as terrorism or bio-engineered foods. Because we don’t believe that the asteroid impact can happen. Our experience and culture taught us what to fear. We are born with some basic phobias, and we learn few others from media and everyday life. We’re more afraid of catastrophic events such as airplane crashes than of everyday risks like cancer which kills may people every single day.
My Brain Knows It, But I Don’t See It
Patients with “hemineglect” disorder will tend to ignore things presented to their left side. So that means “I only see right side of the shirt that you are wearing”
But sometimes these ignored stimuli may be processed without awareness. The brain may extract the meaning of presenting objects and symbols , but the patient will not consciously perceive.
Photo Source: http://home.c2i.net
Brain’s power to sense the calories
Ivan de Araujo and colleagues have found that the brain can sense the calories in food, independent of the taste mechanism. The finding that the brain’s reward system is switched on by this “sixth sense” machinery could have implications for understanding the causes of obesity.
Shaping a child’s brain.
The brain is really responsible for who we are as people. One of the things we wish for children as parents is that they be happy, healthy and thrive in what they do and have positive social interactions and be good people. Parents must pay attention to “shaping” their child’s brain, says Dr.Davidson of University of Wisconsin.
He advices Parents, not to get too caught up in the cognitive skills of their children and pay equal attention to social and emotional skills. Being kind and compassionate helps shape circuits that promote positive behavior.
New Brain mapping technique
Neurosurgeons from the University of California, San Francisco are reporting significant results of a new brain mapping technique that allows for the safe removal of tumors near language pathways in the brain. The technique minimizes brain exposure and reduces the amount of time a patient must be awake during surgery.
Language mapping, originally created to help guide epilepsy surgery, has proved to be an essential tool in helping neurosurgeons identify which parts of the tumor can be safely removed and in protecting patients from damage to speech and language centers.
Earlier it was estimated that 20,500 men and women will be diagnosed with, and 12,740 men and women will die of, cancer of the brain and other areas of the nervous system in 2007, according to the American Cancer Society.
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