Blog

Pause and Rewind: Temporarily silencing the neural activity in the motor cortex paused the brain’s timer, whereas silencing the striatum rewound the timer.

Broader Impacts: These findings reveal how the brain keeps time to coordinate movement, which one day may be harnessed to restore movement in disorders like Parkinson’s and Huntington’s.

Whether speaking or swinging a bat, precise and adaptable timing of movement is essential for everyday behavior. Although we do not have sensory organs like eyes or a nose to sense time, we can keep time and control the timing of our actions. Such timing accuracy depends on a timer in the brain, but how the brain implements this timer was previously unknown. In research published this week in Nature, MPFI scientists Zidan Yang, Hidehiko Inagaki, and colleagues reveal how this timer works through the interaction of two brain regions—the motor cortex and the striatum. Together, these areas track the passage of time much like an hourglass.

Read More

---

MPFI Scientists have discovered how two brain areas work together like an hourglass to flexibly control movement timing.

Scientists are trying a revolutionary new approach to treat rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus and other devastating autoimmune diseases — by reprogramming patients’ out-of-whack immune systems.

When your body’s immune cells attack you instead of protecting you, today’s treatments tamp down the friendly fire but they don’t fix what’s causing it. Patients face a lifetime of pricey pills, shots or infusions with some serious side effects — and too often the drugs aren’t enough to keep their disease in check.

“We’re entering a new era,” said Dr. Maximilian Konig, a rheumatologist at Johns Hopkins University who’s studying some of the possible new treatments. They offer “the chance to control disease in a way we’ve never seen before.”

“Drains” in the brain, responsible for clearing toxic waste in the organ, tend to get clogged up in people who show signs of developing Alzheimer’s disease, a study by researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has discovered.

This suggests that such clogged drains, a condition known as “enlarged perivascular spaces,” are a likely early-warning sign for Alzheimer’s, a common form of dementia.

“Since these brain anomalies can be visually identified on routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans performed to evaluate cognitive decline, identifying them could complement existing methods to detect Alzheimer’s earlier, without having to do and pay for additional tests,” said Associate Professor Nagaendran Kandiah from NTU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) who led the study.