NEWRON Volume VI, Issue III
NEWRON Admin
NeuroEngineering Weekly Review of News
Hey NEWRON Subscribers,
How about them Ravens!
Speaking of athletics, check out article #2, I wonder if the scientists at UC Riverside would be interested in getting a scan of Flacco's brain...
Enjoy,
Mike Batista
NEWRON Editor and Manager
Reviews
Scientists build a microimplant that uses a laser to control individual nerve cells
Birthe Rubehn and her
colleagues from the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) and the
Bernstein Center of the University of Freiburg as well as the Friedrich
Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel have developed an
implant that is able to genetically modify specific nerve cells, control them
with light stimuli, and measure their electrical activity all at the same time.
This novel 3-in-1 tool paves the way for completely new experiments in
neurobiology.
Read more:
Abstract link:
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2013/LC/c2lc40874k
Is athleticism linked to brain size?
Theodore Garland’s lab at the University of California, Riverside measured the brain mass of exercise-loving house mice, bred for high voluntary wheel-running, and analyzed their high-resolution brain images. The researchers found that the volume of the midbrain — a small region of the brain that relays information for the visual, auditory, and motor systems — in the bred-for-athleticism mice was nearly 13 percent larger than the midbrain volume in the control or “regular” mice.
Read more (+ video):
Challenging long-held belief that low blood flow to the premature brain necessarily kills brain cells
Physician-scientists at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children's Hospital are challenging the way pediatric neurologists think about brain injury in the pre-term infant. In a study published online in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the OHSU Doernbecher researchers report for the first time that low blood and oxygen flow to the developing brain does not, as previously thought, cause an irreversible loss of brain cells, but rather disrupts the cells' ability to fully mature. This discovery opens up new avenues for potential therapies to promote regeneration and repair of the premature brain.
Read more: