News:

Departing the Vacuousness

Main Menu

Recent posts

#1
True
The Nxt is haunted by Christmas past.
#2
Science / Re: All things brain...
Last post by The Magic Pudding.. - Today at 01:22:43 PM
Quote from: Recusant on April 23, 2024, 11:37:08 PMI'll probably remember this item, damage be damned. Featuring the hippocampus again.  :seahorse:

I'll try not to, or no more than the gist of the gist.
I think I can use it to advantage.
You said we'd travel when we had more time, how about Europe in May?
Do you realise the damage a trip like that would do to our hippocampuses?
Oh well, there's a new TV series that sounds good.
Hippocampuses.
Detectorists again?
#4
Current Events / Re: Israeli-Hamas war
Last post by Dark Lightning - Today at 01:58:24 AM
How about all the people on both side who are "openly aflame" calm the fuck down? Nothing is solved by being so, it only exacerbates the situation. Non-citizens of the US (or elsewhere) should just be deported back to wherever they came from. We have enough white supremacists that we can't send away; that's bad enough already.
#5
Current Events / Re: Israeli-Hamas war
Last post by Icarus - Today at 12:54:26 AM
^ The "openly Jewish" remark could have had a less inflamatory choice of words. Perhaps conspicuously Jewish ? 

Most of the Jews that I know are too smart to get into a situation where angry Palestinians are all a flame.  Seems to me the coppers were only trying to protect the "openly Jewish' man from possible or even probable harm.
#6
Science / Re: "Just One Word: Microplast...
Last post by Dark Lightning - Today at 12:51:39 AM
#7
Science / Re: "Just One Word: Microplast...
Last post by Icarus - Today at 12:06:23 AM
Some current research indicates that we are ingesting plastic particles that have found their way into foods. Micro and nano particles appear in vegetables and many types of meat. Whether the accumulation of plastic particles in our bodies will kill us is yet to be determined.
#8
Science / Re: All things brain...
Last post by Recusant - April 23, 2024, 11:37:08 PM
I'll probably remember this item, damage be damned. Featuring the hippocampus again.  :seahorse:

"Every New Memory You Make Causes Damage to Your Brain Cells" | Science Alert

QuoteNew research reveals that the process of remembering something long-term comes at a cost – specifically, inflammation in the brain and DNA damage in nerve cells, as the memories get 'fused' into neurons and stored.

The international team of researchers suggests that memory formation is not unlike making an omelet by breaking a few eggs: some careful destruction is required before a new memory pattern can form.

Based on tests on mice carried out for the study, this happens inside the hippocampus, a part of the brain already known to be the primary storage locker for our memories and crucial to the process of remembering.

"Inflammation of brain neurons is usually considered to be a bad thing, since it can lead to neurological problems such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease," says neuroscientist Jelena Radulovic from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

"But our findings suggest that inflammation in certain neurons in the brain's hippocampal region is essential for making long-lasting memories."

The team triggered episodic memory in mice with brief, mild electric shocks. Close analysis of hippocampal neurons revealed the activation of genes in the Toll-Like Receptor 9 (TLR9) pathway, important for inflammatory signaling. What's more, this pathway was only activated in clusters of neurons, which also showed DNA damage.

While breaks in DNA in the brain happen often, they're usually repaired very quickly. Here, the changes seemed more significant, with biological processes usually linked to cell division apparently being used to organize neurons into memory-forming clusters without dividing the cells.

The inflammatory editing mechanisms in the mice lasted a week, after which the memory-storing neurons were found to be more resistant to outside forces. This suggests that memories are then locked in for good and protected from external interference. Something similar likely happens in the human brain, too.

"This is noteworthy because we're constantly flooded by information, and the neurons that encode memories need to preserve the information they've already acquired and not be distracted by new inputs," says Radulovic.

When the same TLR9 inflammatory pathway was blocked in the mice, they could no longer be trained to remember the electric shocks. The absence of TLR9 also led to more severe DNA damage, not unlike that seen in neurodegenerative disorders.

Blocking the TLR9 pathway has been proposed to treat or prevent long-term COVID-19, but this study suggests that the idea may need rethinking. Most of all, though, it's an intriguing new insight into how memories are stored in the brain.

[Continues . . .]

The paper is open access:

"Formation of memory assemblies through the DNA-sensing TLR9 pathway" | Nature

QuoteAbstract:

As hippocampal neurons respond to diverse types of information, a subset assembles into microcircuits representing a memory. Those neurons typically undergo energy-intensive molecular adaptations, occasionally resulting in transient DNA damage.

Here we found discrete clusters of excitatory hippocampal CA1 neurons with persistent double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) breaks, nuclear envelope ruptures and perinuclear release of histone and dsDNA fragments hours after learning. Following these early events, some neurons acquired an inflammatory phenotype involving activation of TLR9 signalling and accumulation of centrosomal DNA damage repair complexes. Neuron-specific knockdown of Tlr9 impaired memory while blunting contextual fear conditioning-induced changes of gene expression in specific clusters of excitatory CA1 neurons. Notably, TLR9 had an essential role in centrosome function, including DNA damage repair, ciliogenesis and build-up of perineuronal nets.

We demonstrate a novel cascade of learning-induced molecular events in discrete neuronal clusters undergoing dsDNA damage and TLR9-mediated repair, resulting in their recruitment to memory circuits. With compromised TLR9 function, this fundamental memory mechanism becomes a gateway to genomic instability and cognitive impairments implicated in accelerated senescence, psychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative disorders. Maintaining the integrity of TLR9 inflammatory signalling thus emerges as a promising preventive strategy for neurocognitive deficits.
#9
Laid Back Lounge / Re: Game: The Next Person... (...
Last post by Tank - April 23, 2024, 07:52:27 PM
True where I can which means most things. Going to need the guttering doing soon but I won't be doing that.

TNP is looking forward to Christmas?
#10
Current Events / Re: Israeli-Hamas war
Last post by Tank - April 23, 2024, 07:44:16 PM
I once took a street preacher to task in Leeds city centre. The police took me aside and explained that the preacher had a permit and that if I continued I could be arrested for causing a 'potential' public order offence.

This is exactly what the copper was saying the the chap in the video.