DNA

Epigenetics research opens potential door to prevent neurodevelopmental disorders

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Sai Ma, for­mer Vir­ginia Tech bio­med­ical engi­neer­ing Ph.D. stu­dent, and Chang Lu, the Fred W. Bull pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Vir­ginia Tech. Cred­it: Vir­ginia Tech

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Epi­ge­net­ic Changes Guide Devel­op­ment of Dif­fer­ent Brain Regions (Dana Foundation):

“It’s one of the great­est stand­ing mys­ter­ies in neu­ro­science: Giv­en that each cell in the human body con­tains the same DNA, how, exact­ly, does the brain devel­op into dis­tinct func­tion­al regions, sup­port­ed by dif­fer­ent cell types? And how might that devel­op­men­tal pro­gram go awry, result­ing in neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­ders like schiz­o­phre­nia or autism? The answers may be the epigenome [Read more…] about Epi­ge­net­ics research opens poten­tial door to pre­vent neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal disorders

Understand your connectome, understand yourself

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connectome—–

NO ROAD, NO trail can pen­e­trate this for­est. The long and del­i­cate branch­es of its trees lie every­where, chok­ing space with their exu­ber­ant growth. No sun­beam can fly a path tor­tu­ous enough to nav­i­gate the nar­row spaces between these entan­gled branch­es. All the trees of this dark for­est grew from 100 bil­lion seeds plant­ed togeth­er. And, all in one day, every tree is des­tined to die.

This for­est is majes­tic, but also com­ic and even trag­ic. It is all of these things. Indeed, some­times I think it is every­thing. Every nov­el and every sym­pho­ny, every cru­el mur­der and every act of mer­cy, every love affair and every quar­rel, every joke and every sor­row — all these things come from the for­est. [Read more…] about Under­stand your con­nec­tome, under­stand yourself

Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa (Alzheimer’s Research & Prevention Foundation): “You’re not a prisoner of your DNA”

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Dhar­ma Singh Khal­sa, M.D.

What is your cur­rent job title and orga­ni­za­tion, and what excites you the most about work­ing there?
As the Found­ing Pres­i­dent and Med­ical Direc­tor at the Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion for over 20 years, I am more excit­ed than ever about the pos­si­bil­i­ties for enhanced men­tal per­for­mance and brain longevi­ty for every­one. [Read more…] about Dr. Dhar­ma Singh Khal­sa (Alzheimer’s Research & Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion): “You’re not a pris­on­er of your DNA”

To Be (Your Connectome), or Not to Be (Your Genome)

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NO ROAD, NO trail can pen­e­trate this for­est. The long and del­i­cate branch­es of its trees lie every­where, chok­ing space with their exu­ber­ant growth. No sun­beam can fly a path tor­tu­ous enough to nav­i­gate the nar­row spaces between these entan­gled branch­es. All the trees of this dark for­est grew from 100 bil­lion seeds plant­ed togeth­er. And, all in one day, every tree is des­tined to die.

This for­est is majes­tic, but also com­ic and even trag­ic. It is all of these things. Indeed, some­times I think it is every­thing. Every nov­el and every sym­pho­ny, every cru­el mur­der and every act of mer­cy, every love affair and every quar­rel, every joke and every sor­row — all these things come from the for­est. [Read more…] about To Be (Your Con­nec­tome), or Not to Be (Your Genome)

A Love affair Across Generations: A Lamarckian Reincarnation?

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Eric Jensen alert­ed me to a research study pub­lished in the Feb­ru­ary 4th Jour­nal of Neu­ro­science — Trans­gen­er­a­tional Res­cue of a Genet­ic Defect in Long-Term Poten­ti­a­tion and Mem­o­ry For­ma­tion by Juve­nile Enrich­ment. We both had the same ini­tial WOW! feel­ing that we had expe­ri­enced when we first read about the dis­cov­ery of mir­ror neu­rons a decade+ ago.

The study’s find­ings seemed to sug­gest that acquired char­ac­ter­is­tics can be genet­i­cal­ly trans­mit­ted, a Lamar­ck­i­nan belief that had long been dis­card­ed by biol­o­gists. This seemed improb­a­ble, so we decid­ed to check out what the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty thought. It’s the kind of research that edu­ca­tors cer­tain­ly need to under­stand because the poten­tial edu­ca­tion­al impli­ca­tions are pro­found, no mat­ter how this par­tic­u­lar study sorts out.

I’ve thus append­ed the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion below: (1) the abstract and ref­er­ence of the orig­i­nal sttudy, (2) a link to a non-tech­ni­cal report in the cur­rent issue of New Sci­en­tist, (3) a link to a non- tech­ni­cal expla­na­tion of the research in Med­ical News Today, and (4) a link to a recent extend­ed non-tech­ni­cal New Sci­en­tist arti­cle on the issue of non-genet­ic inher­i­tance. Eric will post his com­men­tary on the research in the March edi­tion of his Brighter Brain Bul­letin newsletter.

THE STUDY:

To put it sim­ply: The researchers stud­ied long-term poten­ti­a­tion (LTP), in which longer and more robust synap­tic acti­va­tion occurs. LTP is the basic mech­a­nism for learn­ing and mem­o­ry formation.

Juve­nile mice placed into an enriched envi­ron­ment (EE) devel­oped enhanced LTP capa­bil­i­ties that they lat­er trans­mit­ted to their own off­spring dur­ing embryo­ge­n­e­sis (rather than through lat­er mater­nal instruc­tion), and these effects per­sist­ed even when the off­spring weren’t in an EE. The study con­clud­ed that a stim­u­lat­ing juve­nile envi­ron­ment can thus influ­ence the com­po­si­tion of sig­nal­ing net­works that influ­ence synap­tic plas­tic­i­ty and mem­o­ry for­ma­tion in the enriched mouse, and also in its future offspring.

The prob­lem with this research appears to be over whether the trans­mit­ted effects occurred via genet­ic changes or through some­thing else in the moth­er’s uter­ine envi­ron­ment. A female’s eggs devel­op ear­ly in life to be dis­trib­uted lat­er, so it’s improb­a­ble that a female’s juve­nile expe­ri­ences would alter the DNA in her eggs. A more prob­a­ble expla­na­tion may be that any changes in the moth­er’s brain that occur via an EE are rep­re­sent­ed as cur­rent­ly ill- under­stood sig­nal­ing mol­e­cules that pass through the pla­cen­tal bar­ri­er into the embry­on­ic brain.

THE SIGNIFICANCE:

For edu­ca­tors, this research sim­ply adds to our own strong belief that long-term ben­e­fits accrue from a stim­u­lat­ing ear­ly envi­ron­ment that encour­ages curios­i­ty and explo­ration. The research builds on [Read more…] about A Love affair Across Gen­er­a­tions: A Lamar­ck­ian Reincarnation?

Cognitive Health News Roundup

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July is shap­ing up to be a fas­ci­nat­ing month, full of cog­ni­tive health research reports and appli­ca­tions. Here you have a roundup, cov­er­ing food for the brain, cog­ni­tive assess­ments, men­tal train­ing and DNA, and more.

1) Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain func­tion (Nature Neuroscience)

“Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain func­tion”, by Fer­nan­do Gmez-Pinilla.

Abstract: [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Health News Roundup