Lifeboat Foundation

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is known as “the disease with a thousand faces” because symptoms and progression can vary dramatically from patient to patient. But every MS patient has one thing in common: Cells of their body’s own immune system migrate to the brain, where they destroy the myelin sheath—the protective outer layer of the nerve fibers. As a result, an electrical short circuit occurs, preventing the nerve signals from being transmitted properly.

Many MS medications impair immune memory

Researchers don’t yet know exactly which immune cells are involved in stripping away the myelin sheath. Autoreactive T and B cells, which wrongly identify the myelin sheath as a foreign body, travel to the brain and initiate the disease. “Up until now, MS drugs have essentially targeted these T and B cells, both of which are part of the acquired immune system,” says Dr. Alexander Mildner, a scientist at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) and the senior author of the paper now published in Nature Immunology.

New psychology study shows that some people have increased brain sensitivity for “aha moments”.

The researchers scanned brains of participants and noticed orgasm-like signals during insights.

The scientists think this evolutionary adaptation drives creation of science and culture.

Continue reading “Insightful ideas can trigger orgasmic brain signals, finds study” »

Only 10 years ago, scientists working on what they hoped would open a new frontier of neuromorphic computing could only dream of a device using miniature tools called memristors that would function/operate like real brain synapses.

But now a team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered, while on their way to better understanding protein nanowires, how to use these biological, electricity conducting filaments to make a neuromorphic memristor, or “memory transistor,” device. It runs extremely efficiently on very low power, as brains do, to carry signals between neurons. Details are in Nature Communications.

As first author Tianda Fu, a Ph.D. candidate in electrical and computer engineering, explains, one of the biggest hurdles to neuromorphic computing, and one that made it seem unreachable, is that most conventional computers operate at over 1 volt, while the brain sends signals called action potentials between neurons at around 80 millivolts—many times lower. Today, a decade after early experiments, memristor voltage has been achieved in the range similar to conventional computer, but getting below that seemed improbable, he adds.

Human Magnetoreception! What did we discover? We have confirmed that human neurophysiology is indeed sensitive to magnetism. We have discovered specific rotations of earth-strength fields that trigger distinctive brain wave activity that shows that we are subconsciously processing geomagnetic stimuli. Why is this so important? We’ve known about the five.

Happy Bicycle Day!

🚲 ⚡️ 🚲

After consuming magic mushrooms in Basel, Switzerland, I ran into Albert Hofmann, the chemist who catalyzed the psychedelic era.

Continue reading “Tripping in LSD’s Birthplace: A Story for ‘Bicycle Day’” »

A pattern is emerging among COVID-19 patients arriving at hospitals in New York: Beyond fever, cough and shortness of breath, some are deeply disoriented to the point of not knowing where they are or what year it is.

At times this is linked to low oxygen levels in their blood, but in certain patients the confusion appears disproportionate to how their lungs are faring.

Jennifer Frontera, a neurologist at NYU Langone Brooklyn hospital seeing these patients, told AFP the findings were raising concerns about the impact of the coronavirus on the brain and nervous system.

American oncologists are rushing to prioritise the patients at greatest risk, institute new protections, and learn from their collective experiences, Bryn Nelson reports.

A patient in Washington, newly diagnosed with breast cancer, fought to get her lumpectomy surgery rescheduled after it was cancelled indefinitely. 1 A stuffy nose required another patient in Massachusetts with a recurrent brain tumour to undergo multiple layers of screening before he could receive his immunotherapy infusion. 2 A patient with bladder cancer in North Carolina couldn’t get immunotherapy at all because of a lack of surgical masks and gloves. 3 Then he was denied a surgical alternative because he needed a covid-19 test first. Since he hadn’t been admitted to a hospital with serious covid-19 symptoms, he didn’t meet the testing criteria.

Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on cancer care throughout the US as medical centres scramble to cancel or rearrange surgeries or treatments, tackle a continuing shortage of tests and supplies, and devise new safety protocols to protect a highly susceptible patient group.

Two new studies by researchers in Tel Aviv University and Harvard University on the subject were published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering on Monday.

Organs-on-a-chip were first developed in 2010 at Harvard University. Then, scientists took cells from a specific human organ — heart, brain, kidney and lung — and used tissue engineering techniques to put them in a plastic cartridge, or the so called chip. Despite the use of the term chip, which often refers to microchips, no computer parts are involved here.

Get The Start-Up Israel’s Daily Start-Up by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up.

The lungs are ground zero for COVID-19, but blood clots may play a surprisingly big role in severe illness.