Brain Repair: Bridging the Lab-Brain Barrier?

1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-91
Author(s):  
Dorothy Gronwall

This optimistic book about recovery of function after brain injury or disease is written by three neuroscientists specifically to counter the belief that brain injury is permanent and that the brain cannot be repaired. They point out that this belief leads to often inappropriate or no treatment, which then makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy. However there is an increasingly extensive body of evidence from laboratories around the world that given the right conditions and specific chemicals, for example, normal function can be restored. This literature is highly specialized, highly technical, and often apparently unrelated to human recovery. It is also produced at a prodigious rate. According to a 1989 survey, fact-based knowledge doubled every 18 months at that time, and it was predicted that by the year 2010 it will double every 4 weeks. It is not surprising, therefore, that members of a health-professional team have difficulty keeping up with the clinical rehabilitation literature, and that they do not have the time or the energy to read studies on laboratory animals or tissue studies which are not seen as high priority or of relevance to their work.

2015 ◽  
Vol 206 (3) ◽  
pp. 222-222
Author(s):  
Peter Fenwick

Out-of-body experiences, in which the person feels they are viewing the world from outside their body, may be spontaneous or triggered by pain or fear, due to failure to integrate proprioceptive, tactile and visual information in the right parieto-temporal junction. They are similar to autoscopy, namely seeing your body in extra-personal space. But out-of-body experiences can occur in a near-death state during a cardiac arrest and be remembered even though brain processes are distorted or absent. Reliable accounts of patients who have acquired verifiable information while clinically dead suggest that consciousness may not after all be limited to the brain.


1993 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 175-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry B. Goldstein

Investigations in laboratory animals indicate that certain drugs that influence specific neurotransmitters can have profound effects on the recovery process. Even small doses of some drugs given after brain injury facilitate recovery while others are harmful. Preliminary clinical studies suggest that the same drugs that enhance recovery in laboratory animals (e.g., amphetamine) may have similar effects in humans after stroke. In addition, some of the drugs that impair recovery of function after focal brain injury in laboratory animals (e.g. haloperidol, benzodiazepines, clonidine, prazosin, phenytoin) are commonly given to stroke patients for coincident medical problems and may interfere with functional recovery in humans. Until the impact of pharmacologic agents on the recovering brain is better understood, the available data suggest that care should be exercised in the selection of drugs used in the treatment of the recovering stroke patient. Pharmacologic enhancement of recovery after focal brain injury may be possible in humans.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-429
Author(s):  
Y. B. Vasilyeva ◽  
A. E. Talypov ◽  
M. V. Sinkin ◽  
S. S. Petrikov

BACKGROUND. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most important contemporary health issues. According to the World Health Organization, TBI is one of three leading causes of death in the world. Despite the development and widespread use of neuroimaging tools and instrumental research methods, clinical diagnosis of TBI is preferred. It is especially relevant at the prehospital stage when it is impossible to use instrumental diagnostic methods.THE AIM OF THE STUDY. To determine the clinical course features and prognosis of treatment outcomes in patients with various types of traumatic brain damage.MATERIAL AND METHODS. We studied the results of examination and treatment of 100 victims with a severe head injury hospitalized during the first days after receiving an injury and undergoing treatment at the N.V. Sklifosovsky Research Institute in 2008–2017. Depending on the type of brain injury patients were divided into 3 groups: Group 1 — isolated hematoma (n=20), Group 2 — hematomas and injuries of the brain (n=40), Group 3 — injuries of the brain (n=40). All patients underwent neurological examination, CT scan of the brain upon admission and over time within 12 days after trauma. In 30 victims, intracranial pressure (ICP) was monitored.RESULTS. We revealed features of the dynamics of individual neurological symptoms in patients with different types of brain damage. In patients with isolated hematomas, neurological status was represented mainly with clinic dislocation syndrome and contralateral hematoma hemiparesis, and clinical pattern significantly depended on intracranial hemorrhage. In patients with combination of hematomas and contusions, the neurological status and its dynamics were less dependent on the volume of the hematoma and were mainly determined by contusions of the midline structures of the brain. In patients with brain injuries, neurological status reliably correlated with injuries of midline structures.CONCLUSION. We revealed significant differences in neurological status, its changes over time and correlation with CT findings in patients with different types of traumatic brain injury.Authors declare lack of the conflicts of interests.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (70) ◽  
pp. 103-131
Author(s):  
Alexsandro Rodrigues ◽  
Leonardo Lemos De Souza

Por uma política de leitura aberta de mundos: o buraco negro e o fim do mundo como possibilidade de nascimentos crianceiros Resumo: Este artigo é resultado de conversas afiadas e tecidas nos inconformismos e rebeldias desde as margens dos buracos negros de vidas em dissidências. O texto busca tensionar os buracos fechados pela polícia do sistema sexo-gênero na manutenção de seus privilégios e que não nos permite, via políticas públicas, acessar histórias em gêneros e sexualidades diferentes das tradicionais narrativas feitas para meninos e meninas de um certo tipo. Há subjetividades circulando entre nós nos espaços educativos que convocam os corpos, os gêneros e as sexualidades ao direito de nascerem, crescerem, florescerem e coabitarem o mundo, as escolas, as memórias e as narrativas hegemônicas das políticas curriculares na literatura infanto-juvenil. Exercitando perguntas que não se conformam com as histórias contadas, apresentadas e curricularizadas diariamente, o artigo faz problema sobre os modos de ler heterocêntricos que privilegiam o cérebro. Propõe, então, leituras buraco-negro. Estas apostas políticas, feitas de políticas anais e suas revoluções, buscam despreguear as relações de poder e as literaturas. Palavras-chave: Leitura como atividade. Gênero e sexualidade. Buracos negros. For an open world reading policy: the black hole and the end of the world as a possibility for births of childhoods Abstract: This article is the result of sharp conversations woven into nonconformities and rebellion from the margins of black holes in dissenting lives. The text seeks to tension the holes closed by the sex-gender police in maintaining their privileges and that does not allow us, through public policy, to access stories in genres and sexualities different from traditional narratives made for boys and girls of a certain type. There are subjectivities circulating among us in the educational spaces that call the bodies, genders and sexualities to the right to be born, grow, flourish and cohabit the hegemonic world, schools, memories and narratives of curriculum policies in children's literature. Exercising questions that do not conform to the stories told, presented and curricularized daily, the article questions the heterocentric ways of reading that privilege the brain. It then proposes black hole readings. These political bets, made up of anal politics and their revolutions, seek to unravel power relations and literatures. Keywords: Reading as an activity. Gender and sexuality. Black holes. Por una política de lectura de mundo abierto: el agujero negro y el fin del mundo como posibilidad para el nascimiento de las infâncias Resumen: Este artículo es el resultado de conversaciones agudas entretejidas en no conformidades y rebeliones desde los márgenes de los agujeros negros en vidas disidentes. El texto busca tensar los agujeros cerrados por la policía de género y sexo para mantener sus privilegios y eso no nos permite, a través de políticas públicas, acceder a historias de géneros y sexualidades diferentes a las narrativas tradicionales hechas para niños y niñas de cierto tipo. Hay subjetividades que circulan entre nosotros en los espacios educativos que llaman a los cuerpos, los géneros y las sexualidades al derecho a nacer, crecer, florecer y convivir con el mundo hegemónico, las escuelas, los recuerdos y las narrativas de las políticas curriculares en la literatura infantil. Ejercitando preguntas que no se ajustan a las historias contadas, presentadas y curriculadas diariamente, el artículo cuestiona las formas heterocéntricas de lectura que privilegian el cerebro. Luego propone lecturas de agujeros negros. Estas apuestas políticas, formadas por políticas anales y sus revoluciones, buscan desentrañar las relaciones de poder y la literatura. Palavras clave: Lectura como actividad. Género y sexualidad. Agujeros negros. Data de registro:  11/12/2019 Data de aceite: 26/08/2020


2021 ◽  
pp. 103-124
Author(s):  
Iain McGilchrist

Discusses the role that attention plays in constituting the world, rather than reducing phenomena to the brain level. Discusses the different kinds of attention delineated by the divided hemispheres of the brain. On the one hand the left hemisphere specialised in grasping and manipulating the world, whereas the right hemisphere specialises in relat-ing to and understanding the world. Discusses how reliance on one or the other kind of attention has cultural, psychological and social implications.


eLife ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryoji Amamoto ◽  
Violeta Gisselle Lopez Huerta ◽  
Emi Takahashi ◽  
Guangping Dai ◽  
Aaron K Grant ◽  
...  

The axolotl can regenerate multiple organs, including the brain. It remains, however, unclear whether neuronal diversity, intricate tissue architecture, and axonal connectivity can be regenerated; yet, this is critical for recovery of function and a central aim of cell replacement strategies in the mammalian central nervous system. Here, we demonstrate that, upon mechanical injury to the adult pallium, axolotls can regenerate several of the populations of neurons present before injury. Notably, regenerated neurons acquire functional electrophysiological traits and respond appropriately to afferent inputs. Despite the ability to regenerate specific, molecularly-defined neuronal subtypes, we also uncovered previously unappreciated limitations by showing that newborn neurons organize within altered tissue architecture and fail to re-establish the long-distance axonal tracts and circuit physiology present before injury. The data provide a direct demonstration that diverse, electrophysiologically functional neurons can be regenerated in axolotls, but challenge prior assumptions of functional brain repair in regenerative species.


Episteme ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-199
Author(s):  
Peter Baumann

ABSTRACTContemporary discussions of epistemological skepticism – the view that we do not and cannot know anything about the world around us – focus very much on a certain kind of skeptical argument involving a skeptical scenario (a situation familiar from Descartes' First Meditation). According to the argument, knowing some ordinary proposition about the world (one we usually take ourselves to know) requires knowing we are not in some such skeptical scenario SK; however, since we cannot know that we are not in SK we also cannot know any ordinary proposition. One of the most prominent skeptical scenarios is the brain-in-the-vat-scenario: An evil scientist has operated on an unsuspecting subject, removed the subject's brain and put it in a vat where it is kept functioning and is connected to some computer which feeds the brain the illusion that everything is “normal”. This paper looks at one aspect of this scenario after another – envatment, disembodiment, weird cognitive processes, lack of the right kind of epistemic standing, and systematic deception. The conclusion is that none of these aspects (in isolation or in combination) is of any relevance for a would-be skeptical argument; the brain-in-the-vat-scenario is irrelevant to and useless for skeptical purposes. Given that related scenarios (e.g., involving evil demons) share the defects of the brain-in-the-vat-scenario, the skeptic should not put any hopes on Cartesian topoi.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2(4)) ◽  
pp. 135-145
Author(s):  
Dominik Stosik

In this analysis the author sets out to examine the concept of freedom of speech on the internet, drawing upon the development of the World Wide Web, the Big-Data-Trade-Off-Dilemma and the nothing-to-hide argument fallacy. A key finding is the observation of a multitude of emerging challenges in the field of ethics, privacy, law and security. Furthermore the most recent exertion of influence on the freedom of speech, that is to say astroturfing should adduce as an instance to demonstrate the possibilities of manipulating public opinion. Further on, the analysis of governmental military enhancement programmes and the example of a recent entertainment programme production shall serve as a visualisation that the research on unprecedented signal resolution and datatransfer bandwidth between the brain and electronics might be far more close to reality than one might be expecting. The results suggest that the freedom of speech is preceded by the freedom of thinking. Its manipulation on a bigger scale (e.g. national elections) could serve as a new way of psychological warfare and therefore the freedom of thinking, or the right to a free mind should remain unviolated.


2008 ◽  
Vol 364 (1519) ◽  
pp. 955-963 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos-Eduardo Valencia-Alfonso ◽  
Josine Verhaal ◽  
Onur Güntürkün

Brain asymmetries are a widespread phenomenon among vertebrates and show a common behavioural pattern. The right hemisphere mediates more emotional and instinctive reactions, while the left hemisphere deals with elaborated experience-based behaviours. In order to achieve a lateralized behaviour, each hemisphere needs different information and therefore different representations of the world. However, how these representations are accomplished within the brain is still unknown. Based on the pigeon's visual system, we present experimental evidence that lateralized behaviour is the result of the interaction between the subtelencephalic ascending input directing more bilateral visual information towards the left hemisphere and the asymmetrically organized descending telencephalic influence on the tecto-tectal balance. Both the bilateral representation and the forebrain-modulated information processing might explain the left hemispheric dominance for complex learning and discrimination tasks.


1969 ◽  
Vol 39 (3 Supl 3) ◽  
pp. 25-28
Author(s):  
Francisco Guzmán ◽  
María Claudia Moreno ◽  
Antonio Montoya

Introduction: The main cause of death in Colombia is the violence, in which 49% to 70% correspond to traumatic brain injury (TBI). There are publications in Colombia that expose the epidemiology of this national catastrophe, but there are a few studies that follow the neurological-functional state after the head injury on this patient. Objectives: To know the functional state after one year following a traumatic brain injury on patients. Methods: A cohort of patients that were hospitalized on the Hospital Universitario del Valle, Cali, Colombia, with traumatic brain injury between July 2003 and June of 2004. The Glasgow Outcome Score (GOS) scale was apply when the patient leave the hospital, and at the first and twelve month after the brain injury. Results: 2049 patients were include on the study. 83% were men. 53% of them were classified as mild TBI, 31% moderate and 16% severe by the Glasgow Score Scale. The mortality was 13% intrahospital (0.3%, 1.4% y 8% of mortality en mild, moderate and severe respectly), and after a year of TBI the mortality was 14%, and 85% of the patients was on GOS of 4 and 5. Conclusions: The incidences of the variables evaluated on the TBI patients on the present study are similar to the world literature series. After 12 months, the followed up of functional state and the mortality of TBI patients were similar to the data of countries of high technology and developed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document