New Technique Connects Lab-Grown “Neural Organoids” to Resemble Brain Circuits

The AHA! Team — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 08:33:29 +0000

Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo via News-Medical – Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is extremely prevalent among adults, affecting over 800 million individuals worldwide. The idea of growing a functioning human brain-like tissues in a dish has always sounded pretty far-fetched, even to researchers in the field. Towards the future goal, a Japanese and French research team has developed a technique for connecting lab-grown brain-mimicking tissue in a way that resembles circuits in our brain. It is challenging to study exact mechanisms of the brain development and functions. Animal studies are limited by differences between species in brain structure and function, and brain cells grown in the lab tend to lack the characteristic connections of cells in the human brain. What’s more, researchers are increasingly realizing that these interregional connections, and the circuits that they create, are important for many of the brain functions that define us as humans. Previous studies have tried to create brain circuits under laboratory conditions, which have been advancing the field. Researchers from The University of Tokyo have recently found a way to create more physiological connections between lab-grown “neural organoids,” an experimental model tissue in which human stem cells are grown into three-dimensional developmental brain-mimicking structures. The team did this by linking the organoids via axonal bundles, which is similar to how regions are connected in the living human brain. “In single-neural organoids grown under laboratory conditions, the cells start to display relatively simple electrical activity, when we connected two neural organoids with axonal bundles, we were able to see how these bidirectional connections contributed to generating and synchronizing activity patterns between the organoids, showing some similarity to connections between two regions within the brain.” – Tomoya Duenki, co-lead author of the study The cerebral organoids that were connected with axonal bundles showed more complex activity than single organoids or those connected using previous techniques. In addition, when the research team stimulated the axonal bundles using a technique known as optogenetics, the organoid activity was altered accordingly and the organoids were affected by these changes for some time, in a process known as plasticity. “These findings suggest that axonal bundle connections are important for developing complex networks,” explains Yoshiho Ikeuchi, senior author of the study. “Notably, complex brain networks are responsible for many profound functions, such as language, attention, and emotion.” Given that alterations in brain networks have been associated with various neurological and psychiatric conditions, a better understanding of brain networks is important. The ability to study lab-grown human neural circuits will improve our knowledge of how these networks form and change over time in different situations, and may lead to improved treatments for these conditions. Source: Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo Journal reference: Osaki, T., et al. (2024). Complex activity and short-term plasticity of human cerebral organoids reciprocally connected with axons. Nature Communications. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46787-7. To read the original article click here.

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NEW Study Reveals Shocking Connection Between Fast Food and Mental Distress

AHA Publisher — Wed, 05 May 2021 07:00:56 +0000

Damon Hines via NaturalHealth365 – Today’s food contains non-food ingredients that your grandmother and great-grandmother wouldn’t have recognized as food. In fact, according to journalist and food writer Mark Bittman in his new book Animal, Vegetable, Junk, close to 50% of the food that’s available today is in the form of ultra-processed junk food. While there’s a well-established relationship between diet and physical health, the associations between diet and mental health remain largely a gray area – within the “conventional” world, and it’s one that’s being increasingly looked at by scientists and researchers. Cheap food has a terrible impact on public health. According to Bittman, as more countries switch from a traditional diet to a more American diet, rates of chronic disease go up. In a new study published in the journal Nutrients, researchers at Binghamton and Stony Brook University insist there is also growing evidence that dietary factors affect mental health. Key findings of the study include the associations that mental distress has with caffeine and fast food consumption. Obesity and Chronic Diseases Are Only the Tip of the Iceberg: Research Shows Fast Foods Cause Even MORE Harm The more fast food is consumed, the greater the risk of anxiety and depression. It’s a dietary thesis that’s backed up by numerous observational studies. For example, a 2019 study looking at adults over the age of 50 found a link between higher levels of anxiety and diets high in (toxic) saturated fat and added sugars. A separate study in 2019 found that fast food was a factor in rising teen depression. “The consumption of foods high in sodium and low in potassium may contribute to depression through multiple mechanisms, including direct effects on neurotransmitters and neural function,” the researchers concluded in the study published in Physiological Reports. Meanwhile, according to research published in Public Health Nutrition and prepared by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of Navarra, in Spain, fast food can increase the risk of falling into depression by up to 51%. Finally, a multi-country analysis of 41 studies found that foods containing a lot of contaminated fat or sugar, or were processed, lead to “systemic inflammation,” which can lead directly to depression. The bottom line: there’s nothing happy about those “Happy Meals.” Processed Foods Are a Trap. Here Is Why Creating Healthy Eating Habits Pays Dividends In the emerging field of Nutritional Psychiatry, researchers are asking one question: Does diet help prevent mental health conditions? Yes, it does. But part of the problem is that ultra-processed foods are cheap, fast, and widely available. Therefore it’s easy for consumers to fall into a poor dietary pattern, one that may not only lead to chronic disease and obesity but increased anxiety and depression. What can you do? Eat a healthy diet characterized by high intakes of organic fruit, vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, fish, low-fat dairy, and antioxidants. Don’t just steer clear of fast food but also avoid “fast groceries” – that 90% of the middle part of the supermarket where processed, high-calorie junk food thrives, conveniently packaged and engineered to be craveable, even though your grandmother and great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize those non-food products as food. Sources for this article include: Medicalnewstoday.com Medicalnewstoday.com Theguardian.com To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

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New Technique Connects Lab-Grown “Neural Organoids” to Resemble Brain Circuits

NEW Study Reveals Shocking Connection Between Fast Food and Mental Distress