Seminar Papers
(Figure from MIT news)
Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder in the developed world, with around 60,000 people diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Although there is no cure for the disease, there are treatments that can reduce the severity of a patient’s symptoms. But for these treatments to be effective, clinicians need a method to regularly monitor the patient’s symptoms in the home.
In a paper published today in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers at MIT and elsewhere describe a technique they have developed to monitor Parkinson’s disease progression as patients interact with a computer keyboard.
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http://news.mit.edu/2016/keyboard-monitoring-parkinsons-symptoms
(Figure from MIT news)
MIT neuroscientists have discovered connections deep within the brain that appear to form a communication pathway between areas that control emotion, decision-making, and movement. The researchers suspect that these connections, which they call striosome-dendron bouquets, may be involved in controlling how the brain makes decisions that are influenced by emotion or anxiety. This circuit may also be one of the targets of the neural degeneration seen in Parkinson’s disease.
They were able to find these connections using a technique developed at MIT known as expansion microscopy, which enables scientists to expand brain tissue before imaging it. This produces much higher-resolution images than would otherwise be possible with conventional microscopes.
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http://news.mit.edu/2016/neural-connections-linked-emotional-decision-making-0919
(Figure from MIT news)
The researchers from MIT team found that they could predict the child’s visual word form area (VMFA), who was in before learning reading. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and diffusion-weighted imaging in order to trace the connection between the VMFA and other brain area. The researchers recruited some children, and took the scan twice. One is when the children were 5 years old (i.e. before learning reading), and the other one is when they were 8 years old (i.e. after learning reading). Even the child who doesn’t know how to read (so there is no VWFA), there are pre-existing connectivity pattern for the VWFA which has different connectivity compare to other brain area. Thus, from this result, the researchers suggest that it could helpful to identify the risk of developing dyslexia or other reading difficulties.
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There were unknown regions. However, by the Human Connectome Project, the researchers could identify around 100 new brain regions. To identify brain regions, the researchers used advanced scanners and artificial intelligence programs. In addition, they recorded high-resolution images, during the tests on memory, language and other tasks relate to thought. The researchers hope that these investigation, the updated brain map, will help their further work, and the further work from these identifications would be finding the connection between the brain regions.
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(Image: MIT News)
The researchers in MIT developed a new technique called magnified analysis of proteome (MAP). It could reveal subcellular details and long-range connections. Thus, it might help to investigate the connectivity and functions of neurons in the brain. Also, the MAP imaging technique has high resolution that we could trace the connections in the brain more accurately.
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(Image from CNN)
A study, from Elizabeth C. Mormino and her colleague, suggests that it is possible to detect the risk factors for sporadic Alzheimer’s in young adulthood. One way to detect the risk is check images of a patient’s hippocampus. If the patient has a small hippocampal volume, it connotes that the patient has various genetic risk for Alzheimer’s. The study was performed with 166 people with dementia, and 1,026 people without dementia (mean ages 75 years old), and used MRI images for analyzing. Also researchers checked DNA of the patients, and they calculated risk score about gene variants, which are associated with a high risk of Alzheimer’s disease. After that, the researchers checked the risk factors (risk scores and hippocampal volume) with 1,322 healthy adults the ages between 18 and 35. Finally, the researchers found, that there are association between higher risk score and a smaller hippocampal volume.
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(AntonioGuillem/iStock.com; from UCLA newsroom)
The researchers from UCLA’s Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, studied brain circuits activation of teenagers, when they receive some responses (i.e. the amount of ’likes’) in social networks (e.g. Instagram). The 32 teenagers (13-18 years old) were participated, and they watched 148 photographs, which including 40 of the teenagers submitted, for 12 minutes. To analyze their brain activity, they scanned teenagers’ brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The result was, the brain area, which called the nucleus accumbens, was activated. Also the brain area is related to reward.
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(figure from Newsweek article)
Researchers from the University of Sussex discovered the mechanism of two neurons, which relates to decision-making in the mollusc Lymnaea (corresponding to the word ‘snails’ which is written in the news). According to the study of the mollusc Lymnaea, it uses only two neuron types for decision-making during searching food. First, the neurons report whether there is food. Second, they control the behavior. For an example, when there is no food, the neurons motivate Lymnaea to searching for it. The researchers mentioned that this discovery could be the core on developing artificial intelligence(AI) systems.
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News: http://www.newsweek.com/how_snails_could_make_robots_smarter
Related paper: http://www.nature.com/Crossley_et_al_NatureCommunications_2016
(Getty Images; Illustration by Marisa Gertz for TIME)
The researchers at Stanford University performed a study regarding children and their ability of recognize their mothers’ voices. The normally developing children (24 children, ages between 7 and 12) were participated to the study. The task was listening some words, and find their own mother’s voice. The kids of 97% got the right answer. The researchers used fMRI to look the kids brain. Not surprisingly, the brain activates more, when they heard their mothers’ voice, than the other women’s voice. However, surprisingly the researchers found that the brain area, which is related to face recognition, was activated. From this, they assumed that the kids could visualize their mother’s face, when they hear their mothers’ voice.
Also the researchers assessed the kids’ social communication scores. They found that the kids, who are most socially adapted, brain activities shows some specific pattern during hearing their mothers’ voice. Thus, Abrams, one of the researchers, assumed that this result could help to examine the kids brain which regarding the social ability, for a future work.
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(Image: Lucélia Ribeiro | Flickr)
Researchers from Dartmouth and Princeton Universities tried to show that intentional forgetting is possible. For a test, they recruited 25 participants (10 males), the age around 21.3 years old. There are many studies regarding the power of context that it helps memorizing easier. From this results, to enhance creating contextual memories, the researchers showed nature scenes (e.g. forests) to the participants during the test. The participants should memorize two sets of words, and some of them was instructed to forget some words. Activity of the brain was scanned by using fMRI. The result from the participant who forgot the word by context-related activity showed that they cannot remember the words a lot.
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