Building a Brain in the Lab
https://www.ScientificAmerican.com/article/building-a-brain-in-the-lab/ Nice summary of the development of organoids & their promise for personalized treatments
The #Brain That Couldn’t Remember
http://www.NYTimes.com/2016/08/07/magazine/the-brain-that-couldnt-remember.html Fight over the ownership of HM’s highlights issues in consent HT @FearLoathingBTX
Cell-lineage analysis in human #brain using endogenous retroelements http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(14)01137-4 Tracing L1 insertions w/ #singlecell sequencing
Using single cell WGS of 16 neuronal cells the authors investigated two somatic insertions of L1Hs elements in an adult human brain. Using these results the authors infer that L1 somatic insertions are infrequent and ALUs and SVAs somatic retrotransposition are extremely rare. Assessing two L1Hs insertions in 32 samples across different regions of this same adult brain, they found that while one insertion was spatially restricted (2x1cm region), the other was found across all samples of the adult brain (but not found in other tissues such as Heart, Lung, etc.). The more restricted one (L1Hs#1) is inferred to have happened during the Fetal stage (first trimester) while the broader one happened earlier, approximately 2 weeks
post-fertilization. Overall the paper is clear, concise, and simple. It answers an interesting biological question: Can retrotransposition be used as a marker of cell clonal expansion? It does, although the retrotransposition frequency is very small and SNVs might support better results for the same analysis due to their higher frequency..
Bacteria on the #Brain
http://www.NewYorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/bacteria-on-the-brainNice #bioethics discussion of greater allowance for risk in innovative treatment vs research
QT:{{”
…Schrot sent an e-mail to Robert Nelson, a pediatric ethicist and oncologist at the F.D.A., describing the procedure and asking for advice. Nelson replied quickly. “If the product”—Enterobacter—“you plan to use is available to you,” he wrote, in part, “I would suggest you proceed under the strategy of innovative treatment rather than research.”
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Human tissue-specific #networks by @TroyanskayaLab
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v47/n6/full/ng.3259.html
Brain-specific ones & NetWAS approach for combining #GWAS genes
access all tissue networks including the brain-specific
networks at giant.princeton.edu
A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics & a Future http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/us/cancer-immortality-cryogenics.html Glioma sufferer opts for $80K Alcor crowdfunded, brain preservation
QT:{{"
“If the $80,000 fee for neuropreservation seemed steep, they learned that about a third of it pays for medical personnel to be on call for death, while another third is placed in a trust for future revival. The investment income from the trust also pays for storage in liquid nitrogen, which is so cold that it can prevent decay in biological tissue for millenniums.
Some of what they found out gave them pause. Alcor’s antifreeze, once pumped through the blood vessels, transitions into a glassy substance before ice can form and do damage. The process, called vitrification, is similar to that used to store sperm, eggs and embryos for fertility treatments. But that glassy substance has been known to crack, likely causing damage of a different kind.
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His brain, her brain? http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6212/915.summary Neurosexism potentially results from multiple testing & only publishing positives
Brain boosting: It’s not just grey matter that matters http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530090.600-brain-boosting-its-not-just-grey-matter-that-matters.html Learning involves changes to myelin sheaths, not just synapses
How Exercise Can Boost Young #Brains
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/how-exercise-can-boost-the-childs-brain Running around & acting like a kid is, in fact, good for kids. Duhh!