Advances In Brain Research

Advances In Brain ResearchWhat’s Next In Store For Our Minds?

These days our technology is rapidly advancing, giving way to opportunity to find advances in many other areas such as our minds! There have been so many advances in brain research over the past few years that we have come to learn so much more than just what I brains can do. Although, this large mass remains mystery to most of us, many neuroscientists are coming to a deeper understanding of how it gives rise to consciousness, though and emotion works. Scientists these days are excited about the advances that are coming their way and look forward to see what’s to come in the future.

The brain is an organ of soft nervous tissue contained in the skull of vertebrates, functioning as the coordinating center of sensation and intellectual and nervous activity. It is comprised of four lobes from the temporal, parietal, occiptial and frontal. Each lobe have specific functions that work with the rest of our bodies. Scientists and researchers are saying that there is so much more to our brains than most of today’s society doesn’t know. Advances in brain research are constantly being made and giving new insight on how to deal with certain conditions that affect our brains.

What Are Some Advances In Brain Research?

A few years ago was a big year for advances in brain research. Researchers and scientists discovered many ways that have proven certain theories about our brains. However, it still is said to be one of the most mysterious organ in our bodies. Here are some important things that were discovered about the brain.

  1. The brain may be highly affected by the gut.
    • The National Institute of Mental Health invested more than $1 million on a new research program, investigating the link between the gut microbiome and the brain. They discovered that in fact that gut bacteria might have a significant impact on brain functioning. Neuroscientists began to develop a deeper understanding of just how the microbiome exerts an influence on the brain’s development and activity.
  2. Telepathy.
    • Scientists were able to achieve direct brain to brain communication between humans. Researchers from the University of Washington were able to repeatedly transmit signals from one person’s brain via the Internet, and used these signals to control the hand motions of another person in less than a split second.
  3. Replication of brain cells to study Alzheimer’s.
    • The Massachusetts General Hospital created what they call “Alzheimer’s in a dish”, which is a petri dish containing human brain cells that reproduce the important structures and course of events implicated in the development of Alzheimer’s. They tested over 1,000 Alzheimer’s drugs that a currently on the market and some 5,000 experimental ones. They used a three dimensional model to provide evidence for an existing hypothesis that deposits of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain, which is an early catalyst for the disease.
  4. Altering the emotional character of memories.
    • The Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers and immunologist Susumu Tonegawa, were able to plant false memories and remove existing ones in the hippocampus. They were able to switch the emotions associated of the mouse’s memory by linking one memory with a disparate memory of a different environment and emotional tone. They effectively flipped a negative memory into a positive one.
  5. How little we know.
    • There are 100 some billion neurons and up to 1,000 trillion neural connections in the brain, so studying them individually or in small groups, is like “understanding a television program by looking at a single pixel”, say neuroscientist Rafael Yuste.