neurons

Embryonic stem cell culture has again given birth to another great scientific breakthrough: the creation of the first laboratory brain. Just 4 millimeters in diameter but fully functional, the mini-brains have been created by the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna (Austria) and lay the foundations for the development of new, less invasive and more ethical brain exploration techniques.

Neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the United States, have shown that it is possible to implant false memories in the brain of mice, and that many of the neurological traces of these memories are identical in nature to that of authentic memory.

Scientists from the Gladstone Institutes in California (United States) have deciphered how a protein called Arc is involved in the formation of lasting memories. the finding is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Not all itching goes away if you scratch yourself. 15% of people suffer long-term itching, sometimes caused by information and medically, for example those caused by morphine in terminally ill cancer patients. Scientists at the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research in Bethesda (Maryland, USA) have discovered that there is a hormone that sends itch signals to neurons in the spinal cord, which in turn transmit them to the brain. This could lead to a chronic itch remedy.

Unlike what we usually think, the brain remains active even when it is apparently resting. The activity of the brain organ at rest, that is, without the presence of any stimulus or task, is structured and responds to certain patterns or spatiotemporal networks: the so-called resting-state networks (RSN). Neuroscientists from Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) have just deciphered the keys to its operation.

There are around 100 million neurons in the stomach, more than the spinal column contains, and that is one of the reasons why it is nicknamed the "second brain."

Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) have succeeded for the first time in transforming human embryonic stem cells into neurons that allow us to recover the ability to learn and remember. The experiment, carried out in mice, is the first step to implanting these stem cells in the human brain to cure neurological deficiencies.

The contacts between neurons (synapses) with five times smaller in the areas of the brain that suffer from Alzheimer's, according to a study by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) published in the journal 'Journal of Alzheimer's Disease'.