Tag Archives: Nature Journal

See-Through Brain Developed

April 10th, 2013 | Brain

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See-Through Brain Development

The world’s very first See-Through Brain has been developed by a team at Stanford University led by Karl Deisseroth (M.D., Ph.D.).  Deisseroth is well-known for his critical role in the development of Optogenetics, a tool used to control individual neurons with light.  Optogenetics is normally limited to surface neurons because the light has trouble reaching deeper areas, but the see-through brain may greatly enhance its efficacy.

The new method (termed CLARITY) involves removing the fat that provides structure but also blocks light.  The brain is soaked in a chemical that forms a nanoporous hydrogel-hybridized mesh in the brain.  This mesh can then support all the tissue so the fat can be washed away, resulting in the incredible see-through brain.

Unfortunately, the new technique can’t be used in living animals, but it still represents a huge advancement for neuroanatomists.  No longer will there be much need to cut the brain into tiny slices (an extremely time-consuming process) to observe connectivity.

The announcement comes just a week after President Barack Obama announced a $100 million BRAIN initiative, and this new step forward surely offers a taste of the sort of technological breakthroughs the initiative hopes to achieve.

And all the Leaders in Neuroscience seem to be weighing in on this one:

“I can’t make any official statement, but I can say that this is exactly the type of technology one would hope to develop for the [BRAIN] project” – Dr. Michelle Freund, a program manager with the National Institutes of Mental Health

“If the entire mouse brain is transparent, that makes a very large fraction of neuroscience research much easier”  – Dr. R. Clay Reid of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle.

This technique “is a giant step forward from having to slice the mouse brain into 1,000 pieces and looking at them each individually, then trying to reconstruct the relationships of all those slices” – Dr. Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University, a co-leader of Obama’s brain initiative.

“It’s exactly the technique everyone’s been waiting for”- Dr. Terry Sejnowski of the Salk Institute.

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 Karl Deisseroth, mastermind of the CLARITY technique

It is certainly an exciting time to be a Neuroscientist.

You can find the full article here.

-RSB

Woman Controls Robotic Arm… With Her MIND

May 19th, 2012 | Brain, Robot

Woman Controls Robotic Arm With Her Mind

Well, this is certainly one of the most amazing things I have seen in quite some time (and thanks to artist and Facebook Fan, Luanne Meader for sharing).  Cathy Hutchinson has been unable to move her own arms or legs for 15 years, but thanks to research out of Brown University, she is able to control this robotic arm to give herself a drink of coffee for the 1st time without assistance.  The smile on her face upon success is priceless.

I first heard about this technology several years ago in Monkeys from research conducted by Miguel Nicolelis, MD/PhD, who is professor of neurobiology and co-director of the Duke Center for Neuroengineering.  See video below:

The technology basically works by implanting a sensor in the motor cortex of the brain (see below).  This sensor reads the brain’s electrical “thoughts” and then sends them to an external computer for decoding.  This decoded signal is then transferred to the robotic arm so that it can deliver the coffee (or whatever else the user desires).

Motor and Somatosensory Cortex

 

It’s pretty breathtaking stuff, and I’m really excited to see where the field of Neuroengineering goes from here.  This certainly marks the beginning of a new era of man’s relationship with machine.

-RSB