Cleaning the Brain

The Brain Needs Cleaning to Stay Healthy

NEUROSCIENCE NEWSMAY 27, 2016

mechanism that keeps the brain clean during neurodegenerative diseases.

Source: PLOS.

Research led by the Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience, the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), and the Ikerbasque Foundation has revealed the mechanisms that keep the brain clean during neurodegenerative diseases. 

When neurons die, their debris need to be quickly removed in order for the surrounding brain tissue to continue to function properly. Elimination of the neuron corpses, in a process called phagocytosis, is carried out by highly specialized cells in the brain called microglia. These small cells have many ramifications that are in constant motion and are specially equipped to detect and destroy any foreign element, including dead neurons. Or so it was thought until now. 

Experimental design and representative projections of 2-photon microscopy images of microglia at t0 (cyan) and 15 min later (magenta) from the DG of controls and KA-treated mice (1 dpi). NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Abiega et al./PLOS Biology./.../
Artigo original:
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002466

E-Cigs

E-Cigs Are Blowing Up In People’s Faces

E-cigs are more popular than ever — but they’re also exploding in vapers’ faces at an alarming rate. Will new regulations be enough?

posted on May 26, 2016, at 11:36 a.m.

Joseph Bernstein

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Aaron Fernandez/BuzzFeed News

Until he lost an eye, April 15 was a good day for Joseph Cavins.

The 63-year-old Orange, California, family therapist saw a full slate of clients. It was two days before tax day, so he caught up on records from his practice. After work, he hung out with some friends. And he wound his day down in the usual way: by playing a game of solitaire on his computer while he enjoyed a few drags off one of his e-cigarettes, which he had been using nearly every day for two years.

At around 10:30 p.m., as Cavins turned his head toward a nearby bookcase, he heard a “very loud bang” and felt as if he had been struck in the face by a hockey stick. A fire smoldered on his desk. He held his hands to his face and discovered that “there was a lot of blood and fluid coming out.” He began to scream: “No! No!” He couldn’t see out of his left eye.

Cavins smothered the fire and woke his wife. At the hospital, doctors found that the explosion had caused extensive damage to his eyeball: Several cuts had pierced his iris and cornea, and they went all the way to the socket. The doctors recommended a surgical “evisceration”: the removal of the eye. Sitting in the emergency room, Cavins began to process what had happened: His vaporizer, the device he had bought as a “nice, clean way to get nicotine,” had exploded into his face./.../

MAPS

24 hours of global air traffic in 4 seconds May 18, 2016 On an average day, there are roughly 90,000 commercial flights around the world. This stunning animated map displays them all in 4 seconds. Every plane flight in the world over 24 hours Credit: Zurich School of Applied SciencesYoutube version / animated gif This incredible map was made way back in 2008 by Dr. Karl Rege of the Zurich School of Applied Sciences. Using arrival and departure data from the website FlightStats, he and his team simulated the flight path of every commercial flight over a 24 hour period and plotted them all in the map as tiny yellow dots. The fact that they made the map back in 2008, when web mapping was still in its infancy, makes it all the more impressive. It also explains why such an impressive graphic never made the rounds on social media (in 2008, America’s #1 social network was still Myspace). You can view the original version of the map, which is quite a bit slower than the one above, on Youtube. The video file is also available for download on the University’s website. If you’d like to see some other work by the team, check out their “Blue Marble” video series, which is also very well done.  The videos show a time lapse of the world’s changing coastlines, starting 21,000 years ago at the peak of the last ice age and ending 1,000 years in the future. H/T Wired  If you liked this map, sign up to be notified of new Metrocosm posts Your World Map is Hiding Something You may be aware that the Mercator projection, the world map we're all familiar with, distorts the size of some countries. It makes Greenland appear the same size as Africa, when in reality Greenland is 14x smaller. What's not so well known about Mercator is that parts of the world are missing. The map is always cropped on both ends. What the map looks like when you uncrop it is sure to surprise you. .

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AD and defence system

240

DAILY NEWS

 

25 May 2016

Alzheimer’s may be caused by brain’s sticky defence against bugs

Plaques in the brain are behind Alzheimer’s

Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library

By Anil Ananthaswamy

It’s a double-edged sword. The protein plaques in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease could be created as our immune system fights off invading microbes.

Alzheimer’s disease has long been linked to the accumulation of sticky plaques of beta-amyloid proteins in the brain, but their function – if any – has remained unclear.

Breaking Habits

How the Brain Makes and Breaks Habits by Neuroscience News

Researchers report they have identified a neural pathway involved in switching between habitual behavior and deliberate decision making.

Read more of this post

Neuroscience News | May 26, 2016 at 1:27 pm | Tags: addiction OFC, behavioral neuroscience, endocannabinoids, habits, Neuroscience, OCD, orbitofrontal cortex,Psychology | Categories: Featured, Neuroscience | URL: http://wp.me/p4sXNK-8e8

Prions and dendritic spines

How Prions Kill Neurons by Neuroscience News A new study reports on a newly discovered system that shows early toxicity to dendrtic spines. Read more of this post Neuroscience News | May 26, 2016 at 3:21 pm | Tags: ALS, apoptosis, dendritic spines,hippocampus, neurodegenerative diseases, Neurology, neurons, Neuroscience, prions, PrPC| Categories: Featured, Neurology, Open Neuroscience Articles | URL: http://wp.me/p4sXNK-8ei Comment    See all comments

Early Alzheimer Diagnose

PET Imaging With Special Tracer Can Detect and Diagnose Early Alzheimer’s by Neuroscience News A new study reports PiB, a small molecular compound, binds to amyloid plaque. The PET system detects pairs of gamma rays emitted indirectly by a tracer that is introduced into the body on a biologically active molecule. PET scan of the human brain. NeuroscienceNews.com image is for illustrative purposes only. Credit: Jens Maus. Read more of this post

Qmed

Qmed | The future of medical technology according to Ray Kurzweil

May 16, 2016

Qmed — January 26, 2016 | Brian Buntz

This is a summary. Read original article in full here.

Ray Kurzweil has made a name for himself for making outlandish technology forecasts, many of which have proven accurate. Here, we summarize some of his predictions that could have the largest implications on medicine.

Ray Kurzweil’s initial claim to fame was his inventions — including the flatbed scanner, the first print-to-speech converter for the blind, and a groundbreaking music synthesizer .

But he has received more attention in past decades for his predictions and his books. In the 1990s, he made 147 projections for 2009. In 2010, he reflected on them and determined that 86% of them were correct.

While his critics dispute the accuracy of some of his forecasts, Kurzweil has predicted the age of mobile computing, digital books, wearables, self-driving cars, and high speed wireless data transmission. In the 1980s, he eerily predicted the emergence of a global online network long before the internet as we now know it exists. Bill Gates has called Kurzweil “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence.”

Many of Kurzweil’s ideas seem outlandish at first — a necessity he argues, because our human brains are only equipped to think linearly while technology is evolving at an exponential rate. His most famous theory is the singularity: tech will continue to evolve at exponential pace, changing human destiny, giving humans the option of immortality. In the Wall Street Journal, he deflected criticism from theologians who insist death is necessary by saying: “Oh, death, that tragic thing? That’s really a good thing.”

Kurzweil sees humans heading for a tipping point — adding more than a year to our life expectancy each year. Biology is inherently an information process, Kurzweil argues, and in the coming decades, humans will gain the ability to not only turn off disease genes and program our own biology.

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REM

Rapid eye movement sleep (dreaming) shown necessary for memory formation

May 16, 2016

A study published in the journal Science by researchers at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute at McGill University and the University of Bern provides the first evidence that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep — the phase where dreams appear — is directly involved in memory formation (at least in mice). “We already knew that … more…

modular mobile devices

British researchers, Google design modular shape-shifting mobile devices

May 20, 2016

British researchers and Google have independently developed revolutionary concepts for Lego-like modular interactive mobile devices. The British team’s design, called Cubimorph, is constructed of a chain of cubes. It has touchscreens on each of the six module faces and uses a hinge-mounted turntable mechanism to self-reconfigure in the user’s hand. One example: a mobile phone …more…

Oct4

Gene helps prevent heart attack, stroke; may also block effects of aging

May 20, 2016

May turn out to be the "fountain-of-youth gene," say researchers University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered that a gene called Oct4 — which scientific dogma insists is inactive in adults — actually plays a vital role in preventing ruptured atherosclerotic plaques inside blood vessels, the underlying cause of most heart attacks and strokes. The researchers found that Oct4 controls the conversion of smooth … more…

Listeria

How to Protect Yourself From Listeria

• Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin
 

May 23, 2016

Amid an outbreak of food contamination, here's how to keep yourself safe

Outbreaks of listeria, a bacteria that grows well in cooler temperatures, have caused a frozen-food company to recall close to 360 frozen-food products sold under 42 different brand names — and that’s just the latest recall of popular foods people keep in the fridge. Brands of sunflower seeds, salad dressings and trail mix are also recalled due to a separate listeria contamination. The bacteria was also behind the 2015 Blue Bell outbreak, which required the company to shut down production and recall all of its ice cream.

But there are ways to keep yourself protected from listeria, even beyondmaking sure you are not eating recalled food./.../

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Mais no Wikipedia
Os principais sintomas são semelhantes à gripe, além de febre e diarréia. Mas ela ainda pode causar septicemia, meningite, encefalite e infecções cervicais e intra-uterinas em mulheres grávidas, levando ao aborto espontâneo. Calcula-se que de 5% a 10% da população seja portadora de Listeria monocytogenes.

Quantum Mechanics

• DAN FALK SCIENCE
 
• DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.21.16.05.21.16
 
• TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM.7:00 AM

NEW EVIDENCE COULD OVERTHROW THE STANDARD VIEW OF QUANTUM MECHANICS

OF THE MANY counterintuitive features of quantum mechanics, perhaps the most challenging to our notions of common sense is that particles do not have locations until they are observed. This is exactly what the standard view of quantum mechanics, often called the Copenhagen interpretation, asks us to believe. Instead of the clear-cut positions and movements of Newtonian physics, we have a cloud of probabilities described by a mathematical structure known as a wave function. The wave function, meanwhile, evolves over time, its evolution governed by precise rules codified in something called the Schrödinger equation. The mathematics are clear enough; the actual whereabouts of particles, less so. Until a particle is observed, an act that causes the wave function to “collapse,” we can say nothing about its location. Albert Einstein, among others, objected to this idea. As his biographer Abraham Pais wrote: “We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it.”/.../

Brain Aging

Your Brain Will Age Better If You Do This

• Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin
 

May 19, 2016

    

Illustration by Sydney Rae Hass for TIME

Keeping a busy schedule may benefit the brain

One of the best ways to keep yourbrain sharp as you get older may be to stay busy, according to new research. While scientists have previously recommended engaging in mentally challenging activities, anew study suggests that keeping a packed schedule may offer similar benefits.

In a survey of over 300 people participating in the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study, study authors found that among adults over the age of 50, having a busy schedule was associated with better brain processing, improved memory, sharper reasoning and better vocabulary./.../

2761 - AMICOR 19

AMICORE-Book atualizado em 22/05/2016

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - 0 seconds ago

AMICORE-Book: atualizado 22/05/2016 AMICORE-BOOK [image: ISFC logo139.jpg] AMICOR PROJETO DE E-BOOK Aproveito a mensagem de Alerta semanal para convidar para uma visita a um novo Blog onde pretendo reunir artigos meus, muitos já publicados - inclusive esparsos pelo Blog AMICOR - como um projeto de E-Book ou mesmo de um futuro livro. Índice para o AMICORE-BOOK.BLOGSPOT.COM: 1. *Estendendo a opinião* 2. *AMICOR* 3. *Carnaval* 4. *Bôrtolo Achutti* 5. *Histórias que meu pai contava - 1* 6. *Histórias que meu pai contava - 2* 7. *Histórias que meu pai contava - 3* ... mais »

World Health Statistics 2016

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há 11 horas

*World Health Statistics 2016: Monitoring health for the SDGs* The World Health Statistics series is WHO’s annual compilation of health statistics for its 194 Member States. World Health Statistics 2016 focuses on the proposed health and health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and associated targets. It represents an initial effort to bring together available data on SDG health and health-related indicators. In the current absence of official goal-level indicators, summary measures of health such as (healthy) life expectancy are used to provide a general assessment of the ... mais »

Urban Health

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há um dia

* Recomendado pela AMICOR Maria Inês Reinert Azambuja* [image: ISUH-logo.jpg] [image: ISUH-header.jpg] ------------------------------ DATE & TIME *MondayMay 23, 2016* *12:15 PM - 2:00 PMLunch will be served* ------------------------------ VENUE *Geneva International Convention Center (CICG)17 rue de Varembé* ------------------------------ CO-SPONSORS *The International Society for Urban Health (ISUH)* *The InterAcademy Medical Panel (IAP-Health)* *Eminence* *Bangladesh Urban Health Network* *Bangladesh NCD Alliance* [image: eminence.jpg] The New Urban Agen... mais »

Opinion

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há um dia

more Speaking Truth to Power and the Value of Counterpoints: Madeleine Albright’s Extraordinary Commencement Address [image: Speaking Truth to Power and the Value of Counterpoints: Madeleine Albright’s Extraordinary Commencement Address] 7 min read brainpickings.org / Maria Popova “We should use our opinions to start discussions, not to end them.” As I was preparing to deliver my Annenberg commencement address, restlessness of a v... read moreSpeaking Truth to Power and the Value of Counterpoints: Madeleine Albright’s Surprising Commencement Address“We should use our opinions t...mais »

Ageing: World Report

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há um dia

*The World report on ageing and health: a policy frameworkfor healthy ageing * *John R Beard, Alana Offi cer, Islene Araujo de Carvalho, Ritu Sadana, Anne Margriet Pot, Jean-Pierre Michel, Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, JoAnne E Epping-Jordan, G M E E (Geeske) Peeters, Wahyu Retno Mahanani, Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli Thiyagarajan, Somnath Chatterji * Although populations around the world are rapidly ageing, evidence that increasing longevity is being accompanied by an extended period of good health is scarce. A coherent and focused public health response that spans multiple sectors and stakehol...mais »

Anxiety

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há um dia

10 Ways to Beat Anxiety Naturally [image: Image: 10 Ways to Beat Anxiety Naturally](Copyright iStock) By Gary Greenberg | Thursday, 19 May 2016 04:00 PM - - - - 0 inShare Trouble concentrating, digestive problems, headaches, heart palpitations, tossing and turning all night. For the millions of Americans suffering from anxiety, the only thing worse than the condition itself are the side effects caused by the most popular drugs prescribed to treat it. Benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, and Valium work by depressing the central nervous system, whi... mais »

Prognosis

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há 2 dias

Prevalence of and Factors Related to Discordance About Prognosis Between Physicians and Surrogate Decision Makers of Critically Ill PatientsFREE Douglas B. White, MD, MAS1; Natalie Ernecoff, MPH1; Praewpannarai Buddadhumaruk, RN, MS1; Seoyeon Hong, PhD1; Lisa Weissfeld, PhD2; J. Randall Curtis, MD, MPH3; John M. Luce, MD4; Bernard Lo, MD5 [+] Author Affiliations *JAMA. *2016;315(19):2086-2094. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.5351. Text Size: A A A Article Figures Tables Supplemental Content References CME ABSTRACT ABSTRACT | INTRODUCTION | METHODS | RESULTS | DISCUSSION | CONCLUSIONS |ARTICLE IN... mais »

Inequality and the new deal

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há 2 dias

[image: Image] There is a large body of literature analyzing the onset of the Great Depression or the factors influencing economic recovery in the 1930s, especially the New Deal. The role of income inequality before and during the Great Depression, however, has almost never been discussed thoroughly. This paper attempts to answer two questions. Firstly, was inequality perceived as a problem by the Roosevelt administration? Secondly, did the New Deal incorporate these concerns such that economic policy design did take seriously the problem of inequality? CLICK HERE OR THE PICTURE A... mais »

DERC-SBC

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há 2 dias

*http://www.cardiol.br/sbcinforma/2016/departamentos/DERC-20160516_maio.html* *​APROXIME-SE DO DERC!* *ASSOCIE-SE AO DERC!*

5 more years added to life

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há 2 dias

View this email in your browser 5 more years added to life expectancy 5.9M 5.9 million children die before their fifth birthday 1.7B 1.7 billion people need treatment for neglected tropical diseases 3M 3 million people die due to outdoor pollution Life expectancy increased by 5 years between 2000 and 2015, the fastest increase since the 1960s. Those gains reverse declines during the 1990s, when life expectancy fell in Africa because of the AIDS epidemic, and in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The increase was greatest in WHO's African Region. Global... mais »

Depression

Aloyzio AchuttiemAMICOR - Há 3 dias

How Depression and Antidepressant Drugs Work NEUROSCIENCE NEWSMAY 18, 2016 *Summary: A new study shows the effectiveness of ketamine in treating depression in a mouse model of the disease and also helps bring together two hypotheses for the cause of depression.* *Source: Penn State University.* *New insight from depressed mice helps researchers unite two hypotheses.* New research demonstrates the effectiveness of ketamine to treat depression in a mouse model of the disease and brings together two hypotheses for the cause of depression. The research, led by Bernhard Lüscher, professor o... mais »