Build A Hand Workshop

Imagine a world where there are no more donor lists, no more worrying about whether or not you will be able to find an organ for a transplant. Imagine if prosthetics and organs could be made in a day's time with the simple push of a button. This is not some far fetched idea or a plot from some sci-fi movie, this is reality. This semester, Akhtar gave us a talk about his project and his goal to use 3-D printing to create a prosthetic hand. I found his this concept very interesting and wanted to investigate it a bit more. As the technology for 3-D printing advances and improves, we now have the ability to conveniently and inexpensively print prosthetics. This can transform the lives of the thousands of amputees or people that were just born with missing limbs. Recently, this changed the life of Faith Lennox, a seven year old girl. Due to compartment syndrome during childbirth, blood flow to her left forearm was heavily constricted, irreparably damaging tissue, muscle, and bone. After nine months of trying to save the limb, doctors were left with no choice but to amputate. However, Faith's life changed on March 31st. She received a custom, lightweight prosthetic. The prosthetic was made overnight at the Build It Workspace studio, which is a 3-D printer studio that teaches and allows people to use 3-D printing technology. Faith had tried more traditional, heavier, and more expensive prosthetics in the past but found them very difficult to use. This prosthetic however, fit Faith perfectly and is very easy to use. Best of all, she got to chose the colors. She picked blue and pink, her two favorite colors. The most impressive aspect of this is the price point. The materials needed to put together and print the hand only cost around fifty dollars. Similar and less efficient prosthetics can cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars more. This makes owning prosthetics very economical, especially for children. Children continuously outgrow their prosthetics so inexpensive prosthetics makes their lives much easier. This technology is not limited to just prosthetics. In the near future, the same technology may be able to be used to build an organ. A person with heart disease that needs a transplant will no longer have to go through the agony of moving up the donor list. A new, replacement heart can be put together and printed instantly. In 2013, surgeons at the University of Michigan were able to save the life of a 3 month old boy who had been born with severely weak tissue in his airway. They designed, 3-D-printed and surgically implanted a scaffold-like tube to hold his airway open. The procedure was a success. This is a revolutionary concept for the medical field. It would solve so many problems and issues. Although this technology may still be a few years away, the prosthetic hands and other minor procedures are in some ways a proof of concept that this could work. 3-D printing can change the world and change the lives of countless amounts of people, just like it did for Faith.

Work Cited

Mellgard, Peter. "Medical 3-D Printing Will 'Enable a New Kind of Future'" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Apr. 2015. Web. 02 May 2015.

Press, The Associated. "7-year-old's 3-D Printer Hand Offers Hope for Inexpensive Prosthetics." Oregon Live. N.p., 31 Mar. 2015. Web. 02 May 2015.

Interpreting the Process of the Gustatory System

We eat food everyday. We try different types of food that sometimes taste good to us or sometimes taste really awful. Our sense of taste is unique. People have different taste preferences. The sense of taste may seem so simple of a process but is actually a really complex chemical process. The gustatory system is responsible for allowing us to interpret chemical compounds as we digest food molecules. The tongue is the major sensory organ in the system being covered with taste buds that interprets our types of taste. The five main types are: salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami. The flavors we taste are either solely one of these types of taste or a combination of them. It is amazing to me how complex of a system we have when it comes to tasting food.

In their introductory article, Pavel Masek and Alex C. Keene explain their set-up in order to learn how the gustatory system identifies distinct tastes. They did this by understanding how fatty acids are detected in the diets of Drosophila , otherwise known as “fruit flies”. Masek and Keene did multiple experiments testing how self- sufficient the gustatory pathway is. Another interesting finding I thought from the experiment was the strong preference of fatty acids from the flies. In one trial, the flies preferred a specific fatty acid over sucrose showing a stronger importance of fatty acids. Later, body parts that dealt with the olfactory system were removed at one point and the same experiment was done. There was no change observed showing no direct correlation with the sense of smell. Overall, the experiment was able to show how the gustatory system works and how much of an independent system it is.

This study reminded me of an article I have read this week from DailyMail. The article talks about first time created images showing taste buds reacting to distinct flavors. The Harvard study showed a live imaging of the reaction of taste buds on a mouse as food is placed in its mouth. The scientist used infrared lasers to have certain areas of the tongue light up depending on the flavor of the food.  This article reminded me of the findings made by Masek and Keene on the complexity of the gustatory system. It is another examples of how many different cells are on the tongue and countless zones that detect tastes. This new imaging method opens up many opportunities to learn more about our perception of taste. Professor Seok-Hyun Yun talk about how relationship between the taste cells in taste buds and how perception of taste is still a mystery.

            I hope the discovery of this technique leads to more findings on how our gustatory system operates and maybe  leads to discoveries of new main taste buds. The research I read for class and the article I read show how there is still much to learn about taste and how we perceive it. And it makes me wonder, about our other senses and how complicated they must be.

Reference:

Masek, P., & Keene, A. C. (2013). Drosophila fatty acid taste signals through the PLC pathway in sugar-sensing neurons. PLoS genetics, 9(9), e1003710.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3057276/See-taste-LOOKS-like-Live-imaging-tongue-reveals-buds-reacting-flavours-time.html

Stress: Effects and New Discoveries

 Everyday life is hectic and demanding, leading people to suffer high amounts of stress. With copious amounts of stress, depression begins to take hold. High levels of depression and stress cause morphological changes in the brain.  Emotions lose balance, memories falter, and learning is hindered when the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus are affected by stress and depression. Neurogenesis, the development of neural tissue, has been in popular light due to the discovery that adults are able to generate neurons. While mood disorders limit the production of new cells, antidepressants encourage neurogenesis. 

Researchers in King's College London discovered a protein that is accountable for the inhibition of cell growth caused by mood disorders. Luckily, they were also able to produce a pharmacological compound that blocks the effects of stress that are manipulated by the protein. Now named SGK1, the protein influences the effects of stress hormones on new cell growth and development.  Researchers blocked the effects of SGK1 with the drug compound (GSK650394).  These findings were possible by initially studying SGK1 activity and the alterations it had on cell development in animal models. Only 50-55% of patients that are diagnosed with depression are alleviated by modern antidepressants. This conveys that pharmacological advancements need to be made in the realm of mood disorders. Targeting specific compounds such as SGK1 in further research can allow the creation of new antidepressant treatments. 

King's College London. (2013, May 6). Effects of stress on brain cells offer clues to new anti-depressant drugs. ScienceDaily. 
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130506181446.htm

Image: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/angst-anxiety/files/2012/01/depression.jpg

How would you feel if you were misdiagnosed for bipolar disorder?

How would you feel if you were misdiagnosed for bipolar disorder?

How would you feel if you knew that a couple hundred of people have also been misdiagnosed?

Well a study from the Rhode Island Hospital reveals that the Mood Disorder Questionnaire(MDQ) may have been incorrectly indicating bipolar disorder for another closely related disorder, borderline personality disorder, for several years now. The MDQ, a set of questionnaire that patients fill out, was performed by doctors in order to determine if patients had bipolar disorder. The research found out that the MDQ, that was performed in the doctor’s office, did misdiagnose many patients who had borderline personality disorder for bipolar disorder. The research clarified that the reason for this confusion was because of the overlapping of symptoms between the two disorders. Although both disorders cause mood swings and impulsiveness within patients, treatment for both of the disorders vary substantially, and so it becomes very crucial that doctors diagnose for the correct disorder. BPD is treated with medications only, and so misdiagnose a patients would mean that they are taking medication that could detrimentally harm them.

In the research paper, The double burden of age and disease on cognition and quality of life in bipolar disorder, Sarah Weisenchbach states that older aged adults with bipolar disorder( BPD) performed poorly in cognitive areas such as memory and emotional processing. Weisenchbach’s study included seventy-eight healthy and eighty people with BPD in her study that were separated into two groups: one groups was below the age of thirty while the other group was above the age of fifty. The participants then took a set of neuropsychological exams that tested their attention, motor skills, and memory.  The research concluded that the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) were low in all BPD patients; yet on the other hand, emotion processing, processing speed, motor functions, and verbal fluency were relatively low in all older patients. What is crucial about this is that physicians have a difficult time diagnosing older patients with BPD because many times these BPD symptoms tend to match up with the symptoms of being old in general.

Although both of these articles may be looking at different aspects of BPD, the connection between both is that treating BPD can be very difficult because many of its symptoms match up with a variety of other disorders.  Misdiagnosing or under diagnosing a patient with or with BPD can be detrimental to their, and thus researchers should focus on creating  a better and accurate way in classifying and determining who may or may not have BPD.

"Widely Used Screening Scale May Misidentify Borderline Personality Disorder as Bipolar Disorder." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, Mar.-Apr. 2012. Web. 02 May 2015.

Weisenchbach,S.L.(2014). The double burden of age and disease on cognition and quality of life in bipolar disorder.Geriatric Psychiatry, 29, 953-961.

New Brain Connections

New Brain Connections

            This article, written by Tim Stephens, describes new connections which form in the brain during learning. I found this article to relate to one of the studies which we learned about in class- the article “Brain Networks for Exploration Decisions Utilizing Distinct Modeled Information Types during Contextual Learning.” Exploration is one of the most effective and efficient modes of. To identify neural activity associated with information-based decisions, the researchers formed specific information types used for contextual association learning as well as applied model based fMRI alongside changing exploratory decision making. Hippocampal-prefrontal contributions were seen correlated to advantageous decisions. This is based on the innovative information received, distinct from striatal contributions to advantageous decisions based on the accumulation of the all of the received information. Additionally, interactions seen at the network-level during exploratory decision, among these specific regions, resulted in successful learning. Therefore, the exploration decisions made during the process of learning were based on information. The decisions made and the brain activity that occurred while the decisions took place responded to the distinct modeled information types. Also, hippocampal-prefrontal and dorsal striatal areas also had a direct influence on decisions. The findings based on this research make strategic exploration decisions taking place during learning quantifiable. It also increases our understanding of adaptive behavior by distinguishing brain-network activity and distinctly identifying them determined by different information types.

            "Repetitive activation of the same cortical circuit is really important in learning a new task. But what is the optimal frequency of repetition? Ultimately, by studying the relationship between synapse formation and learning, we want to find out the best way to induce new memories."

            According to the new article I found, which is based on a study conducted at the University of California Santa Cruz, as humans and animals learn new things, new connections between brain cells are formed in clusters. When this occurs, brain circuits are reformed, or rewired, as new motor memories are created. The study consisted of studying mice as they were taught and learned new tasks and behaviors. An example of one of these tasks was reaching through slots to get seeds. The researchers paid close attention and analyzed any changes noted in the motor cortex, which is the layer of the brain that is in charge of controlling muscle movements during learning. Within the brain, they also specifically focused on the dendritic spines, which from the synapses between the nerve cells.

This is an image of a dendritic spine.

            Over the course of the learning period, the researchers began to notice that the synapses started to be located in close proximity to one another. These are called clustered synapses. Clustered synapses are more common to endure throughout the learning sessions as opposed to non-clustered synapses. There is also a positive correlation between the size and strength of the synapse: the larger the synapse, the stronger the neural connection.

References:

Tim Stephens, T. (2012, February 19). New brain connections form in clusters during learning. Retrieved May 1, 2015, from http://news.ucsc.edu/2012/02/brain-connections.html

Wang, J. X., & Voss, J. L. (2014). Brain networks for exploration decisions utilizing distinct modeled information types during contextual learning. Neuron,82(5), 1171-1182.          

Effects of Depression on Society

Being a college student, I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t hear about depression, anxiety or ADHD. All three of these disorders are so commonly spoken about because so many people have diagnoses in one or more of these mental disorders. After reading the research article, “Depression and Anxious Apprehension Distinguish Frontocingulate Cortical Activity During Top-Down Attentional Control,” from the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, I feel like I’ve been able to connect it to so many things in today’s world. The results in this study show that both depression and anxiety affect attention control through the frontocingulate network in the brain. Although depression and anxiety have overlapping symptoms, they work through different networks in the brain, yet both still inhibit attention in people with these disorders. Knowing this, we can conclude that depression and anxiety lead to a person having decreased attention control, which could result in symptoms similar to that of attention deficit disorder.

Because depression is also such a common topic in today’s society, many studies are being done to show how depression affects the daily lives of individuals suffering from the disease, as well as the people they surround themselves with. In the article from Science Daily, “Elementary teachers' depression symptoms related to students' learning,” researchers observed to see if there was a correlation between depression in teachers and their students’ classroom performance. They found that classrooms with depressed teachers had more students struggling academically. In addition to the teachers being in a depressed mood, the first article about frontocingulate network activity suggests that these teachers could also have decreased attention control. This could suggest why their students do poorly in class. If the teacher is incapable of paying attention to his/her students, in addition to being in a depressed mood, this could negatively affect the learning environment in the classroom. Considering all the research that’s being done on how depression affects the quality of life of a person, it’s shocking that certain medical insurance companies still don’t cover mental health. The amount of people with depression and ADHD is very high, especially because it is becoming more accepted to talk about. If something isn’t done to make mental health care more accessible to everyone, many people, including our children, will be living with a lowered quality of life.

Silton, R., Heller, W., Engels, A., Towers, D., Spielberg, J., Edgar, J., . . . Miller, G. (n.d.). Depression and anxious apprehension distinguish frontocingulate cortical activity during top-down attentional control. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 120(2), 272-285.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150211084106.htm

The Money is in the Medicine

The Neurobridge electrode sleeve
 http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2014/8/12/ian-burkhart-paralyzedneurobridge.html

Aadeel Akhtar’s work on prosthetic limbs highlights a revelation in medical technology.  He is spearheading a field of medicine that, sadly, no engineer or doctor would probably ever take part in.  The development of affordable prosthetics.  Why would any sickness treating company (like pharmaceutical companies whose profits rely on fevers and low T-cell counts) proactively work towards “shrinking/curing” their client base?  The money will always be in the medicine.  That’s the reason Akhtar’s work is so valuable.   With the use of 3D printing, Akhtar’s myoelectric hand marks an amazing leap foreword in affordable prosthetic technology.  His design brings the average cost of one prosthetic hand from the standard $25,000-100,000, to $250, which includes the price of production and all the necessary electronics to utilize the hand to its fullest extent.  In his paper “Tact: Design and Performance of an Open-Source, Affordable, myoelectric Prosthetic Hand,” Akhtar compares his prosthetic to other popular models.  His model achieved equal, and in some circumstances better, coordination and movement than some of the other highly rated available prosthetics.  However, Akhtar’s prosthetics might be unsuitable for some who have lost limbs in a different way.  Today, approximately six million people live with a form of paralysis.

Nerves damaged irreparably from extreme trauma and/or disease are very unlikely to repair themselves.  This results in irreversible paralysis of any bodily area that requires passage of signals through the damaged area.  A new technology, over ten years in the making, has finally seen the light of day in hundreds of neuroscience journals.  Scientists and engineers at Battelle Memorial Institute, a nonprofit researching company, have finally refined their neuro bypass technology called Neurobridge.  This amazing, yet fledgling, technology bridges the gap across damaged nerves to restore patients’ ability to voluntarily move a limb or appendage that was previously paralyzed.  Patients with quadriplegia have functional (though paralyzed) legs, feet, arms and/or hands, but are stripped of their uses due to severe spinal cord injuries.  Without use, paralyzed limbs will atrophy and the lack of movement can result in dangerous blood clots.  A 2014 Washington Post article covered one of the first successful Neurobridge tests in the article “Ohio Surgeons Hope Chip in Man’s Brain Lets Him Control Paralyzed Hand With Thoughts.”  After undergoing invasive brain surgery and hours of computerized neural mapping, researchers watched in awe as a quadriplegic man clenched his fist, out of volition, for the first time in four years.  The computer was so in tune with his neural signaling rhythms that he could move his hand a tenth of a second after thinking about it.

Prosthetics, like Akhtar’s, are an option for paralysis patients but are ultimately a treatment for a different family of disorders that doesn’t quite fit the bill when it comes to paralyzed patients.  Neurobridge represents an amazing new opportunity for paralysis patients to regain control of what is rightfully theirs.  The ideas behind Neurobridge are very logical but the technology, hardware, and surgery are not.  The picture below explains the process in detail but here is an abbreviated version.  A small microchip implanted in the motor cortex relays neural impulses to an enormous computer database that interprets and translates the signal in a matter of milliseconds.  The newly computerized signals are then relayed from the computer to a set of electrodes arranged in a sleeve-like band wrapping around the area of identified nerve damage.  With instructions from the computer, the electrodes can supersede the section of damaged nerves and restore nerve connections.  

http://postgraphics.tumblr.com/post/84324334453/how-the-neurobridge-works-researchers-at-battelle

Neurobridge is, however, very far from commercial use due to the invasive nature of the microchip implantation surgery, impracticality of carrying around a colossal multi-ton computer database, and the extremely high costs of the necessary hardware. Researchers at Battelle are working diligently to bring costs down and streamline Neurobridge into a realistic and affordable option for those suffering from most types of paralysis.  Years, if not decades, of additional development lie ahead in preparing Neurobridge for the general public.  Hopefully, Battelle’s nonprofit philosophy will parallel with Akhtar’s in lowering the costs of typical prosthetic-related treatments.           

 

References

The Battelle Memorial Institute (2015).  Paralysis and Spinal Cord Injuries, retrieved from http://www.battelle.org/our-work/pharmaceutical-medical-devices/medical-devices/neurotechnology/neurorehab-neural-bypass-technology/impact-of-paralysis

Grether, N., (2014). The quadriplegic who moved his muscles with his mind, Al Jazeera America, US

Slade, P., Akhtar, A., Nguyen, M., & Bretl, T. (2015). Tact: Design and performance of an open-sourced, affordable, myoelectric prosthetic hand. The International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Seattle, WA.

Tankersley, J. (2014). Ohio Surgeons Hope Chip in Man’s Brain Lets Him Control Paralyzed Hand With Thoughts.  The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.

Neurogenesis

Neurogenesis, which quite literally means the formation of novel neurons, is a process which takes place in many parts of the mammalian brain. In a recent study by Dr. Jessica Brann and Dr. Stuart Firestein, it is shown that neurogenesis is a process which not only occurs during the prenatal period, but also has the potential to occur in aged mice. It is shown that in these aged mice, novel neurons are born and can successfully send their axons to the appropriate glomeruli in the olfactory bulb to express particular olfactory receptors. (The neurons themselves reside in the olfactory bulb.) This study is vital in that establishes the olfactory epithelium as an important model to be studied. If the olfactory epithelium in a mammal (mouse for example) has the capacity to regenerate new neurons during its entire lifetime, then we could have a similar case in different mammals (particularly humans). Indeed the National Institute of Health (supervised by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services) recently issued a news release about a new study conducted by Dr. Leonardo Belluscio where using cutting edge technology he was able to isolate the specific stem cells causing regeneration from the other cells available in the olfactory bulb. Dr. Belluscio predicts that these regenerated neurons in the OB may have a role in cooperating with changes in activity of the system. In my opinion, studies on neural stem cells in general, and in the olfactory epithelium, which could help us better understand the underlying factors of diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s are not only very important, but are also at their very beginning.

References:

Brann JH, Firestein SJ. A lifetime of neurogenesis in the olfactory system. Frontiers in Neuroscience. 2014;8:182.(PubMed)

Scientists Sniff out Unexpected Role for Stem Cells in the Brain." U.S National Library of Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine. 02 May 2015.

Cocaine Related Cues and Craving Impacted by Sex?

            For years researchers have been attempting to determine the implications cocaine can cause on the human brain. Knowing these details can aid those suffering from withdrawal symptoms while trying to break away from their dependence. Jessica Loweth released a study explaining cocaine addiction and cue-related drug craving. When someone becomes addicted to something        such as cocaine, their neural pathways will start firing in the presence of a cue that reminds them of the drug. These cues can be people, places, or things that can trigger the drug craving to begin. By studying rats and their addiction craving levels, Loweth found that mGluR1 negatively regulates CP-AMPAR function in the NAc, and it also negatively regulates cocaine craving.

            She found this by studying rats that were drug naive and drug dependent. The rats were placed in a box and allowed to self-administer tiny doses of cocaine followed by a short delay. They would spend time in these boxes daily and eventually became addicted. However, when the rats were placed in a box similar to the cocaine box (but in the absence of cocaine) they would repeatedly attempt self-administration, proving their addiction to drug related cues.

            These cocaine cravings have been the topic of Potenza’s work as well. He wanted to see if cocaine dependence could be influenced by gender. His studies show the brain regions most activated during this craving phase are the striatum, insula, and anterior and posterior cingulate. Cocaine is also linked to corticostriatal-limbic hyperactivity. It turns out gender does play a role. These cravings can lead to stress cues for women while drug cues for men. However, in both neural-relaxing conditions were found throughout both men and women trials. These findings can help those currently experiencing drug dependency and withdrawal by personalizing treatment instead of given a gender neutral one.

Loweth, J. A., Tseng, K. Y., & Wolf, M. E. (2013). Using metabotropic glutamate receptors to modulate cocaine's synaptic and behavioral effects: mGluR1 finds a niche. Current opinion in neurobiology, 23(4), 500-506.

Potenza, M. N., Hong, K. I. A., Lacadie, C. M., Fulbright, R. K., Tuit, K. L., & Sinha, R. (2014). Neural correlates of stress-induced and cue-induced drug craving: influences of sex and cocaine dependence.