Category Archives: Neuroscience

Neuroscience

Opinion | The role that compassion could play in Indias economic revival – Livemint

In a recently published study of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, a group of Italian scholars found that government institutions and national health care services largely proved ineffective in facing the crisis, while civil society experienced a serious breakdown due to the climate of generalised suspicion. Potentially useful interventions, especially regarding social distancing, were negatively affected by mistakes in communication". The measures used to control the outbreak led to social division instead of greater unity and solidarity. (These) mistakes and failures in managing the Spanish flu had long-lasting negative economic consequences." Arnstein Aassve, Guido Alfani, Francesco Gandolfi, Marco Le Moglie conclude that experiencing the Spanish flu and the associated condition of social disruption and generalised mistrust had permanent consequences on individual behaviour in terms of lower social trust. This loss in social trust constrained economic growth for many decades to follow."

Contemporary economic policy discourse in India has largely missed this point. Even as governments, industry associations and think tanks have come out with recovery plans and stimulus recommendations, the all-too-important social dimension has been ignored. Let me offer a mea culpa: the economic reconstruction plan that I co-authored with my Takshashila colleagues declares three policy objectives: humanitarian relief, economic revival and long-term reconstructions. We called for monetary, fiscal and regulatory changes, but completely missed out the urgent need to halt the dangerous destruction of social capital and the conscious effort that public policy must make to rebuild it. For, if we allow social disruption and generalized mistrust to perpetuate, not only will an economic recovery prove elusive, but there will be worse to follow.

The challenge of bringing the pandemic under control requires us to set aside all other differences and focus on the public health crisis and its consequences. Had the nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill and National Register of Citizens continued despite the pandemic and in defiance of the lockdown, Indias present situation would have been a whole lot worse.

Compare this to the United States, where over a thousand epidemiologists and public health experts supported the Black Lives Matter mass protests during an extant pandemic. Harvard epidemiologist Maia Majumder tweeted that police brutality is a public health problem; anything that causes mortality at such a scale is a public health problem." Politics has prevailed over science in such arguments. As The Atlantic magazines Conor Friedersdorf writes, The reinforcement of progressive social-justice narratives should not get in the way of simple truth-telling." Yet, they have, and thousands of people are on the streets risking their own health and those of others for a cause. Reasons Robby Soave rejects the view that the righteousness of the cause is somehow a mitigating factor for spreading the disease", but yet another chapter is now being written in the tragic tale of how the US has botched up its response to the covid-19 pandemic.

We should avoid getting there. The Indian government would do well to reconsider socially controversial aspects of its pre-pandemic political agenda. Locking up university students and street protesters in New Delhi at a time when courts are not fully functioning and police forces are overstretched should not be a priority at this time. Should the relationship between police forces and citizens takes an adversarial turn again, India will suffer a lot more damage than it already has, and that we can ill afford.

To rebuild the economy, we must focus on rebuilding social capital. To rebuild social capital, we need greater compassion across society. So many of the humanitarian tragedies that unfolded over the past few months could have been avoided or mitigated had we shown more compassion: in making migrants feel safe, making food available, in saving small businesses and giving money directly to those who are in most need. This is not merely an indictment of our Union and state governments. It is an indictment of our society as a whole.

It is easy to dismiss compassion as being a social issue or personal matter and absolve public policy of any role in it. That would be wrong, given its importance to national prosperity and well-being. Indeed, it is perhaps inattention to the need for a compassionate society that lies at the root of our social and economic problems. Across parties and ideologies, whether in the name of social justice, inclusion or nationalism, our politics tends to promote policies of us versus them" that creates resentment and undermines compassion.

To be clear, the call for compassion as a goal of public policy is not a call for redistribution of wealth. Higher taxes and mandatory corporate social responsibility do not create compassion. Then how do we go about it? The Buddhist philosophical traditions answer is to start with an internal transformation, brought about by reflection, meditation and the experience of benevolent living. Meanwhile, neuroscience is confirming the view that brain functions can be changed and compassion cultivated. The public policy challenge is to make this inner quest a social outcome. How do we create incentives for compassionate behaviour? We have to, well, reflect on this.

What is clear, though, is that political leaders and policymakers should avoid deepening social disruption and the generalized mistrust in society, especially at this time, tempting as the opportunities might be. A pandemic is not the time for taking political prisoners. Nor indeed for us to be imprisoned in our own politics.

Nitin Pai is co-founder and director of The Takshashila Institution, an independent centre for research and education in public policy

Subscribe to newsletters

* Enter a valid email

* Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Originally posted here:
Opinion | The role that compassion could play in Indias economic revival - Livemint

Neuroscience

Understanding the neuroscience of compassion – Deccan Herald

It had hardly been a week since the beginning of the unfolding of the COVID-19 crisis in Seattle, Washington, the first US state to record an outbreak and where I currently live. I came across a newspaper article about a group of volunteers who were making grocery runs for the elderly in their area. I distinctly recall thinking, "What motivates these people to get out of their comfort zones and do something to help someone they dont even know? Would I do the same?"

I still don't have an answer to these questions, but neuroscience has been making forays into similar territory over the previous decade how is empathy different from compassion? Are different regions of the brain activated by the two? Is compassion as beneficial to the giver as to the receiver, and is it at all possible for this skill to be improved by training?

Compassion, Empathy and Altruism

Scientists define compassion as a sensitivity to the suffering of another, coupled with a desire to alleviate their suffering. This makes compassion a separate entity from its cousin, empathy, which is a general shared experience of another person's emotional state, be it anger, sadness, joy or suffering. Empathy usually does not involve a motivational or a prosocial component wanting to help another person is a purely compassionate response.

Compassion is also distinct from empathy in that the feelings generated by compassion could be totally different from those observed in the suffering person. I could feel anger at the injustice meted upon certain members of society, for instance. Empathy, on the other hand, is more of a mirror system. I see sadness, so I feel sad.

In addition to empathy, it is also important to distinguish compassion from another related construct altruism. While compassion may be associated with caregiving, altruistic behaviours in themselves are not necessarily evidence that the person has experienced compassion. A person may, for instance, indulge in helping behaviour as an attempt to reduce their own feeling of distress. Studies have shown that the perception of suffering causes empathetic distress in the person witnessing the suffering, and it is not hard to imagine that altruism driven by such distress can be detrimental to both the giver and the receiver of the response. Altruistic behaviours can also originate from a need to feel good about oneself, a desire for social recognition, or to satisfy a sense of duty or obligation.

The neuroscience and evolutionary aspects of compassion

From a neuroscience point of view, healthy compassion seems to involve two components in a complex interplay an arousal component, and a higher-order reappraisal or self-regulation component. Arousal on witnessing an event that elicits compassion involves increased heart rate and nausea, symptoms like those experienced during personal threat or pain. Left unchecked, this can soon turn into personal distress. The reappraisal component of compassion, however, which is mediated by higher-order brain areas in the prefrontal cortex, seems to protect from personal distress.

When I was wondering about how the Seattle volunteers were motivated enough to help someone they hardly knew, I might have, unbeknownst to myself, hit upon an important characteristic of compassion. Studies have found that, in general, similar and close others cause people to feel more compassion. This isnt surprising, however, given its evolutionary origins indulging in protective, self-sacrificial behaviour is a defining characteristic of maternal protection of vulnerable offspring.

But how does evolutionary theory attempt to explain compassion towards non-kin individuals? Why would someone feel moved by the experience of an individual they have no relation to and be motivated to want to alleviate their suffering? Evolutionary theory suggests that helping others has benefits to the individual themselves by directly or indirectly strengthening the group they belong to and opening the doors to reciprocal helping behaviour.

At some point in our evolutionary history, it seems, the narrow view of protecting ones own children from danger expanded to include compassion towards other individuals with whom people were likely to interact with repeatedly, and people considered to be in-group members. Like empathy, which has a distinct in-group preference, compassion too seems to be directed largely towards individuals we identify with, for whatever reason.

The broaden-and-build response

This has interesting, and often counterintuitive, implications. From a logical viewpoint, it may seem that someone with access to more resources would be more compassionate, given that they can help others at a lower cost to themselves, but the opposite has been found to be the case. Research has shown that people belonging to a lower social class rank tend to be more sensitive to others distress and need, and in turn more compassionate.

The team of scientists who performed the study on social rank and compassion relate their findings to a broaden and build response to stress, in which people seek to build cooperation and relationships in the face of stress, rather than fight or flee. This broaden-and-build theory suggests that acting on positive impulses has several benefits for individuals - including building psychological resilience and reducing negative emotions that ultimately help the individual survive better in the face of stress.

Can compassion be trained?

Educational institutions around the world are teaming up with experts on Buddhist compassion scriptures, to develop secular and contemporary compassion training programs. Eight-week compassion-based training programs from Emory and Stanford Universities use a combination of meditation practices and have shown some interesting findings. In addition to reduction in activation of brain regions responsible for the arousal component, compassion training also led to increased mindfulness and happiness, as well as decreased worry. Engagement of prefrontal cortex regions responsible for the self-regulation aspect of compassion also increases after compassion training. Interestingly, compassion training of parents found reductions in biomarkers of stress, such as cortisol, in their infants and young children.

Culture has been found to have an impact on compassion as well. Although research on this topic is in its infancy, cultures that emphasise collectivism and concern for the well-being of others are generally found to be associated with more instances of compassion and prosociality than other cultures.

This has implications for parents of young children as well. What is a family unit, after all, if not a mini culture in itself? Understanding our own motivations for wanting to help others, and weeding out the not-so-good reasons from the good ones has the potential to change the way we parent our children, and hopefully ensure that we bring up a new generation that is empathetic and compassionate, without being distressed by all the injustice that they see around them.

(Aditi Subramaniam is a neuroscientist turned writer who is fascinated by the workings of the brain and how we can rewire it to our advantage. She enjoys writing about the neuroscience of everyday life, and its practical implications for parenting)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.

Here is the original post:
Understanding the neuroscience of compassion - Deccan Herald

Neuroscience

Faces, Bodies, Spiders, and Radios: How the Brain Represents Visual Objects – ScienceBlog.com

When Plato set out to define what made a human a human, he settled on two primary characteristics: We do not have feathers, and we are bipedal (walking upright on two legs). Platos characterization may not encompass all of what identifies a human, but his reduction of an object to its fundamental characteristics provides an example of a technique known as principal component analysis.

Now, Caltech researchers have combined tools from machine learning and neuroscience to discover that the brain uses a mathematical system to organize visual objects according to their principal components. The work shows that the brain contains a two-dimensional map of cells representing different objects. The location of each cell in this map is determined by the principal components (or features) of its preferred objects; for example, cells that respond to round, curvy objects like faces and apples are grouped together, while cells that respond to spiky objects like helicopters or chairs form another group.

The research was conducted in the laboratory ofDoris Tsao(BS 96), professor of biology, director of theTianqiao and Chrissy Chen Center for Systems Neuroscienceand holder of its leadership chair, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. A paper describing the study appears in the journalNatureon June 3.

For the past 15 years, our lab has been studying a peculiar network in the primate brains temporal lobe that is specialized for processing faces. We called this network the face patch network. From the very beginning, there was a question of whether understanding this face network would teach us anything about the general problem of how we recognize objects. I always dreamed it would, and now this has been vindicated in a startling way. It turns out that the face patch network has multiple siblings, which together form an orderly map of object space. So, face patches are one piece of a much bigger puzzle, and we can now begin to see how the entire puzzle is put together, says Tsao.

The brains inferotemporal (IT) cortex is a critical center for the recognition of objects. Different regions or patches within the IT cortex encode for the recognition of different things. In 2003, Tsao and her collaborators discovered that there are six face patches; there are also patches that encode for bodies, scenes, and colors. But these well-studied islands only make up some of IT cortex, and the functions of the brain cells located in between them have not been well understood.

Pinglei Bao, a postdoctoral scholar in the Tsao laboratory, wanted to understand these unknown regions of the IT cortex. Working with nonhuman primates, Bao first stimulated a region of IT cortex that did not belong to any of the previously defined patches and measured how other parts of IT responded to stimulation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In doing so, he discovered a new network: three regions of the IT cortex that were driven by the stimulation. He called this network the no mans land network, since it belonged to an uncharted region of IT cortex.

To determine what kind of objects the new network responded to, Bao showed the primates images of thousands of different objects while he measured neurons activity in the new network. He found that the neurons responded strongly to a group of objects that seemingly had nothing in common, except for one curious feature: they all contained thin protrusions. That is, spiky objects such as spiders, helicopters, and chairs triggered the activity of the cells of the new network. Round, smooth objects like faces triggered almost no activity in this network.

Bao set out to mathematically describe what these objects all had in common. While a person can qualitatively describe the fundamental visible characteristics that make the shape of a chair distinct from a face, they cannot break those characteristics down to their mathematical parameters. To do that, Bao used a type of machine learning program called a deep network, which is trained to classify images of objects.

Bao took the set of thousands of images he had shown the primates and passed them through a deep network. He then examined the activations of units found in the eight different layers of the deep network. Because there are thousands of units in each layer, it was difficult to discern any patterns to their firing. Bao decided to use principal component analysis to determine the fundamental parameters driving activity changes in each layer of the network. In one of the layers, Bao noticed something oddly familiar: one of the principal components was strongly activated by spiky objects, such as spiders and helicopters, and was suppressed by faces. This precisely matched the object preferences of the cells Bao had recorded from earlier in the no mans land network.

What could account for this coincidence? One idea was that IT cortex might actually be organized as a map of object space, with x- and y-dimensions determined by the top two principal components computed from the deep network. This idea would predict the existence of face, body, and no mans land regions, since their preferred objects each fall neatly into different quadrants of the object space computed from the deep network. But one quadrant had no known counterpart in the brain: stubby objects, like radios or cups.

Bao decided to show primates images of objects belonging to this missing quadrant as he monitored the activity of their IT cortexes. Astonishingly, he found a network of cortical regions that did respond only to stubby objects, as predicted by the model. This means the deep network had successfully predicted the existence of a previously unknown set of brain regions.

Why was each quadrant represented by a network of multiple regions? Earlier, Tsaos lab had found that different face patches throughout IT cortex encode an increasingly abstract representation of faces. Bao found that the two networks he had discovered showed this same property: cells in more anterior regions of the brain responded to objects across different angles, while cells in more posterior regions responded to objects only at specific angles. This shows that the temporal lobe contains multiple copies of the map of object space, each more abstract than the preceding.

Finally, the team was curious how complete the map was. They measured the brain activity from each of the four networks comprising the map as the primates viewed images of objects and then decoded the brain signals to determine what the primates had been looking at. The model was able to accurately reconstruct the images viewed by the primates.

We now know which features are important for object recognition, says Bao. The similarity between the important features observed in both biological visual systems and deep networks suggests the two systems might share a similar computational mechanism for object recognition. Indeed, this is the first time, to my knowledge, that a deep network has made a prediction about a feature of the brain that was not known before and turned out to be true. I think we are very close to figuring out the how the primate brain solves the object recognition problem.

The paper is titledA map of object space in primate inferotemporal cortex.In addition to Bao and Tsao, co-authors are postdoctoral scholar Liang She and graduate student Mason McGill. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech.

Go here to read the rest:
Faces, Bodies, Spiders, and Radios: How the Brain Represents Visual Objects - ScienceBlog.com

Neuroscience

Exploring the Evolution of the Human Brain at the Single-cell Level – Technology Networks

Twenty-first century neuroscience is an enticing field of research that offers the potential to deliver novel insights into the cognition of the human brain and the molecular mechanisms behind brain diseases. However, it needs a little help.

The brain is immensely complex, comprised of functionally diverse anatomical regions which contain a multitude of different cell types. We know that, in order for these varying cell types to serve their function, an array of genes must be differentially expressed throughout the brain; specific genes are switched off in certain areas and certain genes are turned on in others.

We need to be able to look at the brain through a genomic lens to assess how genes are regulated or dysregulated in the case of some pathologies to gain a holistic view of its function.

The marriage of neuroscience and genomics has birthed a growing research area known as neurogenomics, which aims to understand how the genome contributes to the evolution, structure, development and function of the nervous system through the analysis of regulatory and transcriptional processes.

The advent of single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has made this feat possible. This technique, which continues to be optimized, provides RNA expression profiles of individual cells. Conventionally, bulk RNA sequencing was the "gold standard" technology for the job; however, in mixed cell populations the measurements obtained from bulk RNA sequencing can miss significant differences between individual cells.More recently, developments in single nuclei RNA sequencing (sNuc-Seq) have propelled the field of neurogenomics even further. Now, researchers can isolate nuclei from particular cells to profile gene expression within that cell an elegant alternative to scRNA-seq for cells that are difficult to isolate.A team of scientists led by Philip Khaitovich, a professor at the Skoltech Center for Life Sciences, has conducted a large-scale analysis of gene expression in 33 different regions of human, chimpanzee, macaque and bonobo brains, adopting a mixture of bulk RNA seq and sNuc-Seq. From the data, they have created transcriptome maps of these brain regions, which they hope will be useful in human evolution research. The study is published in the journal Genome Research.

When looking at the cellular level, the scientists detected multiple expression differences between species with each of the cell types. This extended to non-neuronal cell types, where there was a substantially greater excess of human-specific expression differences in examined brain regions when compared to neurons, including astrocytes and oligodendrocyte progenitors.

The researchers were also able to decipher information on the sensitivity of the techniques adopted in the study.

Whilst multiple expression differences were detected between species within each cell type, approximately one third of these differences could be detected using bulk RNA-seq method; the remaining differences were only detectable using sNuc-Seq.

Whilst the cell-type-specific evolution differences observed in the study are indeed novel, the authors note that their findings do concur with the literature. They also identify an important component that they brand as "missing" from their study, which is an analysis of temporal patterns of expression evolution in the developing brain. They suggest this to be the appropriate next step in this research space.

Reference:

Khrameeva et al. (2020). Single-cell-resolution transcriptome map of human, chimpanzee, bonobo, and 3 macaque brains. Genomics Research. Doi: 10.1101/gr.256958.119

Read more:
Exploring the Evolution of the Human Brain at the Single-cell Level - Technology Networks

Neuroscience

How to make good decisions when you’re paralyzed by the stress of protests and the pandemic – KTVZ

Do you find it tough to make decisions these days? What used to be no-brainers, stopping at the grocery for bread and milk, making a pit stop at the gas station or meeting friends for dinner and drinks are now fraught with dangers.

Are people wearing masks at the grocery and keeping their carts at a proper distance of 6 feet? Did you bring gloves or hand sanitizer for the gas pump? Will the restaurant have outdoor socially distant seating and just how does one eat with a mask?

And now were fighting back tears and struggling with rage over the killing of George Floyd, the unarmed and handcuffed black man in Minneapolis who died after gasping I cant breathe as a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck.

Its crazy times, with protests and a pandemic and things at every level appearing untrustworthy, said biochemist Bita Moghaddam, who chairs the behavioral neuroscience department in the school of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University.

Moghaddam, who studies how anxiety affects the brain, said its no wonder our stressed, overworked brains cant spit out a decision. We have become victims of analysis paralysis.

We dont know exactly whats going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, Daphna Shohamy, who is a professor of psychology at Columbia University, told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in a recent podcast.

And were all forced to make decisions in that state of uncertainty and to just rely on what we do know, which is not good enough, said Shohamy, who studies the cognitive neuroscience of learning, memory and decision-making.

I notice it myself all the time, Gupta said in the podcast. As simple as choosing a tie in the morning, what Im going to have for lunch, whether Im going to go for a run or a bike ride.

Those were decisions that usually took me just a few seconds, and now sometimes I just find myself struggling, he said.

The headquarters for our decision-making capabilities is the prefrontal cortex, which controls our higher-level executive functions. Those include focusing our attention, creating and organizing thoughts, setting goals, planning actions and putting a stop to impulsive thoughts and behaviors.

Under normal or mild stress conditions, the brain uses working memory to regulate our mood and actions from the top down. Working memory marries recent events with memories from long-term storage about what we learned from any experience, and it uses this to make decisions about how we should act, think and feel based on our experiences. And, of course, it helps us anticipate and predict possible consequences from our actions.

The brain is constantly estimating risk, Moghaddam said.

Im hungry. Im going to get up and drive to a pizzeria to grab some pizza. But driving involves risk because you could get into an accident, she said. If youre suffering from anxiety disorders, you may say, No, Im not going to even risk getting in the car because I couldnt relax. If youre drunk, then the risk is even higher. And it becomes a computation game.

It takes the first quarter of life for the decision-making area of the brain to fully mature in humans. Car rental companies recognize that fact and wont rent to anyone under 25.

Other key milestones, such as a drivers license at age 16, voting at 18 and drinking at 21 occur when the brains ability to make good decisions isnt fully baked.

The prefrontal cortex is also the area of the brain that is most sensitive to stress. Even mild stress can cause rapid and dramatic loss of prefrontal cognitive abilities, while prolonged stress can actually change the brain, according to Amy Arnsten, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Yale School of Medicine.

When we are stressed all the time, certain neurotransmitters go awry, flooding the brain with chemicals that change the structure and functioning of the prefrontal cortex and the fight-or-flight emotion and memory centers of the brain. Working memory suffers, and our ability to make quick or well-thought-out decisions declines.

in general, decision-making slows down, Moghaddam said. You could argue its better for our survival. You learned driving when its icy is dangerous, you shouldnt be drinking and driving, and youve learned that this virus could kill you.

The combo of stress with increased risk is making it much harder to make decisions during the pandemic.

If you think about going to the grocery store right now, theres a fair amount of planning consciously or subconsciously what times will be less crowded, do I really need to go, and should I go, Moghaddam said. Most of us didnt think of going to a grocery store as a dangerous thing before, yet now it has become an anxiety-provoking process.

Give your brain a break from its constant risk calculations.

Try to take 10 to 15 minutes to close your eyes and meditate, pushing all of your worries and decisions to the side during that time.

You can see physical changes in the brain in a short time, said psychology and psychiatry professor Richard Davidson, founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Davidson did a randomized controlled trial of people whove never meditated before. Using direct measures of brain function and structure, he found it only took 30 minutes a day of meditation practice over the course of two weeks to produce a measurable change in the brain.

There are other anxiety-busting activities that can help. Practice good sleep hygiene to improve your sleep quality, one of the best things you can do to ease stress and boost your mood.

Studies show exercising at a moderate but not high intensity for 15 to 30 minutes at least three times a week does wonders for stress. Try rhythmic exercises, such as running, swimming, cycling and walking, to get your blood pumping in major muscle groups.

Something as simple as taking deep, slow breaths can do amazing things to our brain and therefore our stress and anxiety, said Dr. Cynthia Ackrill, an editor for Contentment magazine, produced by the American Institute of Stress.

When you physiologically calm yourself, you actually change your brainwaves, Ackrill said.

Yoga, tai chi and qi gong are spiritual disciplines, designed to meld body and mind. A yoga lifestyle incorporates physical postures, breath regulation and mindfulness through the practice of meditation. Brain scans of people using tai chi and qi gong find increased alpha, beta and theta brain wave activity, suggesting increased relaxation and attentiveness.

And finally, stop criticizing your brain for its indecisiveness.

Why are we so worried about being paralyzed? Moghaddam asked. Its normal for a brain to take its time to make a decision. The brain is actually doing its job.

View original post here:
How to make good decisions when you're paralyzed by the stress of protests and the pandemic - KTVZ

Neuroscience

Global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays Market 2020 with COVID-19 After Effects Analysis by Emerging Trends, Industry Demand, Growth, Key Players -…

The latest launched research document titled Global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays Market 2020 by Company, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2025 elaborates primary analysis on the market which highlights numerous facts such as development factors, statistical growth, business enhancement strategies, financial status to help readers and clients to understand growth and development factors. The report analyzes the market status in the current and past years and offers predictions on how the market is going to progress with a continuing development in the upcoming years from 2020 to 2025. The report presents a detailed analysis of presentable graphs, charts, and tables. It delivers consequential insights to help company officials, industry investors, and industry members to make reliable essential decisions regarding the opportunities for the market.

Competitive Insights:

The research report has listed the leading players of the global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays market along with market share, product portfolio, and company profiles. Their production volume, gross margin, market value, and price structure are also assessed. The competitive market scenario will help the industry candidates in planning their strategies. This report also presents product specification, manufacturing process, and product cost structure, etc. Production is separated by regions, technology, and applications.

NOTE: This report takes into account the current and future impacts of COVID-19 on this industry and offers you an in-dept analysis of Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays market.

DOWNLOAD FREE SAMPLE REPORT: https://www.researchstore.biz/sample-request/15046

The well-established players in the market are: Thermo Fisher, BioLegend, Merck, Abcam, Rockland Immunochemicals, Bio-Rad, Roche, Genscript, Cell Signaling Technology, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Siemens

For a comprehensive understanding of market dynamics, the global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays market is analyzed across key geographies namely North America (United States, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, etc.), Middle East& Africa (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa). Each of these regions is analyzed on the basis of market findings across major countries in these regions for a macro-level understanding of the market.

Further, the report focuses on growth opportunities, market segmentation, landscape analysis, product types, and applications. This report has demonstrated all the vital market growth factors and mentioned economic fluctuations owing to the immense attention gained in recent years. While preparing this Global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays market analysis report, a few of the attributes that have been considered include practical solutions, committed research and analysis, innovation, integrated approaches, and most up-to-date technology.

On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate for each application, including: Pharmaceutical& Biotechnology Companies, Academic& Research Institutes, Hospitals& Diagnostic Centers,

On the basis of product, this report displays the sales volume, revenue (Million USD), product price, market share, and growth rate of each type, primarily split into: Consumables, Instruments,

ACCESS FULL REPORT: https://www.researchstore.biz/report/global-neuroscience-antibodies-and-assays-market-15046

Major Highlights of The Market report:

Customization of the Report:This report can be customized to meet the clients requirements. Please connect with our sales team (sales@researchstore.biz), who will ensure that you get a report that suits your needs. You can also get in touch with our executives on +1-201-465-4211 to share your research requirements.

About Us

Researchstore.biz is a fully dedicated global market research agency providing thorough quantitative and qualitative analysis of extensive market research.Our corporate is identified by recognition and enthusiasm for what it offers, which unites its staff across the world.We are desired market researchers proving a reliable source of extensive market analysis on which readers can rely on. Our research team consist of some of the best market researchers, sector and analysis executives in the nation, because of which Researchstore.biz is considered as one of the most vigorous market research enterprises. Researchstore.biz finds perfect solutions according to the requirements of research with considerations of content and methods. Unique and out of the box technologies, techniques and solutions are implemented all through the research reports.

Contact UsMark StoneHead of Business DevelopmentPhone: +1-201-465-4211Email: sales@researchstore.bizWeb: http://www.researchstore.biz

Here is the original post:
Global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays Market 2020 with COVID-19 After Effects Analysis by Emerging Trends, Industry Demand, Growth, Key Players -...

Neuroscience

ASSU Executives’ End of Term Report highlights affordability, equity initiatives – The Stanford Daily

Former Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) President Erica Scott 20 and Vice President Isaiah Drummond 20 highlighted contributions from various bodies of the ASSU in improving campus affordability and equity in their End of Term Report, which was released on Wednesday.

While this is not the end to our term that we had imagined, we have seen firsthand how resilient, empathetic and supportive the Stanford community can be, Scott and Drummond wrote. With the COVID-19 and racial injustice crises causing uncertainty and hurt for many, we implore you to continue showing up for one another and finding ways to take care of yourselves along the way.

Scott and Drummond identified ethical investment, support for Channel Millers plaque, public interest work and ASSU rebranding as priorities of the Executive Branch, citing figures like the $150,000 the ASSU distributed in response to COVID-19 and an increase in campus voter registration as successes of the administration.

Scott and Drummond also recognized the work of their cabinet directors, who specialized in issues ranging from sexual violence prevention to political engagement. Cabinet directors tackled projects corresponding to their area of focus, such as Affordability Directors Grace Achepohl 20 and sixth-year music and neuroscience Ph.D. student Irn Romn assisting Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE) on creating pop-up food pantry events.

Recently elected ASSU Vice President Vianna Vo 21 served as ASSU mental health and wellness director under Scott and Drummond, advocating for increased mental health funding, resources and awareness.

Last year was the first time that CAPS [Counseling and Psychological Services] received a funding boost in 10 years, Vo wrote. It is my hope that it will not take another 10 years for us to make progress.

Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE), responsible for ensuring the long-term financial viability and independence of the ASSU along with coordinating various business enterprises, identified the work of SSE divisions like Stanford Consulting, the Student Store, Cardinal Ventures and Cardinal Labs as areas where the SSE had seen improvement and growth. For instance, the Student Store, under Design and Marketing Manager Mei-Lan Steimle 21, launched the Bears Arent Real line of apparel before the Big Game.

The Undergraduate Senate recognized achievements of various senators, including returning Senator Mi Bahr 22s widely co-sponsored resolution on sexual violence and Senators Martin Altenburg 21 and Mustafa Khans 22 advocacy for the removal of course fees in an affordability working group convened by former Vice Provost for Education Harry Elam.

In contrast, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) spoke more to broader goals of the GSC throughout the year, such as improved affordability and support for graduate students.

We are actively pushing administrators to continue their support for graduate students during this unprecedented and challenging time, the report reads.

Contact Kate Selig at kselig at stanford.edu.

View post:
ASSU Executives' End of Term Report highlights affordability, equity initiatives - The Stanford Daily

Neuroscience

Study shows brain and stomach connections are a two-way street – Minneapolis Star Tribune

For much of the 20th century, most people thought that stress caused stomach ulcers.

But that belief was largely dismissed 38 years ago when a study, which led to a Nobel Prize in 2016, described the bacterium that generates inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract and causes peptic ulcers and gastritis.

The history of the idea that stress causes ulcers took a side step with the discovery of Helicobacter pylori, said Dr. David Levinthal, director of the University of Pittsburgh Neurogastroenterology & Motility Center. For the longest time most of the 20th century the dominant idea was that stress was the cause of ulcers until the early 1980s with discovery of Helicobacter pylori that was tightly linked to the risk of ulcers. That discovery was critical but maybe over-generalized as the only cause of ulcers.

Now in an important world first, a study co-authored by Levinthal and Peter Strick, both from the Pitt School of Medicine, has explained what parts of the brains cerebral cortex influence stomach function and how it can affect health. Our study shows that the activity of neurons in the cerebral cortex, the site of conscious mental function, can impact the ability of bacteria to colonize the stomach and make the person more sensitive to it or more likely to harbor the bacteria, Levinthal said.

The study goes far beyond ulcers by also providing evidence against the longstanding belief that the brains influence on the stomach was more reflexive and with limited, if any, involvement of the thinking brain. And for the first time, the study also provides a general blueprint of neural wiring that controls the gastrointestinal tract.

This is a very important study and a continuation of several other studies that Dr. Strick has carried out in the last few years, said Peter Sterling, professor of neuroscience in the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and author of the recent book, What is Health. He had no involvement in the study.

Its been traditional in biology and medicine that the internal organs are self-regulatory through the autonomic nervous system, largely independent of higher brain regions, he said. Peter Strick is a world leader in establishing evidence that internal organs are strongly modulated at the highest levels by the cerebral cortex.

Stricks previous research, for instance, showed that similar areas of the cerebral cortex also control kidney and adrenal function. That course of research now could extend to the heart, liver and pancreas to discover more about how the brain coordinates control of internal organs, said Sterling, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience.

Influencing the gut

The Pitt study goes even further by demonstrating that widespread and different regions of the cerebral cortex influence stomach function in different ways.

The study, published May 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes how portions of the brains cerebral cortex including the rostral insula and medial prefrontal cortex connect with and can affect the microbiome.

That those areas of the brain also are associated with emotional control helps explain how mental activity how you think, feel and prepare to move may create an encouraging environment for Helicobacter pylori.

The sympathetic nervous system generates the fight or flight response an involuntary response that sends more blood flow rushing to the muscles and the release of hormones to boost awareness and heart rate. It also reduces blood flow for digestion during stressful or life-threatening situations.

On the other hand, the parasympathetic nervous system also produces involuntary signals that maintain regular bodily functions such as digestion, normal breathing and the routine heartbeat.

As the study now reveals, these two limbs of autonomic control over the stomach are influenced by distinct cortical networks.

When it comes to trusting your gut, it already is well-established that the stomach and gut send ascending signals to the brain in a way that influences brain function. It helps to explain how the microbiome affects brain function. But the study has found that the central nervous system both influences and is influenced by the gastrointestinal system.

What people havent understood to date, Strick said, is that the brain also has descending influences on the stomach with various parts of the brain involved in that signaling, including those areas that control movement and emotions. That helps explain how stress disrupts and why exercise improves the functioning of the GI tract.

Not trivial influences

Whats new here is the extent and range of cortical areas that influence the stomach, said Strick, the studys senior author. Those areas control the stomach as directly as cortical control of movement. These are not trivial influences.

Key to the study, which involved rats, was the use of a rabies virus to trace nerve-system pathways backward from the gut to the areas of the brain involved in signaling the microbiome. The rabies virus placed in the stomach wall hops from neuron to neuron in a direction opposite that of nerve impulses.

That identified the areas of the cerebral cortex that send signals to the stomach, allowing the researchers to map the brain network influencing the microbiome and GI tract.

As such, Levinthal said, the study serves as a foundation for studies focused on controlling stomach function with electromagnetic stimulation to potentially treat and, in time, reverse gastrointestinal disorders including inflammatory bowel syndrome and dyspepsia by restructuring the microbiome.

I think this opens up a whole new way of thinking, he said.

That motor areas of the brain also help control the GI tract explains why exercise improves digestion and makes one feel better.

Building stress resilience working on skills to arm ourselves with resilience in dealing with COVID-19, finances and job loss and how we cope with exposure to stress are something to work on, Levinthal said.

Scott Grafton, the director of the University of California Santa Barbara Brain Imaging Center among other positions, said the Pitt study, in which he was not involved, is important on three key levels.

The first expands on the longstanding belief that the gut is controlled by the brain stem and more primitive areas of the brain that generate mostly reflexive responses.

The critical missing link is where in the cortex does the thinking brain our moods and our mind have inputs into the stomach, and no one really established that before, he said.

Another links the mind and microbiome how bacteria interact with the gut and influence well-being. The third focus is the pathways that abnormal proteins, which could be involved in triggering Alzheimers and Parkinsons diseases, might use to get from the gut to the brain.

Until now, this was all speculation about the brain and how we think it influences the stomach what the connection is and where is the wiring, Grafton said. Stricks expertise is how the wiring works how the nervous system interacts with all parts of the body. We need to know the wiring.

Continued here:
Study shows brain and stomach connections are a two-way street - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Neuroscience

Neuroscience Market to Witness Heightened Growth During the Period 2020 2026 – News Distinct

CMI published a business research report on Neuroscience Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecasts 20202026. Neuroscience Market with 150+ market data Tables, Pie Chat, Graphs & Figures spread through Pages and easy to understand detailed analysis. The information is gathered based on modern floats and requests identified with the administrations and items.

The global Neuroscience Market analysis further provides pioneering landscape of market along with market augmentation history and key development involved in the industry. The report also features comprehensive research study for high growth potential industries professional survey with market analysis. Neuroscience Market report helps the companies to understand the market trends and future market prospective,opportunities and articulate the critical business strategies.

We do provide Sample of this report, Please go through the following information in order to request Sample Copy

This Report Sample Includes

Receive Sample of Research Report @ https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/2487

Geographical segmentation of Neuroscience Market involves the regional outlook which further covers United States, China, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and Middle East & Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.

Neuroscience Market: Competitive Landscape

Leading players operating in the global Neuroscience Market include:Alpha Omega, Inc., GE Healthcare, Axion Biosystems, Inc., Siemens Healthineers, Blackrock Microsystems LLC, Femtonics Ltd., Intan Technologies, LaVision Biotec GmbH, Mediso Medical Imaging Systems, Neuralynx Inc., NeuroNexus Technologies, Inc., Newport Corporation, Plexon Inc., Noldus Information Technology, Scientifica Ltd., Sutter Instrument Corporation, Thomas Recording GmbH, and Trifoil Imaging Inc.

Scope of the Report

The key features of the Neuroscience Market report 2019-2026 are the organization, extensive amount of analysis and data from previous and current years as well as forecast data for the next five years. Most of the report is made up from tables, charts and figures that give our clients a clear picture of the Neuroscience Market. The structure of Neuroscience Market by identifying its various segments and sub-segments to help understanding the report.

Neuroscience Market Research Report gives current competitive analysis and also valuable insights to clients/industries, which will assist them to prepare a new strategy to expand or penetrate in a global Neuroscience Market.

As the report proceeds further, it covers the analysis of key market participants paired with development plans and policies, production techniques, price structure of the Neuroscience Market. The report also identifies the other essential elements such as product overview, supply chain relationship, raw material supply and demand statistics, expected developments, profit and consumption ratio.

The PDF Research only provides Table of Contents (ToC), scope of the report and research framework of the report.

Request PDF Research Report Brochure @ https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/2487

Important Neuroscience Market Data Available In This Report:

Note: Request Discount option enables you to get the discounts on the actual price of the report. Kindly fill the form, and one of our consultants would get in touch with you to discuss your allocated budget, and would provide discounts.

Use QUARANTINEDAYS Code In Precise Requirement And Get FLAT $1,000 OFF On This Reports

Ask For Discount Before Purchasing This Business Report : https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-discount/2487

About Coherent Market Insights:

Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.

Contact Us:

Mr. Shah

Coherent Market Insights

1001 4th Ave,

#3200

Seattle, WA 98154

Tel: +1-206-701-6702

Email:[emailprotected]

For More Related Reports:http://bit.ly/Rajkumar123

View post:
Neuroscience Market to Witness Heightened Growth During the Period 2020 2026 - News Distinct

Neuroscience

Early-life Education Improves Memory in Old Age Especially for Women – Newswise

Newswise WASHINGTON Education appears to protect older adults, especially women, against memory loss, according to a study by investigators at Georgetown University Medical Center, published in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition.

The results suggest that childrenespecially girlswho attend school for longer will have better memory abilities in old age. This may have implications for memory loss in Alzheimers disease and other dementias.

The study tested declarative memory in 704 older adults (58-98 years of age). Declarative memory refers to our ability to remember events, facts, and words, such as where you put your keys or the name of that new neighbor.

Participants were shown drawings of objects, and then were tested several minutes later on their memory of these objects. The investigators found that their memory performance became progressively worse with aging. However, more years of early-life education countered these losses, especially in women.

In men, the memory gains associated with each year of education were two times larger than the losses experienced during each year of aging. However, in women, the gains were five times larger.

For example, the declarative memory abilities of an 80-year-old woman with a bachelors degree would be as good as those of a 60-year-old woman with a high school education. So, four extra years of education make up for the memory losses from 20 years of aging.

Simply said, learning begets learning says the studys senior investigator, Michael Ullman, PhD, a professor in Georgetowns Department of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Language Lab. Ullmans research on the relationship between language, memory and the brain has been a cornerstone in the fields of language and cognitive neuroscience.

Since learning new information in declarative memory is easier if it is related to knowledge we already have, more knowledge from more education should result in better memory abilities, even years later, adds the studys lead author, Jana Reifegerste, PhD, a member of the scientific staff at the University of Potsdam, Germany, who worked on this study as a postdoctoral researcher in Ullmans lab.

Evidence suggests that girls often have better declarative memory than boys, so education may lead to greater knowledge gains in girls, says Ullman. Education may thus particularly benefit memory abilities in women, even years later in old age.

The study tested individuals in a non-Western (Taiwanese) population. Participants varied in the number of years of education, from none at all to graduate studies. Future research is needed to test whether the findings generalize to other populations, Ullman says.

These findings may be important, especially considering the rapidly aging population globally, Reifegerste says. The results argue for further efforts to increase access to education.

Education has also been found to delay the onset of Alzheimers disease, Ullman says. We believe that our findings may shed light on why this occurs.

###

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01 AG016790, AGO16661), the National Science Foundation (BCS1439290), a Georgetown Partners in Research grant, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

The authors report having no personal financial interests related to the study.

About Georgetown University Medical Center

As a top academic health and science center, Georgetown University Medical Center provides, in a synergistic fashion,excellence in education training physicians, nurses and other health care professionals, as well as biomedical scientists and cutting-edgeinterdisciplinary research collaboration, enhancing ourbasic science and translational biomedical researchcapacity in order to improve human health.Patient care and clinical research is conducted with our clinical partner, MedStar Health. GUMCs mission is carried out with a strong emphasis on social justice and a dedication to the Catholic, Jesuit principle of cura personalis -- or care of the whole person.

Read the rest here:
Early-life Education Improves Memory in Old Age Especially for Women - Newswise