THINK BIG

Musings Over A Cup of Toffee Nut Latte #toffeenut #coffee

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:55:10 +0700

Musings Over A Cup of Toffee Nut Latte #toffeenut #coffee

Caribbean Seabass #lovefood #instagood #fish #seabass (Taken...

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 11:20:27 +0700

Caribbean Seabass #lovefood #instagood #fish #seabass (Taken with Instagram at Secret Recipe)

The world biggest drug (aka caffeine) dealer (Taken with...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 09:24:23 +0700

The world biggest drug (aka caffeine) dealer (Taken with Instagram at StarBucks Coffee)

articulomortis: Cross-section

Thu, 31 May 2012 06:09:03 +0700

articulomortis:

Cross-section

Today, scientists can safely examine these connections in a...

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:23:11 +0700

Today, scientists can safely examine these connections in a living human brain using a variation of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) called diffusion tensor imaging. This technique, developed in the 1990s, infers the location of nerve fibers by tracking water molecules in the brain as they move along them. The image above shows fibers radiating from the thalamus in a human brain.

Credit: Thomas Schultz/University of Chicago

Tracing Fibers In the 1980s, scientists developed fluorescent...

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:22:11 +0700

Tracing Fibers
In the 1980s, scientists developed fluorescent dyes to help them examine the long, thin extensions of neurons that carry information between these cells. Injected directly into the brain, the dye is incorporated into the cell membrane and transported along it, revealing the route of the nerve fiber. This image highlights the long-range connections between sensory areas of a mouse’s cerebral cortex and thalamus, often called the brain’s relay station. Fibers from the primary visual cortex are shown in red, while fibers from the primary somatosensory cortex, which processes bodily sensations, are shown in green.

Credit: Maria Carmen Piñon and Zoltán Molnár/University of Oxford

The Third Dimension Confocal laser microscopy uses focused laser...

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:21:01 +0700

The Third Dimension
Confocal laser microscopy uses focused laser beams to scan tissue. The focused beam reduces the scattered light signal used in conventional microscopes, producing sharper, more detailed images. Light reflected back directly from each point is used to construct a three-dimensional image. This pyramidal neuron from the cortex of a mouse (above) was visualized by scanning the tissue at different depths and superimposing the series of images.

Credit: Tony Pham, Baylor College of Medicine

In the 1990s, scientists developed a way to further reduce the...

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:19:54 +0700

In the 1990s, scientists developed a way to further reduce the scatter of light, called two-photon microscopy. This approach, which uses infrared light, can probe deeper into live tissue, producing images like the section of mouse cerebellum shown above.

Credit: Alanna Watt and Michael Häusser, UCL

Glowing Cells In the mid-1990s, researchers began marking...

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:18:43 +0700

Glowing Cells
In the mid-1990s, researchers began marking specific cells in lab animals by genetically engineering the organisms to incorporate fluorescent proteins (above) found in marine species. Within 10 years, these proteins had been engineered into the cells in more complex ways, enabling researchers to monitor biochemical reactions and track the movements of cellular proteins in real time.

Credit: Koki Moriyoshi et al., Neuron, February 1996

Scientists can now label nerve cells in a rainbow of colors....

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:17:32 +0700

Scientists can now label nerve cells in a rainbow of colors. This image is of a “Brainbow” mouse, which has been engineered so that different nerve cells glow in dozens of hues; it shows the hippocampus, a brain area that is crucial for memory. This technology, developed in 2007, has revealed the connections between cells in remarkable detail.

Credit: Jean Livet, INSERM

A newer twist on electron microscopy, developed in the 1980s,...

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:15:43 +0700

A newer twist on electron microscopy, developed in the 1980s, can reveal the internal structures of nerve cells. Researchers use a detergent to remove the cell membrane. Platinum and carbon are deposited onto the exposed surfaces to reproduce the cell’s interior features as a three-dimensional mold, which is then examined in the microscope. This image shows a hippocampal neuron that has been stripped of its membrane to expose the cytoskeleton, a scaffold that regulates the cell’s growth and movement.

Credit: Bernd Knöll (University of Tübingen), Jürgen Berger, and Heinz Schwarz (Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology)

Beaming Electrons Developed in the 1930s, electron microscopes...

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:13:52 +0700

Beaming Electrons
Developed in the 1930s, electron microscopes illuminate tissue samples with beams of electrons rather than light, increasing the maximum resolution so that much smaller structures can be distinguished. The image above, of a part of the brain stem that processes auditory information, shows a cluster of nerve-cell connections, magnified 23,900 times. The small, faint circles are synaptic vesicles, which ferry chemical signals between cells.

Credit: Palay, 1956. Originally published in the Journal of Biophysical and Biochemical Cytology, 2: 193-202

Fluorescent dyes can now be injected directly into cells to...

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:11:37 +0700

Fluorescent dyes can now be injected directly into cells to stain the ones a researcher wants to view. This image shows a Purkinje cell in red and a nerve fiber from another cell in green. A single Purkinje cell is connected to hundreds of thousands of these fibers.

Credit: Michael Häusser, University College London

Over the 100-year history of modern neuroscience, the way we...

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:10:10 +0700

Over the 100-year history of modern neuroscience, the way we think about the brain has evolved with the sophistication of the techniques available to study it. Improvements in microscope design and manufacture, together with the development of cell-staining techniques, afforded neuroscientists their first glimpse at the specialized cells that make up the nervous system. Microscopes with more magnifying power enabled them to probe nerve cells in greater detail, revealing distinct compartments. Newer techniques expose the connections between nerve cells, revealing the complex organization of the brain.

Visualizing Neurons
Nineteenth-century histologists created some of the first images of nerve cells by chemically stiffening tissue and then immersing it in silver nitrate, randomly staining a small number of cells to make them visible when they were viewed with powerful new light microscopes. The technique revealed the silhouette of the cell body and its network of extensions, and it enabled the great neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal to prove that the nervous system consists of cells. He produced the 1899 drawing at left: it shows finely branched Purkinje cells, large neurons in the cerebellum that play an important role in controlling movement.

Credit: Herederos de Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Neural Stem Cells

Tue, 29 May 2012 18:59:16 +0700

Neural Stem Cells

Music and Medicine

Mon, 28 May 2012 21:18:55 +0700

Seems music therapy is getting more attention these days. I wonder if Sacks’ latest book, Musicophilia, has anything to do with the press.

SciAm recently reported that depressed patients feel happier after listening to Beethoven.

Similarly, the NYT published a recent article about Claudius Conrad, an MD PhD surgeon at Harvard who’s investigating the biochemical nature of the Mozart-induced. Jonah Lehrer (The Frontal Cortex) comments.

The study itself was fairly simple. The researchers fitted 10 postsurgical intensive-care patients with headphones, and in the hour just after the patients’ sedation was lifted, 5 were treated to gentle Mozart piano music while 5 heard nothing.

The patients listening to music showed several responses that Dr. Conrad expected, based on other studies: reduced blood pressure and heart rate, less need for pain medication and a 20 percent drop in two important stress hormones, epinephrine and interleukin-6, or IL-6. Amid these expected responses was the study’s new finding: a 50 percent jump in pituitary growth hormone.

Interesting stuff, though, Dr. Conrad seems a little full of himself:

Thus, future studies are necessary to investigate how this beneficial effect of music can be further integrated clinically, both for patient and for physician.

That’s my opinion. I am Dr. Claudius Conrad, Senior Surgical Resident, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital.

neurolove: Iniopterygian has 300-million-year-old brain A few...

Sun, 27 May 2012 21:33:22 +0700

neurolove:

Iniopterygian has 300-million-year-old brain

A few years ago, some researchers found a fossil of an iniopterygian, a really really old fish-type creature. The best part about it (in my opinion) was that when they x-rayed the fossils, they found a brain still inside- the soft brain tissue had mineralized likely due to some phosphate bacteria present before it decayed. You can read more about it in PNAS. This brain survived THREE HUNDRED MILLION YEARS!! This is seriously awesome.

myampgoesto11: The Land Art of Sylvain Meyer [via Colossal]

Sun, 27 May 2012 21:33:08 +0700

myampgoesto11:

The Land Art of Sylvain Meyer

[via Colossal]

Cephalometric analysis is used in dentistry, and especially in...

Sun, 27 May 2012 12:45:04 +0700

Cephalometric analysis is used in dentistry, and especially in orthodontics, to gauge the size and spacial relationships of the teeth, jaws, and cranium. This analysis informs treatment planning, quantifies changes during treatment, and provides data for clinical research.

Photo

Sun, 27 May 2012 12:40:17 +0700