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Scientists Offer New Insight Into Neuron Changes Brought About by Aging
How aging affects communication between neurons is not well understood, a gap that makes it more difficult to treat a range of disorders, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
A new study from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) offers insights into how aging affects the brain's neural circuitry, in some cases significantly altering gene expression in single neurons. These discoveries could point the way toward a better understanding of how aging affects our cognitive ability and new therapeutic targets for the treatment of neurodegenerative disease.
"Although we don't know exactly why, we do know there is a signaling imbalance as we age, and we've captured these changes at the single neuron level," said Sathyanarayanan V. Puthanveettil, a TSRI assistant professor who led the work. "If we could identify the underpinnings of this mechanism, we may be able to target the specific mechanism to affect or reverse the aging process in human neurons."
To record the electrical and physiological properties of single neurons, the scientists created a new method and applied it to the marine snail Aplysia californica, a widely used animal model. Many Aplysia gene expression signatures have counterparts in the human genome.
Using this methodology, which was published in the Journal of Visualized Experiments, the scientists were then able to focus on neuron R15, a burst firing neuron that is implicated in the regulation of water content and reproduction, showing how its response to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and gene expression changed with age.
In a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, the team described specific changes in burst firing and action potentials -- which play a central role in cell-to-cell communication -- during the aging of R15, suggesting that changes in the response to acetylcholine during aging has been conserved during evolution in organisms from snails to mammals.
In another study, published in published in BMC Genomics, the team revealed unexpected information about gene expression during R15 aging.
"Aging brings bidirectional changes in the gene expression," said Puthanveettil. "Some gene expression goes up; some goes down. This was surprising, particularly that some gene expression went up -- something you don't necessarily associate with aging."
The study also noted that more than 1,000 DNA sequences are regulated differently in mature versus old R15 neurons. Among the specific biological pathways that are altered are networks involved in: cell signaling and skeletal muscular system development; cell death and survival; cellular function maintenance and embryonic development; and neurological diseases and developmental and hereditary disorders.
To confirm these findings, Puthanveettil and his colleagues also isolated and examined three other Aplysia neurons. Interestingly, while all the neurons showed changes in gene expression with age, these changes weren't necessarily similar among the neurons. Also the magnitude of change was specific to individual neurons.
The scientists are now investigating how and why aging affects neurons differently.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140122153935.htm
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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