Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Meditation Changes Pain Signal Processing Patterns
A new study reveals one of the mechanisms through which meditation acts as a painkiller, or as a way of reducing the intensity with which people perceive pain. The work shows that pain processing patterns are modified even after brief sessions of meditation.
Test subjects who were analyzed during the new experiments showed that after only four days of meditation sessions, the human brain becomes capable of altering its own response to pain.
All that participants had to do is practice a mindful awareness of their bodies and consciousnesses, the team behind the research says. They made a presentation of the study at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, which was held inSan Diego
Test subjects who were analyzed during the new experiments showed that after only four days of meditation sessions, the human brain becomes capable of altering its own response to pain.
All that participants had to do is practice a mindful awareness of their bodies and consciousnesses, the team behind the research says. They made a presentation of the study at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, which was held in
One of the thing that puzzled the scientists about practitioners' brain was that measurements revealed lower levels of activity in regions of the cortex that are regularly involved in relaying sensory information.
Additionally, the brain regions that control the painful part of the body are less activated as well. What goes into overdrive are the areas that are involved in modulating pain. As such, test subjects told scientists that they experience less intense pain, and that the feeling was not all that unpleasant.
The new conclusions add to previous studies, which revealed that practicing meditation can reduce anxiety levels, make people more relaxed and that it also aids in regulating individual emotions. As far as pain goes, meditation simply makes the feeling less distressing.
“It's really all about the context of the situation, of the environment. Meditation seems to have an overarching sense of attenuating that type of response,” says scientist Fadel Zeidan, quoted by LiveScience.
The expert holds an appointment as a post-doctoral researcher at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and is also the author of a new paper detailing the findings, which was presented at the conference.
During the experiments, participants were asked to practice what is known as mindfulness meditation. This means that they simply sat down comfortably, thought about the present, and cleared their minds, all while breathing at a steady rhythm.
“The preliminary results are very interesting and promising. You don't necessarily need to be a monk to experience some of the benefits related to meditation,” Zeidan explains.
In another study the researcher and his group conducted, published in the March issue of the esteemed Journal of Pain, Zeidan reported that as little as 30 minutes of meditation per day for three days can lead to a significant reduction in the pain response of test subjects.
The correlation held even if the participants weren't actually meditating, but rather just sat there quietly, relaxing.
Additionally, the brain regions that control the painful part of the body are less activated as well. What goes into overdrive are the areas that are involved in modulating pain. As such, test subjects told scientists that they experience less intense pain, and that the feeling was not all that unpleasant.
The new conclusions add to previous studies, which revealed that practicing meditation can reduce anxiety levels, make people more relaxed and that it also aids in regulating individual emotions. As far as pain goes, meditation simply makes the feeling less distressing.
“It's really all about the context of the situation, of the environment. Meditation seems to have an overarching sense of attenuating that type of response,” says scientist Fadel Zeidan, quoted by LiveScience.
The expert holds an appointment as a post-doctoral researcher at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and is also the author of a new paper detailing the findings, which was presented at the conference.
During the experiments, participants were asked to practice what is known as mindfulness meditation. This means that they simply sat down comfortably, thought about the present, and cleared their minds, all while breathing at a steady rhythm.
“The preliminary results are very interesting and promising. You don't necessarily need to be a monk to experience some of the benefits related to meditation,” Zeidan explains.
In another study the researcher and his group conducted, published in the March issue of the esteemed Journal of Pain, Zeidan reported that as little as 30 minutes of meditation per day for three days can lead to a significant reduction in the pain response of test subjects.
The correlation held even if the participants weren't actually meditating, but rather just sat there quietly, relaxing.
Meditation Changes The Structure of The Brain
Engaging in meditation even for brief periods each day has visible effects on the human brain, say the conclusions of a new scientific study. It would appear that the practice triggers a reorganization of cortical areas related to sense of self, stress, empathy and memory, among many others.
The correlation was found to be valid even for people with no prior experiences of this nature, who took part in a brief mindfulness meditation program. The work was conducted by experts at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
They say that brain-imaging techniques revealed that change after only eight weeks of practicing the meditation methods, which is a very short time indeed. Details of the study will appear in an upcoming issue of the scientific journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.
The correlation was found to be valid even for people with no prior experiences of this nature, who took part in a brief mindfulness meditation program. The work was conducted by experts at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
They say that brain-imaging techniques revealed that change after only eight weeks of practicing the meditation methods, which is a very short time indeed. Details of the study will appear in an upcoming issue of the scientific journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.
What makes this research special is the fact that it demonstrated for the first time that meditation can produce changes in the structure of gray matter in the human brain. These are the first scientific, verifiable evidence to attest to the fact that the change is real.
“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” explains researcher Sara Lazar, PhD.
“This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing,” adds the expert, who was the senior author of the new study.
In past studies the researcher and her team conducted, it was demonstrated that the brains of experienced meditation practitioners were considerably different from those of individuals who did not practice meditation.
Cortical areas associated with attention and emotional integration were a lot thicker in the practitioners, the team reported at the time. However, in the other studies, it was impossible to determine a causal link between meditation and the boost in cortical thickness.
The new study, which was based on using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the brain of test subjects, does exactly that. The research was carried out at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness.
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” adds Britta Hölzel, PhD.
“Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change,” she says.
Hölzel, who is first author of the new paper, holds an appointment as a research fellow at MGH and also at theGiessen University Germany
“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” explains researcher Sara Lazar, PhD.
“This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing,” adds the expert, who was the senior author of the new study.
In past studies the researcher and her team conducted, it was demonstrated that the brains of experienced meditation practitioners were considerably different from those of individuals who did not practice meditation.
Cortical areas associated with attention and emotional integration were a lot thicker in the practitioners, the team reported at the time. However, in the other studies, it was impossible to determine a causal link between meditation and the boost in cortical thickness.
The new study, which was based on using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the brain of test subjects, does exactly that. The research was carried out at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness.
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” adds Britta Hölzel, PhD.
“Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change,” she says.
Hölzel, who is first author of the new paper, holds an appointment as a research fellow at MGH and also at the
Attention Can Be Improved by Taking Breaks
A new investigation suggests that people who listen to their inner instincts telling them to take a break from a strenuous activity every once in a while are much better at concentrating than their peers who choose to remain focused on the task at hand.
Most people experienced this situation at least once – when choosing to concentrate harder on a task rather than take a break, only to find themselves losing focus faster than before. In retrospect, listening to your inner self might have been the best way to go about finishing the task.
These discoveries – which seem like common-sense to a point – go against established theories on the nature of attention. They also demonstrate in an empirical manner that turning your attention from an activity just for a little bit can help you get better at focusing on it once the break is finished.
Scientists are conducting investigations into this issue because workers have often reported the same problem – their performance/efficiency at doing a task declines if they do the same thing over and over again. This happens primarily because they lose focus. Most people experienced this situation at least once – when choosing to concentrate harder on a task rather than take a break, only to find themselves losing focus faster than before. In retrospect, listening to your inner self might have been the best way to go about finishing the task.
These discoveries – which seem like common-sense to a point – go against established theories on the nature of attention. They also demonstrate in an empirical manner that turning your attention from an activity just for a little bit can help you get better at focusing on it once the break is finished.
In scientific terms, this is called a vigilance decrement. The phenomenon occurs when attention resources begin to get depleted, explains the leader of the new study,
“For 40 or 50 years, most papers published on the vigilance decrement treated attention as a limited resource that would get used up over time, and I believe that to be wrong,” the expert argues.
“You start performing poorly on a task because you’ve stopped paying attention to it. But you are always paying attention to something. Attention is not the problem,” he goes on to say.
According to Lleras, the human brain may be wired in this manner. Previous studies have demonstrated that, if exposed to the same sound, image, or feeling for a long time, the mind starts to ignore it.
“Constant stimulation is registered by our brains as unimportant, to the point that the brain erases it from our awareness,” Lleras explains, quoted by PsychCentral.
“So I thought, well, if there’s some kind of analogy about the ways the brain fundamentally processes information, things that are true for sensations ought to be true for thoughts,” he adds.
“If sustained attention to a sensation makes that sensation vanish from our awareness, sustained attention to a thought should also lead to that thought’s disappearance from our mind!” the expert says.
The main conclusion of the new investigation is really quite simple – deactivating and reactivating your objectives helps the mind perceive them as new every time you return to work. This in turn prevents the brain from considering the stimuli a background “noise” and ignoring it.
“From a practical standpoint, our research suggests that, when faced with long tasks, it is best to impose brief breaks on yourself. Brief mental breaks will actually help you stay focused on your task!” Lleras concludes.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Google demonstrates Image to Text Translation at Mobile Tech Fair
Internet giant Google has successfully demonstrated the prototype version of a new image recognition technology that can capture an image file into a cell phone and translate a non-English text into English text.
This is what Andrew Gomez, an associate product-marketing manager at Google, posted on Google blog this week.
"Imagine being in a foreign country staring at a restaurant menu you can't understand, a waiter impatiently tapping his foot at your tableside. You, a vegetarian, have no idea whether you're about to order spaghetti with meatballs or veggie pesto. What would you do? Well, eventually you might be able to take out your mobile phone, snap a photo with Google Goggles, and instantly view that menu translated into your language.
Of course, that's not possible today - but yesterday at the Mobile World Congress we demonstrated a prototype of Google Goggles that has the power to do just that. It's still in an extremely early stage, but we thought we'd share this demo with you because it shows just how powerful a smartphone can be when it's connected to our translation technologies."
This week, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the chairman and CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt and the company's scientist Hartmut Neven demonstrated a prototype version of Google Goggles recognition software merging with Google's machine translation technologies.
Schmidt took a picture of a German menu on a cell phone, which instantly translated the written German text into English.
Neven said in the company blogpost that this prototype connects the phone's camera to an optical character recognition (OCR) engine, recognizes the image as text and then translates that text into English with Google Translate.
He said that currently this technology only works for German-to-English translations and is not yet ready for prime time.
Google plans to eventually bring out Googles Googles that can translate all of the 52 languages currently supported by Google Translate.
Coca-Cola Introduces Cell-Based PET Bottles
The Coca-Cola company has introduced a new container called the "PlantBottle,'' made partially from sugar cane and molasses that can be recycled.
The "PlantBottle''is fully recyclable, has a lower reliance on a non-renewable resource, and reduces carbon emissions, compared with petroleum-based PET plastic bottles, the company said.
"The 'PlantBottle"' is a significant development in sustainable packaging innovation," said Muhtar Kent, chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company. "It builds on our legacy of environmental ingenuity and sets the course for us to realize our vision to eventually introduce bottles made with materials that are 100 per cent recyclable and renewable."
Traditional PET bottles are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource. The new bottle is made from a blend of petroleum-based materials and up to 30 percent plant-based materials.
The "PlantBottle'' is currently made through an innovative process that turns sugar cane and molasses, a by-product of sugar production, into a key component for PET plastic. Coca-Cola is also exploring the use of other plant materials for future generations of the "PlantBottle."
Manufacturing the new plastic bottle is more environmentally efficient as well. A life-cycle analysis conducted by Imperial College London indicates the "PlantBottle" with 30 per cent plant-base material reduces carbon emissions by up to 25 per cent, compared with petroleum-based PET.
Another advantage to the "PlantBottle" is that, unlike other plant-based plastics, it can be processed through existing manufacturing and recycling facilities without contaminating traditional PET. Therefore, the material in the "PlantBottle" can be used, recycled and reused again and again.
Coca-Cola will market this eco-friendly "PlantBottle" with Dasani and sparkling brands in select markets in North America later this year and with vitaminwater in 2010.
The innovative bottles will be identified through on-package messages and in-store point of sale displays. Web-based communications will also highlight the bottles' environmental benefits.
"The 'PlantBottle' represents the next step in evolving our system toward the bottle of the future," said Scott Vitters, Director of Sustainable Packaging of The Coca-Cola company. "This innovation is a real win because it moves us closer to our vision of zero waste with a material that lessens our carbon footprint and is also recyclable."
"The Coca-Cola company is a company with the power to transform the marketplace, and the introduction of the "PlantBottle" is yet another great example of their leadership on environmental issues," said Carter Roberts, President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund, US. "We are pleased to be working with Coke to tackle sustainability issues and drive innovations like this through their supply chain, the broader industry and the world."
Earlier this year, Coca-Cola opened the world's largest plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The plant will produce approximately 100 million pounds of recycled PET plastic for reuse each year, the equivalent of nearly 2 billion 20-ounce Coca-Cola bottles.
Energy of The Future - Solar Thermal Power
Google, Goldman Sachs and oil firm Chevron believe that earth's future energy needs lie in the sun, and are willing to invest millions in that belief By Sourya Biswas
What does the largest search engine in the virtual world and the largest investment bank in the real world have in common, besides each being worth billion of dollars - in real money that is? Well, for one, Google and Goldman Sachs both believe that earth's future energy needs lie in the sun, and are willing to invest millions in that belief. And for good measure, they are joined by one of the biggest oil companies, Chevron, as well.
All these big names have poured in big money in companies that specialise in solar thermal technology. This technology is a lot simpler technically than the more popular solar photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight directly to electricity. Here, sunlight is focused with mirrors to heat oil in glass pipes to about 370 degrees Celsius, which is used to turn water to steam. The steam spins an electric turbine to generate electricity by electromagnetic induction.
Solar thermal collectors are characterised by the US Energy Information Agency as low, medium, or high temperature collectors. Low temperature collectors are flat plates generally used to heat swimming pools. Medium-temperature collectors are also usually flat plates but are used for creating hot water for residential and commercial use. High temperature collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors or lenses and are generally used for electric power production.
However, we are concerned here only with the high temperature collectors, which some opine, can satisfy as much as 50 per cent of America
One of the biggest believers in this technology, and one of the earliest to put money in, is Indian-born venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. He has been one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and became a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in 1986, after which he formed his own firm Khosla Ventures in 2004. Using his association with these firms he has invested heavily in renewable and new energy sources like ethanol and solar energy.
In September 2007, Khosla led a $40-million investment in solar power producer Ausra Inc. with Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Ausra's proprietary technology significantly reduces the cost of a solar thermal power plant and so is capable of significantly reducing global carbon emissions normally associated with electricity generation.
In December 2007 it announced it was building the first US Las Vegas
Ausra's plants will produce electricity at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour starting in 2010, and the price will fall to 8 cents a few years later as it adopts systems with fewer parts that will be less costly when widely deployed, the company says. ''We are going to beat coal,'' says Bob Fishman, Ausra's CEO.
A solar thermal unit that begins operation in 2010 will produce power at 14.2 cents a kilowatt hour, almost three times the 4.8 cents for a plant using pulverized coal, the US Energy Information Administration estimates.
Both Chevron and Google have invested in solar energy startup BrightSource Energy Inc. Other investors in this company include JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley. In March 2008, BrightSource entered into a series of power purchase agreements with PG&E for up to 900MW of electricity. BrightSource is currently developing a number of solar power plants in the Mojave Desert of Southern California, with construction of the first plant planned to start in 2009.
Goldman Sachs is seeking land to lease as demand out-paces wind turbines and geothermal, the other competitors to solar energy for top position in the renewable energy stakes. Others have filed more than 50 applications with the US Bureau of Land Management to lease government-owned desert property for solar power systems.
Another big name in solar thermal power is Florida Power & Light Company, the principal subsidiary of FPL Group, Inc. commonly referred to by its initials, FPL. Although a conventional electricity producer and distributor in over 20 American states, it too has invested heavily in solar thermal technology and is the main owner of the SEGS solar power plants, the largest array in the world.
Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) is the name given to nine solar power plants in California's Mojave Desert, where sunlight is among the best available in the United States. SEGS III, VII are located at Kramer Junction, with SEGS VIII, IX at Harper Lake
The installation uses parabolic trough solar thermal technology along with natural gas to generate electricity. The plants have a 354 MW installed capacity, making it the largest installation of solar plants of any kind in the world. By comparison, the largest photovoltaic plant, which is in Spain Waldpolenz Solar Park Germany Victoria , Australia
The SEGS power plants were commissioned between 1984 and 1991. The facilities have a total of over 1,000,000 mirrors and cover more than 1,600 acres (6.4 square-km). SEGS VIII (80 MW) and SEGS IX (80 MW) are the largest solar power plants individually and collectively in the world.
The parabolic reflectors have an efficiency of more than 90 per cent, compared with 80 per cent for a typical bathroom mirror. That means a reflector reflects 90 per cent of the sunlight that falls on it while absorbing the rest. FPL uses 15,000-litre trucks to spray water weekly to clean the surfaces, seven feet off the ground.
''There's always been a solar resource here,'' says Harvey Stephens, a production manager and one of 100 workers at the plant. ''It's just that it hasn't been cost-effective enough.'' However, all that may soon change.
Costs for solar thermal may fall as low as 3.5 cents a kilowatt-hour by 2020, according to a report commissioned by the US Energy Department. Meanwhile, coal expenses may rise. Moreover, there are other costs to producing electricity using coal, pollution for instance. The US Congress is considering limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. The purchase of pollution permits may be required under a measure the US Senate will begin debating next month.
However, solar thermal power suffers from one very obvious drawback - its complete dependence on sunlight. If the skies are cloudy, no electricity can be produced. Solar thermal companies are trying to develop backup heat storage using pressurized boiling water or molten salt that can be warmed to more than 1,000 degrees.
Solar power ''fits with our peak demand very well as long as the sun is cooperating, ''says Michael Yackira, CEO of Sierra Pacific Resources, the company that owns utilities serving Las Vegas Nevada
However, even with this drawback, the future of solar thermal power is ''bright'', pun intended. And many more investments can be expected in this ''sunshine'' sector, pun intended again.
Researchers "Grow" New Blood Vessels
Synthetic blood vessels that can be made in advance and stored until surgery could help patients undergoing heart surgery, hemodialysis—cleansing of the blood in cases of kidney failure—and other procedures. Laura Niklason, an anesthesiologist and biomedical engineer at Yale University, and her collaborators have grown blood vessels using human cells and tested them in baboons, showing that they provoke no immune rejection and avoid common complications of synthetic vessels, such as clotting, bursting, or contracting over time. Researchers hope these studies will show that the vessels are safe enough to win permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials.
During bypass surgery, doctors looking to circumvent blocked arteries usually harvest vessels from a patient's leg or arm. But people who suffer from vascular disease or who have had previous procedures may have no suitable vessels left. The other options have complications: grafts from donors are often rejected by the recipient's immune system, artificial plastic vessels have high rates of blood clots and other problems, and vessels grown from a patient's own tissue take more than six months to mature. "Artificial grafts suffer from clotting and obstruction because they are not tissue," says Niklason, especially when plastic is used.
Niklason says she has solved this problem by creating vessels that are derived from living tissue but can be used off-the-shelf and are not rejected by the immune system. Using a technique she developed at MIT in the 1990s, researchers seed tubular scaffolds with smooth muscle cells. The cells secrete collagen and other connective tissue molecules around the scaffolds, forming blood vessels. After the scaffolds break down, the vessels are washed with a detergent that strips away the cells, leaving behind the fibrous tubes of collagen.
Because the tubes contain no living cells, they do not trigger an immune response and have a shelf life of more than a year. The group has previously grown vessels using cells from several different animal species, including canine versions for heart bypass surgeries in dogs.
Now, in a report published in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers have grown vessels using human cells for the first time. They used the vessels to link an artery and a vein in baboons, creating a structure called a fistula to mimic the setup required by hemodialysis patients, who have a needle injected into such a link two or three times a week to get their blood filtered. Also, while previous versions of the vessels required a wait of several weeks while the insides of the vessels were "personalized" with some of the patient's own cells, a process that makes them less likely to clog, these hemodialysis vessels did not need that treatment.
"That means they could potentially be immediately available to the patient," says Shannon Dahl, a biomedical engineer who cofounded a biotechnology company called Humacyte with Niklason and another colleague to help bring the technology to market. Humacyte initially plans to test its technology in hemodialysis patients, though Dahl declined to give a timeline for clinical trials.
Researchers ultimately hope to test the vessels for heart surgeries, but they first want to show that the technology is safe and effective. "I would love to get to coronary bypass at some point, but we have to prove that this is a good, safe therapy in other anatomical locations first," says Niklason. A hemodialysis graft is much more easily replaced than a bypass graft if there are infections or other problems.
The researchers' use of baboons also provides important additional support before they move into human trials, says David Putnam, a chemical engineer at Cornell University who studies biomaterials. The reason is that the dynamics of blood flow in baboons are a good model for what happens in humans, he says. "They are going about this very well, very carefully. They're building a house with very strong bricks," he says. "And the next step is humans."
Insulin Pill Against Diabetes Undergoes Testing
One of the most cumbersome and inconvenient aspects of diabetes is the fact that patients suffering from advanced forms need to inject insulin into their bloodstream each day. Their own body is unable to produce the hormone, and they cannot survive without it. Delivering insulin has become big business, and many research groups have been looking for a method of making the entire process simpler and more efficient. Now, the Denmark-based Novo Nordisk has been found to engage in phase 1 clinical testings of a new pill, which may deliver insulin without the need for painful shots.
The pharmaceutical corporation has been a leader in the field of diabetes care for most of its 87-year history, delivering numerous products and therapies to sufferers. The new effort, if successful, would additionally consolidate its position, while at the same time providing diabetes patients with the Holy Grail of all cures, the insulin pill. Encapsulating the hormone in an easy-to-swallow dose is not exactly a walk in the park, but the fact that Novo is so advanced in its research can only mean excellent news for the company and patients alike, Technology Review reports.
In addition to the added comfort associated with receiving insulin in this manner, the pill would also entail other, more important benefits. If ingested, it reaches the stomach directly, from where it can easily go to the liver, mimicking the action of its naturally-produced counterpart. Generally, diabetes sufferers who have daily injections tend to insert the hormone in muscles or fat, which means that the substance is fairly far away from where it needs to go. This is why even patients who take their insulin shots at the correct time of day can develop hypoglycemia at any given point.
There are several hurdles associated with delivering insulin orally. They include the highly-acidic nature of gastric liquids, the complex nature of the insulin molecules, the rate at which epithelial cells absorb the compound and so on. In order to circumvent most of these problems, the Novo team turned to protein engineering, so as to modify insulin according to needs. “You can't use human insulin [for developing orally-delivered pills]. ]It doesn't work,” explains Novo's chief scientific officer, Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen. The team is currently still tweaking its final product, details of which are currently kept under wraps.
In addition to the added comfort associated with receiving insulin in this manner, the pill would also entail other, more important benefits. If ingested, it reaches the stomach directly, from where it can easily go to the liver, mimicking the action of its naturally-produced counterpart. Generally, diabetes sufferers who have daily injections tend to insert the hormone in muscles or fat, which means that the substance is fairly far away from where it needs to go. This is why even patients who take their insulin shots at the correct time of day can develop hypoglycemia at any given point.
There are several hurdles associated with delivering insulin orally. They include the highly-acidic nature of gastric liquids, the complex nature of the insulin molecules, the rate at which epithelial cells absorb the compound and so on. In order to circumvent most of these problems, the Novo team turned to protein engineering, so as to modify insulin according to needs. “You can't use human insulin [for developing orally-delivered pills]. ]It doesn't work,” explains Novo's chief scientific officer, Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen. The team is currently still tweaking its final product, details of which are currently kept under wraps.
Learning and Memory Enhancer Was Discovered
A team of medical researchers from the University of Bristol
This discovery could open the way to new methods of strengthening cognitive functions in people suffering from debilitating diseases like Alzheimer’s, but also help improve memory in healthy individuals.
What makes this finding really exciting is the fact that the researchers from Bristol’s School of Physiology and Pharmacology, were able to study, in isolation, the exact neurotransmitter that enhances learning and memory – acetylcholine.
This discovery could open the way to new methods of strengthening cognitive functions in people suffering from debilitating diseases like Alzheimer’s, but also help improve memory in healthy individuals.
What makes this finding really exciting is the fact that the researchers from Bristol’s School of Physiology and Pharmacology, were able to study, in isolation, the exact neurotransmitter that enhances learning and memory – acetylcholine.
They studied the effects that drugs targeting acetylcholine receptors and SK channels have on the force of the connections between nerve cells in animal brain tissue.
They found out that administrating drugs that activate acetylcholine receptors or block SK channels, made changing the connection strength much easier, thus establishing a link between the two proteins.
Lead researcher Dr Jack Mellor, from the University of Bristol’s Medical School said that “from a therapeutic point of view, this study suggests that certain drugs that act on specific acetylcholine receptors may be highly attractive as potential treatments for cognitive disorders.
“Currently, the only effective treatments for patients with Alzheimer’s disease are drugs that boost the effectiveness of naturally released acetylcholine.
“We have shown that mimicking the effect of acetylcholine at specific receptors facilitates changes in the strength of connections between nerve cells.
“This could potentially be beneficial for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or schizophrenia.”
During learning, acetylcholine is released in the brain where it boosts the capacity of acquiring new memories, by facilitating the activity of the NMDA receptors – proteins in charge of the strength of the connections between nerve cells, within the brain.
The researchers have shown that acetylcholine facilitates NMDA receptors by inhibiting other proteins called SK channels, which normally restrict NMDA receptors' activity.
They do so by preventing changes in the strength of nerve cells connections, weakening the brain's ability to encode memories.
Releasing acetylcholine removes the SK barrier, and enhances the brain’s capacity of learning and remembering information.
Still, Dr Mellor said that “these findings are not going to revolutionize the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of cognitive impairment overnight.
“However, national and international funding bodies have recently made research into aging and dementia a top priority so we expect many more advances in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying learning and memory in both health and disease.”
The researchers were affiliated to theUniversity of Bristol MRC Center
The results are described in the journal Neuron.
They found out that administrating drugs that activate acetylcholine receptors or block SK channels, made changing the connection strength much easier, thus establishing a link between the two proteins.
Lead researcher Dr Jack Mellor, from the University of Bristol’s Medical School said that “from a therapeutic point of view, this study suggests that certain drugs that act on specific acetylcholine receptors may be highly attractive as potential treatments for cognitive disorders.
“Currently, the only effective treatments for patients with Alzheimer’s disease are drugs that boost the effectiveness of naturally released acetylcholine.
“We have shown that mimicking the effect of acetylcholine at specific receptors facilitates changes in the strength of connections between nerve cells.
“This could potentially be beneficial for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or schizophrenia.”
During learning, acetylcholine is released in the brain where it boosts the capacity of acquiring new memories, by facilitating the activity of the NMDA receptors – proteins in charge of the strength of the connections between nerve cells, within the brain.
The researchers have shown that acetylcholine facilitates NMDA receptors by inhibiting other proteins called SK channels, which normally restrict NMDA receptors' activity.
They do so by preventing changes in the strength of nerve cells connections, weakening the brain's ability to encode memories.
Releasing acetylcholine removes the SK barrier, and enhances the brain’s capacity of learning and remembering information.
Still, Dr Mellor said that “these findings are not going to revolutionize the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of cognitive impairment overnight.
“However, national and international funding bodies have recently made research into aging and dementia a top priority so we expect many more advances in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying learning and memory in both health and disease.”
The researchers were affiliated to the
The results are described in the journal Neuron.
Learning and Filing Information in Your Sleep
During sleep, your brain can learn a new piece of information and even store it for later, so that it pops up when you need it, found a new study carried out by researchers at theUniversity of York and Harvard Medical School.
The team also discovered that sleep helps people remember new words easier and allows them to enrich their 'mental lexicon' with new vocabulary.
For the experiments, the study volunteers learned new words in the evening and were tested right afterward.
The team also discovered that sleep helps people remember new words easier and allows them to enrich their 'mental lexicon' with new vocabulary.
For the experiments, the study volunteers learned new words in the evening and were tested right afterward.
They slept over night at the lab while their brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalogram, and the next morning underwent another test.
The results proved that the subjects could remember more words than they did just after they had learned them, and they could also recognize them faster, which supports the theory that sleep has strengthened the new memories.
For the control group however, things went a little differently: they were trained in the morning and were re-tested in the evening, without getting any sleep in between, and their results were much weaker.
The researchers examined the brainwaves of sleep volunteers and saw that deep sleep or slow-wave sleep, helped more in strengthening new memories, than REM sleep (light sleep) did.
Another thing that the researchers tested was whether the new words had been integrated with already existing knowledge in the mental lexicon, and doing so, they discovered the importance of sleep spindles in the brain.
Sleep spindles are short but very intense bursts of brain activity which occur during the information transfer between the hippocampus and the neocortex (hippocampus memories are stored away from other memories, and the neocortex memories are connected to existing knowledge).
Participants who had more sleep spindles during the night made better connections between the new words and the others in their mental lexicon.
“We suspected from previous work that sleep had a role to play in the reorganization of new memories, but this is the first time we've really been able to observe it in action, and understand the importance of spindle activity in the process,” said co-author of the paper, Professor Gareth Gaskell, of the University of York's Department of Psychology.
These results are another confirmation of the importance of sleep in learning new things.
The study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
The results proved that the subjects could remember more words than they did just after they had learned them, and they could also recognize them faster, which supports the theory that sleep has strengthened the new memories.
For the control group however, things went a little differently: they were trained in the morning and were re-tested in the evening, without getting any sleep in between, and their results were much weaker.
The researchers examined the brainwaves of sleep volunteers and saw that deep sleep or slow-wave sleep, helped more in strengthening new memories, than REM sleep (light sleep) did.
Another thing that the researchers tested was whether the new words had been integrated with already existing knowledge in the mental lexicon, and doing so, they discovered the importance of sleep spindles in the brain.
Sleep spindles are short but very intense bursts of brain activity which occur during the information transfer between the hippocampus and the neocortex (hippocampus memories are stored away from other memories, and the neocortex memories are connected to existing knowledge).
Participants who had more sleep spindles during the night made better connections between the new words and the others in their mental lexicon.
“We suspected from previous work that sleep had a role to play in the reorganization of new memories, but this is the first time we've really been able to observe it in action, and understand the importance of spindle activity in the process,” said co-author of the paper, Professor Gareth Gaskell, of the University of York's Department of Psychology.
These results are another confirmation of the importance of sleep in learning new things.
The study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
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