Category Biology/Biotechnology

New OCT tool to study how diseases like dementia, Alzheimer’s, and brain tumors change brain tissue over time. “In the brain, the imaging depth is almost doubled,” said Martin Leahy of the National University of Ireland, Galway. “The authors demonstrate for the first time an application in which this capability opens up a whole new window into the live intact hippocampus, for discovery in brain research.”

From the experimental findings, the authors envision that this new optical coherence tomography (OCT) approach to brain study may enable examination of acute and chronic morphological or functional vascular changes in the deep brain, which has been rarely attempted before in the OCT community.

Choi and Wang used swept-source OCT (SS-OCT) powered by a vertical-cavity surface-emitting...

In Feb 2015, the photo of a striped dress stirred a worldwide internet debate ; now, neuroscientists have further decoded the phenomenon, demonstrating optical illusion is linked to specific brain activation patterns.

For some, it is black-blue, for others, it is white-gold. In a fMRI study, the neuroplasticity group headed by Prof. T. Schmidt-Wilcke solved the riddle of the illusion. In no time at all, the dress had captured the attention of media and scientists worldwide. Many research institutes have explored the phenomenon from various angles, by analyzing psychophysics or details of the image components...

How the brain changes in space and ISS ways to deal with those changes. The Spaceflight Effects on Neurocognitive Performance: Extent, Longevity, and Neural Bases (NeuroMapping) study is examining changes in both brain structure and function and determining how long it takes to recover after returning from space.

In space, there is no “up” or “down.” That can mess with the human brain and affect the way people move and think in space. Previous research and first-hand reports suggest that humans have a harder time controlling physical movement and completing mental tasks in microgravity. Astronauts have experienced problems with balance and perceptual illusions – feeling as if, for example, they are switching back and forth between right-side-up and upside down.

Researchers are using ...

The rod-shaped bacterium E. coli served as the model system for DNA repair in the study. | Photo by U.S. Department of Defense

Bacterium exhibits remarkable ability to repair or prevent DNA damage arising from internal processes, contrary to previous findings. A study led by Indiana University biologist Patricia Foster and colleagues has found that forces in the external environment and oxidation are the greatest threats to an organism’s ability to repair damage to its own DNA.

The results are based on the first comprehensive, whole genome analysis of spontaneous mutation in Escherichia coli
“Our study investigated 11 DNA repair pathways previously identified as resulting in spontaneous mutations,” said Prof Foster...