Release date: 2014-11-17
Introduction: In the past 10 years, people's perception of the brain has grown rapidly. The tremendous developments in diagnostics and molecular techniques have uncovered some of the mysteries of the brain, and scientists are beginning to analyze these major discoveries and use them to respond to everyday behaviors and even diseases. The Scientific American edition reviews important 10 brain science studies and their significant contributions.
Scientist and author Lyall Watson once said: "We can never understand the brain." In the human head, hundreds of millions of neurons that constantly emit electrical signals form a dense network that has plagued scientists for centuries. However, in the past 10 years, people's awareness of this mysterious organ has grown rapidly. The tremendous developments in diagnostics and molecular techniques have uncovered some of the mysteries of the brain, and scientists are beginning to analyze these major discoveries and use them to respond to everyday behaviors and even diseases. Michael Stryker, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, said: "Now the neuroscience has become completely different from the year, and it's a shame for colleagues who retired five years ago." Scientific American MIND Special Edition Review the 10 important brain science studies and their significant contributions.
1 Neurogenetics
Twenty years ago, in order to diagnose neurological diseases, doctors used expensive and invasive means of the brain, such as brain scans, spinal cord perforation, and biopsy. Some parents worry that the genetic diseases they carry will be passed on to their children. Today, many degenerative diseases, epilepsy and movement disorders are screened through quick and easy blood tests. Thanks to the human genome map completed in 2001, the Human Genome Project (HGP) set off a wave of new sequencing technologies that scientists have advanced to understand the genetic pathways that lead to neurological and psychiatric abnormalities.
The picture shows the Human Genome Exhibition in the National Museum of Natural History.
Although other studies have not been able to derive a method for diagnosing neurological diseases, they have opened an important door for people to understand the neural mechanism and solve many unsolved problems. Scientists have been in schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, A small amount of abnormal DNA is traced in the blood of patients with depression and autism and other diseases. In the future, rapid identification of disease-related genes will change the way in which brain diseases are diagnosed and treated.
2 brain map
In early 2000, in order to complete the great goal of understanding the working mechanism of the human brain, philanthropist Paul Allen convened a group of experts. In 2003, shortly after the completion of HGP, they formed the Allen Institute of Brain Science in Seattle, began to map the gene-active regions in the mouse brain, and compiled the results into an online database (or map). The current database also includes data on humans and non-human primates. Unrestricted and detailed gene activity profiles help researchers design a variety of genetically engineered mice that express specific cell types or genes that are associated with certain diseases or behaviors. Now, Allen Institute of Brain Science continues to build a variety of maps. It recently launched a 10-year plan to study not only where specific genes are activated, but also how these genetic lines can enter vast amounts of information into the brain. As US President Barack Obama's brain initiative program (White House BRAIN Initiative) of the major players, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) has just approved $ 8.7 million in research funding, for drawing nerve connections in the brain of mice and humans. The ultimate goal of the research is to change the way we study brain diseases and disorders.
The picture shows the 3D top view of the cerebral cortex using the brain mapping software virtual tracking technology of Allen Brain Science Institute.
3 brain plasticity
Stryker said scientists have long believed that the adult brain is a relatively static organ. Just 15 years ago, they also believed that the brain was extremely malleable during infancy and early childhood, and has not changed much since then. Although the brain has the strongest plasticity at the beginning of life, "but in this decade, scientists have really begun to recognize and exploit adult brain plasticity," Stryker pointed out. Brain training software developed by companies such as Lumosity and "easy mind classroom" games developed by Nintendo have become a popular culture. Oprah magazine also published an article on how to "improve" your brain to make it more "smart." R. Douglas Fields, a senior researcher at NIH, believes that the emergence of better imaging techniques and new methods of fluorescently labeled cells allows scientists to study new brains as they learn new information, he said, "the brains of experimental animals can be observed. The activity of the cell reveals the mechanism of plasticity."
4 The mystery of brain navigation
For a long time, scientists have been thinking about the mechanism of people's natural ability to recognize the road, and until 1971, the breakthrough progress of Professor John O'Keefe of the University of London took a step by step. He found the so-called "positioning cells" in the animal's hippocampus, an important brain region that is closely related to memory. This cell produces nerve impulses only when the animal is in a particular location, and not in other locations. Through this discovery, John successfully revealed the neurological principles that humans can possess in spatial discrimination.
And in 2005, May-Britt and Edvard Moser couple from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology of the cerebral cortex in the vicinity of the "locating cells" found a new spatial location of cells - "grid cell." When the two scientists studied the nerve electrical activity of the mouse moving in the box, they unexpectedly found that if the position of the activated cells in the brain was recorded, a grid shape appeared. This "grid cell" allows the brain to track the location of an animal in real time like a navigator. "Grid cells" and "positioning cells" work together to give animals the ability to locate. "This discovery is one of the most compelling discoveries in human history in the brain," said James Knierim, MD, Ph.D., of the Department of Neurobiology, Texas Medical School in Washington, DC, in the 2007 Global Science Journal's MIND section. In October of this year, the three scientists were jointly awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
5 interesting memories
One of the mystery of the brain is that people still can't accurately explain what memory is and how the neural circuit stores specific memories. However, in the past decade, scientists have gained a lot about the limitations of memory. André Fenton, a scholar at the University of New York's Neuroscience Center, believes that memories are not necessarily written in our brains like black and white, and cannot be changed. Instead, they are engraved on a clay plate. Every memory is like a finger on a clay plate. The original handwriting. Slowly blurred. Ongoing life activities cause memory to change over time.
In addition, mindsets and emotions can affect people's attention and memory. Scientists are working on experimental chemicals that interfere with memory-forming proteins after injection, eliminating some of the discomfort, such as drug users' desire for drugs. The researchers even managed to trick the mice into completely false memories. The formation and recollection of memory is a process of gradual development, activation, and plasticization involving many different parts of the brain. At present, there is no complete and complex mechanism for this research.
6 Diagnostic progress
In the past decade, some treatment technologies for the purpose of connecting the mind have been developed. Of particular note is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is used to study how people's thoughts and emotions affect behavior, propose countermeasures, and prevent bad beliefs. According to Mary Alvord, a clinical psychologist in Maryland, USA, CBT first appeared in the 1960s and 1970s and was mainly used to treat phobias and anxiety disorders. However, the indications for CBT have expanded significantly over the decades. In 2012, a comprehensive study of 100 cases found that CBT is not only a scientific and reasonable anxiety treatment, but also applies to bulimia, anger, nervousness and mental illness that causes pain.
Nowadays, other behavioral techniques have become more and more popular, including: mindfulness meditation that encourages participants to adapt to reality, and dialectical behavioral therapy. The latter is mainly based on CBT, but adds a new approach that emphasizes the use of emotional regulation to address serious mental health issues such as suicidal thoughts. Alvord hopes that these therapies may be as effective as drugs in the future. He said: "Drugs don't change your lifestyle, and you can't teach you how to get along better with others. These treatments are more like empowerment and hope."
7 optogenetics technology
In 2005, scientists at Stanford University unveiled a technique that astounded researchers around the world, optogenetics. They activate or inhibit the neurons of the experimental individual with the same high precision as the light. Prior to this, traditional neural manipulation techniques used electrical stimulation with very low precision. Therefore, Professor Stryker of the University of California in the United States commented: "This technology completely overturns the existing research methods in the field of nerves. In the previous research, we did not know the cell that is electrically stimulated, but now all these problems are solved." To give a practical example, when scientists want to study which type of neuron plays a key role in positioning navigation when the mouse is in the labyrinth, the traditional practice is to implant electrodes into the brain tissue of white mice. It will stimulate thousands of neurons at the same time, which makes accurate positioning difficult. Now, scientists can greatly improve the precision of fixed-point manipulation through optogenetic techniques. They implant photoactive molecules into a certain type of brain cells that control only certain types of neurons and neural networks. By illuminating these brain cells activate or inhibit specific neurons, thereby elucidating their relationship to behavioral and psychiatric disorders.
A mouse engineered by optometry or optogenetic means such as photoactive molecules in the brain. This is the technology invented by Stanford University.
Given the many benefits of optogenetics, this technology has been adopted in many neuroscience laboratories around the world. "Over the past decade, has been to study the role in behavior, perception and understanding of the process in a variety of neural networks use light hundreds of research groups genetic techniques." One Light genetics inventor, Professor Ed Boyden Written in the 2014 Scientific American magazine MIND version. In future research, optogenetics will reveal how brain cells produce emotions, thoughts and movements, and how their dysfunction leads to mental illness.
8 new role of glial cells
Glial cells have never been valued. Unlike neurons, there is no bioelectrical communication between them. For centuries, scientists have thought that these cells, although abundant in the brain, serve only as packaging materials for the brain's auxiliary functions. "Scientists believe that they are insignificant slow cells compared to exciting neurons," said NIH Fields. However, new imaging methods have finally given scientists the opportunity to study glial cells, and they have found that glial cells play a key role in important brain functions such as memory and learning. “This is a whole new field. Glial cells are more complex and diverse, not like neurons,†he points out. “Glial cells work differently than neurons, which means we have to understand them.â€
Stained rat astrocytes
9 nerve transplantation technology
When people get injured in a critical part of the brain because of injuries, illnesses or strokes, it can be quite difficult to resume treatment. At this point, nerve grafting technology may be the only means of repairing brain damage. The first widely used implantable nerve device in history was the artificial cochlea, an inner ear device that was introduced in the 1980s. Satinderpall Pannu, director of the Bioengineering Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, commented: "In the past decade, due to the rapid development of semiconductor manufacturing, the sound quality of artificial cochlea has been greatly improved." Cochlear implants have More than 250,000 people worldwide have recovered their hearing, and artificial retinas that have just been put into medical use will have the same wide range of applications. In 2011, the first artificial retinal transplantation surgery was successful in clinical trials. The technology was officially launched in 2013, bringing the gospel to patients with degenerative eye diseases.
The picture shows the electrode placed on the retina
Other neurotransplantation techniques, such as deep brain stimulation and vagus nerve stimulation, have brought unprecedented hope to patients suffering from brain ailments, such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. Recently, researchers are exploring the use of these new technologies in the most common mental illnesses, such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction and pain. Today's neural grafting techniques have changed the traditional way of using current to stimulate specific areas of the brain. Pannu also boldly predicted the future of neurological treatment – ​​using release chemicals to repair neurological disorders that cause brain disease, which can cure many difficult diseases, such as depression.
10 brain mechanisms for decision making
For people, making decisions is always a torment. Sometimes simply choosing the simple choice of what to wear in the morning can be tangled. In the past decade, dozens of books and hundreds of research papers have tried to find psychological factors that influence people's decision-making. However, no research has been able to have the wide-ranging influence of the famous psychologist, Nobel Prize winner Kahneman in his 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow.
In his book, Kahneman summarizes the decades of research on cognitive bias in scientists and proposes a widely accepted view that people's brains have two distinct mechanisms that work together to make decisions. One of them is automatic, unconscious thinking, called "System 1", and the other is more subjective, with a strong personal factor, known as "System 2." System 1 is responsible for making quick reactions, such as people who are on a high-speed motorbike will jump off quickly. System 2 will help people solve more complex mathematical problems or recite a long list of letters backwards.
By focusing the reader's attention on the pros and cons of a deep understanding of brain decisions, Kahneman helps readers avoid some common mistakes and make better choices. As commentator Glenda Cooper commented, "This book with a circulation of more than one million copies has earned the 'master's masterpiece', 'a milestone in human thought'." The author of this work is now known as the "most important psychologist".
Source: Scientific American
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