This is some incredible work done by DARPA on prosthetics. Once they get the mechanics worked out it appears they will be moving on to complete control over prosthetics via a brain or nerve interface. Very exciting.

*Note: The reporter is terrible, just try to tune him out.

Another sad example of too much power in the wrong hands. Here is the Patriot Act being applied to harmless technicalities, resulting in professors being stripped of their jobs and sentenced to years in prison. Just when I think I can’t get any more disappointed in my country, I read something like this. Good work US government.

Mail harmless bacteria, go to jail

This has caused scientists to get caught in the crosshairs, such as Thomas Butler, a microbiologist at Texas Tech who worked on Yersinia pestis (the bacterium that causes bubonic plague) among other organisms.

After initially being investigated for charges including bioterrorism (later dropped) following his report of missing bacterial vials, he was sentenced to 2 years in prison for a collection of other charges unrelated the original incident, producing a chilling effect upon the microbiology community: no one is safe from prosecution, and even a simple mistake can land you behind bars, stripped of your job and defending yourself with your retirement savings.

This isn’t the only case like this, either. Just last week, a University of Pittsburgh geneticist, Robert Ferrell, plead guilty to charges of failing to follow proper procedures in mailing samples, after being investigated initially for charges related to bioterrorism that were dropped (similar to the Butler case), and another professor awaits trial;

More of the story over at Aetiology.

PLoS Biology recently posted a new report about THC. THC research is a lot more useful than people suspect. The endocannaboid system is large and well established in both our peripheral and central nervous system. Yet we know relatively little about this complex system due to the illegal nature of the chemical. Check out one of my earlier posts for more information about THC and the current body of knowledge.

PLoS Biology THC Primer

Genetic Dissection of Behavioural and Autonomic Effects of Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol in Mice
Marijuana and its main psychoactive component, THC, exert a plethora of behavioural and autonomic effects on humans and animals. Some of these effects are the cause of the widespread illicit use of marijuana, while others might be involved in the potential therapeutic use of this drug for the treatment of several neuronal disorders. The great majority of these effects of THC are mediated by cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1), which is abundantly expressed in the central nervous system. The exact anatomical and neuronal substrates of each action are, however, not clearly known at the moment. We addressed this issue by using an advanced genetic approach. Control and conditional mutant mice, lacking CB1 expression in defined neuronal subpopulations but not in others, were treated with THC, and typical effects of the drug on motor behaviour, pain, and thermal sensation were scored. Our results show that different neuronal subpopulations mediate different effects of THC and could lead to a refined interpretation of the pharmacological actions of cannabinoids. Moreover, these data might provide the rationale for the development of drugs capable of selectively activating CB1 in specific neuronal subpopulations, thereby better exploiting cannabinoids’ potential therapeutic properties.

What’s that? A bird? A plane? An internet neuroscience blogging carnival? Damn, good guess!

Go check out the Thirty-Third Edition of Encephalon over at GNIF Brain Blogger. I even managed to get an article or two in it. Articles range from suicide genes to a review of the frontal cortex to microglial cellular senescence. Book reviews, interviews, and bears oh my!

Go read, as always it is an excellent issue. Next issue will be hosted by yours truly, so keep tuned. Send submissions to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com or use the handy submission form

Since I’ve been crazy busy lately, I’m going to take the easy blogging route. Voila! Have a link to an interesting article.

Scientific American is running a piece on Religion and the brain, which I’m sure will ruffle a few feathers. Its an interesting read, have fun.

The spiritual quest may be as old as humankind itself, but now there is a new place to look: inside our heads. Using fMRI and other tools of modern neuroscience, researchers are attempting to pin down what happens in the brain when people experience mystical awakenings during prayer and meditation or during spontaneous utterances inspired by religious fervor.

Such efforts to reveal the neural correlates of the divine—a new discipline with the warring titles “neurotheology” and “spiritual neuroscience”—not only might reconcile religion and science but also might help point to ways of eliciting pleasurable otherworldly feelings in people who do not have them or who cannot summon them at will.

Here is an interesting interview with a professional linguist who also happens to have autism. Her research is about language deficits in autistic individuals.

Medscape’s John Laurence Miller, PhD, interviewed Dr. Stillings about her theories on the cause of autism, the implications of these theories for treatment, and her own experience as a person with autism. At Dr. Stillings’ request, questions were submitted in writing and she replied in kind

Experiencing racism apparently fatigues that hunk of meat in your head.

The problem is that we have limited cognitive resources, so when we are solving one problem, we have difficulty focusing on another at the same time. Some psychologists reason from this that subtle racism might actually be more, not less, damaging than the plain antipathy of yesterday, sapping more mental energy. Old-fashioned racism — a “No Negroes Allowed” sign, for example — is hateful and hurtful, but it’s not vague or confusing. It doesn’t require much cognitive work to get it. But if you’re the most qualified candidate for a job, and know it, and still don’t get the job for some undisclosed reason — that demands some processing.
[...]
It did, at least for blacks, and more than the overt racism did. As reported in the September issue of Psychological Science, black volunteers who had witnessed unfair but ambiguous hiring decisions did much less well on the Stroop test, suggesting that they were using all their mental resources to make sense of the unfairness. Interestingly, white volunteers were more impaired by overt racism than by the more ambiguous discrimination. Salvatore and Shelton figure this is because whites rarely experience any racism; they do not even notice the subtle forms of racism, and are thrown off balance when they are hit over the head by overt acts. Many blacks, by contrast, have developed coping strategies for the most hateful kinds of racism; it’s the constant, vague, just-below-the-surface acts of racism that impair performance, day in and day out.

Its time! BPR³ icon contest is just about over. We just need you all to go vote on your favorite.

Secondly, Shelly at Retrospectacle is conducting a survey on the impact of science blogging. She, and other bloggers, will be compiling the results into a manuscript. The survey only takes a few minutes so you are highly encouraged to participate. It is intended for everyone that reads science blogs. What are you waiting for, go!

A vaccine for Alzheimer’s? New research uses vaccines to break up amyloid beta clumps in the brain. These deposits are made of a protein called beta peptide. The lab isolated an antibody to beta peptide and injected it into early onset Alzheimer’s patients monthly. As the body is exposed to the substance, it builds an immune response against it. This is the same principle that works when you get sick from everyday bugs like strep or the flu.

At the end of the trial, levels of beta peptide dropped in the cerebral spinal fluid, indicating that the vaccine was working. The results were a bit shakier:

Although brain, or cognitive function improved only slightly in four patients, it did not worsen, which would have been expected after six months. Also, mental tasks improved in three patients and stayed the same in the other two.

Don’t get your hopes up yet. Although the vaccine appears to work well in animal models and is quite promising for humans, it does have some problems to iron out. Another, larger trial experienced some unfavorable side effects due to the vaccine.

Unfortunately, although the vaccine appears to clear some of the protein from the brain, a substantial minority of participants in the trial developed a serious complication called encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), with two people dying.

Does anyone else feel that unraveling the “neural code” is counterproductive and barking up the wrong tree? New articles, journals and theories come out daily regarding the “neural code”, likening it to a language that we don’t understand yet. As if neurons in the brain “talk” to eachother using a sophisticated language. The theory goes that by studying this language, usually in the form of neuron spiking, we can eventually learn what the neurons are saying.

And I think thats just plain wrong. Thoughts and arguments after the jump.
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