Weekly Roundup: Brain Stimulation Rebuilds Brain Circuits and Boosts Willpower, Brain Switch for Action and Stress, Supplement for Brain Performance, Overcoming Genetic Risk for Alzheimer's
Brain stimulation has come up a few times this week - and considering that this always generates interest let’s start there.
Back in the day before AI took over the brain news (and all other news) there was a bit of an undercover movement of using brain stimulation through devices that you could hook yourself up to - think electrodes on the scalp or a small headset with electrodes.
These promised to calm you down or improve your attention (some reputably developed by the US military for people like snipers).
Recent research has shown that various forms of brain stimulation can have pretty dramatic effects - and in the most recent case can even rebuild brain circuits.
Magnetic Stimulation Rebuilds Brain Circuits
So far the assumption of what is known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is that it stimulates brain regions, and these regions then up their activity and increase communication hence impacting brain dynamics, and up or down regulating various behaviours.
But new research out of UCLA in the US just published showed something more dramatic.
First off TMA has been shown to be effective in treating some forms of drug-resistant depression. The protocol first developed here went over 6 weeks but an accelerated version over five days has also been shown to be just about as effective. Now the research team think they have found out why, and it is more fascinating than just stimulating brain regions.
The reason is that this stimulation is not just about switching on or off brain regions but rebuilds architecture between brain cells. Specifically, there is something known as dendritic spines that help communication between cells. There are thousands of these on any neuron and the paths to neurons, the dendrites, and we know that stress disrupts these and causes loss of these particularly in the prefrontal cortex.
And this is where TMS comes in because this accelerated protocol was shown to induce significant structural repair. But more surprisingly was how selective this repair was - it stimulated repair in a subset of neurons that communicate between regions (intratelencephalic neurons). Basically networked neurons - other neurons appeared unchanged.
That’s very good news.
It shows why it is effective, shows that structural change underlies this impact, and could also be used in many other conditions. At the moment it is not the first line of treatment against depression - but based on the results maybe it should be.
On the topic of stress a new paper also just about has also identified a key switch for stress and action.
Switch for Action and Stress
It may find strange to think that so far scientists haven’t really known how we switch from rest to action
It’s kind of one of those obvious things you would think that research have long since identified - but sometimes those seemingly simple questions can stump researchers
And now Chintalacheruvu et al. of Rutgers University have identified a critical mechanism that regulates autonomic arousal. But as, or more importantly, they have also identified the dial that up or down regulates this arousal.
