From ScienceDaily

Imagine a chip, strategically placed in the brain, that could prevent epileptic seizures or allow someone who has lost a limb to control an artificial arm just by thinking about it.

It may sound like science fiction, but University of Florida researchers are developing devices that can interpret signals in the brain and stimulate neurons to perform correctly, advances that might someday make it possible for a tiny computer to fix diseases or even allow a paralyzed person to control a prosthetic device with his thoughts.

Armed with a $2.5 million grant they received this year from the National Institutes of Health, UF researchers from the College of Medicine, the College of Engineering and the McKnight Brain Institute have teamed up to create a “neuroprosthetic” chip designed to be implanted in the brain. They are currently studying the concept in rats but are aiming to develop a prototype of the device within the next four years that could be tested in people.

The initial goal? To correct conditions such as paralysis or epilepsy.

“We really feel like if we can do this, we’ll have the technology to offer new options for patients,” said Justin Sanchez, Ph.D., director of the UF Neuroprosthetics Research Group and an assistant professor of pediatric neurology, neuroscience and biomedical engineering. “There’s kind of a revolution going on right now in the neurosciences and biomedical engineering. People are trying to take engineering approaches for directly interfacing with the brain.

“The hope is we can cure more immediately a variety of diseases.”

Researchers have been able to decode brain activity for years using electroencephalography. Referred to commonly as an EEG, this technology involves placing a sensor-wired net over the head to measure brain activity through the scalp. But the technology wasn’t quite sensitive enough to allow researchers to decode brain signals as precisely as needed, Sanchez said. Now researchers are focusing on decoding signals from electrodes placed directly into the brain tissue using wires the width of a strand of hair.

“(Scientists have) realized that by going inside the brain we can capture so much more information, we can have much more resolution,” Sanchez said.

The chip UF researchers are seeking to develop would be implanted directly into the brain tissue, where it could gather data from signals, decode them and stimulate the brain in a self-contained package without wires. In the interim, UF researchers are studying implantable devices in rats and are evaluating an intermediate form of the technology - placing electrodes on the surface of the brain - in people.

UF researchers have developed new techniques using surface electrodes to access signals almost as precisely as they could with sensors implanted in the brain, according to findings the researchers published in May in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods. Developing these techniques is a big step forward in understanding how to best decode a patient’s intent from their brain waves and should have broad implications for delivering therapy, Sanchez said.

To gather data about the brain’s sophisticated cues, which vary from person to person, Sanchez studies the brain signals of children with epilepsy who are scheduled to undergo surgery to remove the part of the brain that is causing seizures. These patients often must be monitored for several days to weeks with electrodes placed directly on the brain. Doctors use this to pinpoint the problem area when a child has another seizure.

Because the children already have electrodes in place, Sanchez is able to use the data gathered from them to understand more about the brain’s signals in general.

UF researchers are also working on intermediate concepts that could be wearable, like a diabetes pump, Sanchez said.

“We have intermediate designs that connect to the brain, interpret signals and can wirelessly send commands to devices,” he said. “This is another path of technology we’re pursuing.”

To create these technologies, Sanchez is in the process of developing a center for brain-machine interfaces at UF with faculty from the College of Engineering, including Jose C. Principe, Ph.D.; John G. Harris, Ph.D.; Toshikazu Nishida, Ph.D.; and Rizwan Bashirullah, Ph.D.

But several challenges face researchers in bringing these technologies to patients, said Steven J. Schiff, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of engineering and neuroscience at The Pennsylvania State University and director of the Penn State Center for Neural Engineering.

For patients with epilepsy, who often have to take several medications or undergo surgery for relief from debilitating seizures, a neuroprosthetic device could be the best form of treatment, Schiff said, adding that more work needs to be done to understand the mechanics of what causes diseases such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s.

“The challenge is not so much the technology,” Schiff said. “The challenge is to use that technology wisely.”

The day may not be too far off when patients can control a prosthetic hand or leg just by thinking about it, Sanchez said.

“It’s becoming a reality,” Sanchez said. “We’re designing electronics that we can interface with biological systems and we can use that to help people.”

From ScienceDaily

The next time you “catch a yawn” from someone across the room, you’re not copying their sleepiness, you’re participating in an ancient, hardwired ritual that might have evolved to help groups stay alert as a means of detecting danger. That’s the conclusion of University at Albany researchers Andrew C. Gallup and Gordon G. Gallup, Jr. in a study outlined in the May 2007 issue in Evolutionary Psychology (Volume 5.1., 2007).

The psychologists, who studied yawning in college students, concluded that people do not yawn because they need oxygen, since experiments show that raising or lowering oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood fails to produce the reaction. Rather, yawning acts as a brain-cooling mechanism. The brain burns up to a third of the calories we consume, and as a consequence generates heat.

According to Gallup and Gallup, our brains, not unlike computers, operate more efficiently when cool, and yawning enhances the brains functioning by increasing blood flow and drawing in cooler air.

To research the theory that yawning evolved to cool the brain, the UAlbany psychologists had students watch videotapes of people yawning and counted the number of contagious yawns. In one experiment they found that 50 percent of the people who were instructed to breathe normally or through their mouths yawned while watching other people yawn, while those told to breathe through their nose did not yawn at all.

In another experiment they found that subjects who held a cold pack to their forehead acted similarly to those who were instructed to breathe through their nose — they, too, did not yawn, while those who held a warm pack or a room temperature pack to their forehead yawned normally.

Evidence shows that blood vessels in the nasal cavity and face send cool blood to the brain, and by breathing through the nose or by cooling the forehead, the brain is cooled, eliminating the need to yawn. Recent evidence has linked multiple sclerosis, a demyelinating disease, to thermoregulatory dysfunction. Excessive yawning is a common symptom of multiple sclerosis, and some MS patients report brief symptom relief after they yawn.

The UAlbany researchers also suggest, again contrary to popular opinion, that yawning does not promote sleep but helps mitigate the need to sleep. Since yawning occurs when brain temperature rises, sending cool blood to the brain serves to maintain optimal levels of mental efficiency. Therefore, the psychologists say, when mental processing slows and someone yawns, the tendency for other people to yawn contagiously might have evolved to promote group vigilance as a means of detecting danger.

So the next time you are telling a story and a listener yawns there is no need to be offended — yawning, a physiological mechanism designed to maintain attention, turns out to be a compliment.

Founded in June, 2006, The Perlmutter Brain Foundationis dedicated to supporting and encouraging research and clinical medical research in neuroscience. PBF specifically champions research exploring the role of modifiable lifestyle factors in various neurological conditions ranging from attention-deficit disorder in children to Alzheimer’s disease.

While scientific research aimed at developing new pharmaceutical interventions for existing neurological problems is intensely funded, precious few resources are available for institutions involved in researching and identifying modifiable factors involved in preventing devastating neurological conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. Our mission is specifically focused on these issues, recognizing the dramatic increase in these conditions in recent years and the predicted severe economic and emotional impact these diseases will have on our society in thefuture.

Well respected peer-reviewed scientific publications are replete with studies relating Alzheimer’s risk, for example, to lack of physical activity, mental engagement and dysfunctional dietary choices. Our Foundation seeks to identify and support research programs involved in evaluating as well as publishing information related to these issues. Further, because of the profound increase in risk for Alzheimer’s disease in diabetics, supporting organizations involved in raising public awareness of risk factors related to diabetes is a top tier focus of PBF.

In addition to these efforts ultimately centered upon disease prevention, our Foundation will engage in supporting specific interventional research. Researchers over the past two decades have identified a group of chemicals as playing a fundamental role in the process of nerve cell damage in essentially all neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and Huntington’s disease.These chemicals are commonly known as free radicals. The pioneering work in identifying the pivotal role of free radicals in aging and degeneration is attributed to Dr. Denham Harmon, known as “The Father of The Free Radical Theory of Aging.”

In his publication, The Aging Process, published in 1981, he set the stage for the current understanding of free radicals in brain disorders. Free radicals are naturally neutralized in human physiology by a group of chemicals known as “antioxidants.” Currently, leading edge researchers are just beginning to explore the potential of antioxidants as interventional treatments in various neurological disorders.

In 2002, Dr. Perlmutter received the Denham Harmon Research Award by the American College for Advancement in Medicine for his work in applying the free radical theory to neurological disorders. He is actively involved in researching novel antioxidant therapies in neurological disorders. For more info, see ParkinsonReport.pdf In recognition of the profound global health implications of these recently discovered mechanisms of disease, the fundamental mission of The Perlmutter Brain Foundation is to identify and financially support institutions involved in similar research.

The Perlmutter Brain Foundation is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization. Contributions to the Perlmutter Brain Foundation are tax deductible under section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code. For further information, please contact Dr. Perlmutter at 239 649-7400.