Category Archives: Brain

Implantable recording device "hugs the brain"

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Photo: Sarah G/Flickr CC

Silk-based implants that stretch, and stick to the brain’s contours and folds like shrink wrap, will monitor patient’s brains and other organs, without damaging sensitive tissues.

Tufts University biomedical engineering professors David Kaplan and Fiorenzo Omenetto created the silk substrate, which causes less inflammation than one with sharp edges.

“The implants contain metal electrodes that are 500 microns thick, or about five times the thickness of a human hair. The absence of sharp electrodes and rigid surfaces should improve safety, with less damage to brain tissue. Also, the implants’ ability to mold to the brain's surface could provide better stability; the brain sometimes shifts in the skull and the implant could move with it. Finally, by spreading across the brain, the implants have the potential to capture the activity of large networks of brain cells, Dr. Litt said.”

via A Brain-Recording Device that Melts into Place, April 18, 2010 News Release – National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Pot scare of the week: "may cause psychosis"

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Crazy, man. (Photo: Dana Ocker/Flickr CC)

Here’s your alarmist marijuana headline for the week (from Businessweek): “Marijuana Use Can Up Psychosis Risk”

What researchers found, actually, was an association between tokers who start blazing heavily at a young age, and an increased likelihood they will develop a serious mental illness.

And, of course, we’ve known about the comorbidity of substance abuse and psychoses for many years.

But you can’t blame the media for going overboard, this time: The Australian scientists who found the association between heavy, early use of pot and psychotic symptoms (such as hallucinations), themselves suggest a causal link:

“‘This demonstrates the complexity of the relationship: those individuals who were vulnerable to psychosis [i.e., those who had isolated psychotic symptoms] were more likely to commence cannabis use, which could then subsequently contribute to an increased risk of conversion to a non-affective psychotic disorder,’” wrote the study authors.

Another possibility, of course, is that young people, experiencing early psychotic symptoms, might be engaging in drug-seeking behavior to self-medicate, period.

via Marijuana Use Can Up Psychosis Risk – BusinessWeek.

Plug: Check out my Boston Globe personal technology column, User Friendly.

Kill your iPhone, before it kills you

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Image: Marshall Astor/Flickr CC

A stunning piece from GQ strongly suggests that the Wi-Fi and mobile phone businesses are screwing with our health by burying bad experimental results.

There’s a precedent for this: The author of the GQ piece, Christopher Ketchum, notes that the tobacco, asbestos, and herbicide industries all hid the dangers of their products for years.

Now, it’s the mobile phone industry’s turn, and they’re using the standards body, the IEEE, to do their dirty work, Ketchum writes:

“The committees setting the EM safety levels at the IEEE historically have been dominated by representatives from the military, companies like Raytheon and GE, the telecom companies, and now the cell-phone industry. It is basically a Trojan horse for the private sector to dictate public policy.” The IEEE's “safe limits” for microwave exposure are considerably higher than what they should be, says Allan Frey, who was a member of the organization in the '70s. “When it comes to this matter, the IEEE is a charade,” Frey told me.

via Warning, Your Cell Phone May Be Hazerdous To Your Health: Gear + Gadgets: GQ.

Some additional reading.

Scanning faces for autism

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Computer scientists revive eugenics tool to spot brain damage

(SS scientists studied Tibetans' facial characteristics on an early expedition.)

University of Missouri computer scientists are sure to anger “neuro-diversity” advocates with this one: Hypothesizing that autistic kids have unique physical features, they will create a roadmap with head size and facial feature measurements for diagnosticians.

The research is being funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.

“Instead of looking at brain structures slice-by-slice in an MRI (magnetic resonance image), we developed tools to create 3-D representations of the structures in order to visualize and make comparisons,” said Kevin Karsch, a research assistant in Ye Duan’s computer graphics lab, in a recent announcement. “Using the 3-D representations, we are comparing the brain structures of autistic children to those of non-autistic children; no one has ever done that.”

Note: FXSmom last year blogged about using facial characteristics to diagnose genetic disorders.

MU Researchers Study Facial Structures, Brain Abnormalities to Reveal Formula for Earlier Detection of Autism | MU News Bureau
The U.S. Department of Defense awarded Duan, in collaboration with researchers at the MU Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, a $110,000 grant to create a facial imaging system that will make identical measurements of the faces of children with ASD. Additionally, the NARSAD Foundation, the world’s leading charity dedicated to mental health research, awarded Duan the prestigious Young Investigator Award and $60,000 to fund 3-D imaging of various segments of the brain in children with ASD. The projects also are supported by a $100,000 contribution from other MU sources and $30,000 in Research Scholar Funds.

We are developing a quantitative method that will accurately measure these differences and allow for earlier, more precise detection of specific types of the disorder,” said Ye Duan, assistant computer science professor in the MU College of Engineering. “Once we have created a formula, we can pre-screen children by performing a quick, non-invasive scan of each child’s face and brain to check for abnormalities. Early detection is crucial in treating children and preparing families.”

"Vegetative" brains process speech

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Terry Schiavo might have heard everything, after all.

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Terry Schiavo. Photo: Getty Images

A new brain wave study finds that many people in persistent vegetative states, while unable to express themselves, are reacting internally to what they hear. The U.S. government does not keep track of the number plugs pulled on these patients, who might have been partially conscious, and aware of their fates. — mb

IEEE Spectrum: Brain-wave Test Challenges Vegetative-State Diagnosis
Of the 38 participants considered persistently vegetative, 22 percent responded to semantic errors with an N400wave effect. The group found similar results when testing the ability to discriminate between tones of different pitches. The data suggest that these patients are capable of a higher level of processing than previously thought. Although they cannot interact with their environment, many people with severe brain injuries may still be responding to it internally.

"Brain on a plate" bosses robot

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Scientists say they’ve cultivated a brain in the laboratory, which they’ve connected wirelessly to a robot.

The rat neurons, according to New Scientist, process sensor data from the robot’s sensors, and direct the machine to avoid obstacles. — mb

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