In their recent publication, Jeffrey Demas and co-authors introduced “Light Beads Microscopy”, an important technological breakthrough in 2 photon microscopy. The authors demonstrated how their innovative microscopy approach can be used to observe the activity of individual neurons in vivo in large volumes of mouse cortex, offering a long-sought approach to studying brain encoding. Light Beads Microscopy is a new method of two-photon microscopy optimized for...
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The question of whether an increased lifespan is associated with increased quality of life has been a topic of interest in the field of aging research. While there is evidence that improved somatic maintenance in model organisms can lead to increased longevity, recent studies have suggested that long-lived mutants may actually spend a higher percentage of their lives in an unhealthy state compared to non-mutants....
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ScanImage software from MBF Bioscience, along with the accompanying vDAQ acquisition and control card with analog to digital, digital to analog, breakout board, is built to control many combinations of hardware in order to carry out in-vivo imaging on a cellular scale. This makes it possible to observe the neural activities, such as those indicated by calcium concentration or voltage changes, of specific neuronal types...
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Using specimens that were collected over three decades from zoos, researchers at Humboldt University of Berlin examined facial motor control in African and Asian elephants. As described in their recent paper in Science Advances, they examined cell number, size, and position in the facial nucleus; conducted quantitative nerve tracing, and performed comparative analyses with other animals and between the two elephant types. The researchers found...
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The Image Volume Fractionator probe, available in Stereo Investigator - Cleared Tissue Edition, is facilitating huge efficiency gains for quantifying the number of cells. At Dr. Patrick R. Hof’s lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, researchers imaged the cerebral cortex using light-sheet fluorescence microscopy and quantified the number of neurons, including those that express proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia, using...
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Humans and animal species can move in controlled motion sequences because of a delicate balance in the signaling of certain neurons in the area of the brain called the striatum. In this brain region, some neurons tell muscles to move, while others tell muscles to hold steady. In the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease, more of the neurons that signal movement are activated resulting...
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Obesity has reached epidemic levels worldwide. It is a major cause of deadly illnesses, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers, and has been linked to reduced quality of life and poor mental health outcomes. Efforts to combat this epidemic have so far failed to have an appreciable impact. Seeking novel targets with the potential to move the needle on obesity-linked cardiometabolic disorders, a research...
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Most neuroscientists are familiar with the saying “cells that fire together wire together,” which is often used to summarize the Hebbian theory of synaptic plasticity—first put forth in Donald Hebb’s book The Organization of Behavior in 1949. The theory describes how coincident activity between pre- and post-synaptic cells can shape synaptic strength. Verified decades later, the theory has since become accepted within the neuroscientific community. However,...
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What if, instead of trying to zoom in on the nanoscale structures of the brain, we made them bigger? Dr. Edward Boyden and his team at MIT are doing just that. The process, known as expansion microscopy (ExM), physically enlarges brain tissue so that even extremely small molecular structures are viewable on a conventional light microscope. In his 2016 TED Talk, Dr. Boyden says: “Can we make...
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As an unborn baby develops in the womb, its growth depends on a variety of factors, genetics among them. But sometimes a fetus doesn’t grow as much as is normally expected in relation to its gestational age. This is called intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) or fetal growth restriction (FGR)....
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