The brain's journey from early Internet to modern-day fiber optics -- all in 1 lifetime
A new computer program shows how the brain's complex fiber tracks mature as we grow up
2010-10-28
(Press-News.org) VIDEO:
Researchers at EPFL Signal Processing Laboratory 5 in collaboration with the University of Lausanne and partners in the US have studied how the brain makes connections between its different parts.
Click here for more information.
The brain's inner network becomes increasingly more efficient as humans mature. Now, for the first time without invasive measures, a joint study from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the University of Lausanne (UNIL), in collaboration with Harvard Medical School, has verified these gains with a powerful new computer program. Reported in the PNAS early online edition last week, the soon-to-be-released software allows for individualized maps of vital brain connectivity that could aide in epilepsy and schizophrenia research.
"The computer program brings together a series of processes in a 'pipeline' beginning with individual MRIs and ending with a personalized map of the fiber optics-like network in the brain. It takes a whole team of engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and medical doctors to come up with this type of neurobiological understanding," explains Jean-Philippe Thiran, an EPFL professor and head of the Signal Processing Laboratory 5.
A young child's brain is similar to the early Internet with isolated, poorly linked hubs and inefficient connections, say the researchers from EPFL and UNIL. An adult brain, on the other hand, is more like a modern day, fully integrated fiber optic network. The scientists hypothesized that while the brain does not undergo significant topographical changes in childhood, its white matter—the bundles of nerve cells connecting different parts of the brain—transitions from weak and inefficient connections to powerful neuronal highways. To test their idea, the team worked with colleagues at Harvard Medical School and Indiana University to map the brains of 30 children between the ages of two and 18.
With MRI, they tracked the diffusion of water in the brain and, in turn, the fibers that carry this water. Thiran and UNIL professor Patric Hagmann, in the Department of Radiology, then created a database of the various fiber cross-sections and graphed the results. In the end, they had a 3D model of each brain showing the thousands of strands that connect different regions.
These individual models provide insight not only into how a child's brain develops but also into the structural differences in the brain between left-handed and right-handed people, for example, or between a control and someone with schizophrenia or epilepsy. The models may also help inform brain surgeons of where, or where not, to cut to relieve epilepsy symptoms. Thiran and Hagmann plan to make the tool available early next year free of charge to hospitals around the world.
###
Authors include P. Hagmann, O. Sporns, N. Madan, L. Cammoun, R. Pienaar, V. J. Wedeen, R. Meuli, J.-P. Thiran, and P. E. Grant. The PNAS article is titled, "White matter maturation reshapes structural connectivity in the late developing human brain."
Authors contact:
Jean-Philippe Thiran, +41 21 694 4623, jean-philippe.thiran@epfl.ch
Patric Hagmann, +41 76 512 93 55 / +41 79 556 02 12, patric.hagmann@epfl.ch
Laboratory website: http://lts5www.epfl.ch/
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2010-10-28
US scientists have found a correlation between increased circuit activity in the right side of the brain and the suffering of involuntary flashbacks by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) sufferers.
Using a technique called Magnetoencephalography (MEG), which involves analysing the occurrence of magnetic charges given off when neuronal populations in our brain connect and communicate, the researchers have undertaken clinical trials to try and find differences between brain activity of PTSD sufferers and those with a clean bill of mental health.
The findings, published ...
2010-10-28
A clinical trial of a potential new targeted treatment drug has provided powerful evidence that it can halt or reverse the growth of lung tumors characterized by a specific genetic abnormality. In their report in the October 28 New England Journal of Medicine, a multi-institutional research team reports that daily doses of the investigational drug crizotinib shrank the tumors of more than half of a group patients whose tumors were driven by alterations in the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene. In another one-third of study participants, crizotinib treatment suppressed ...
2010-10-28
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania…Today in the journal Nature, a new discovery described by a team of international scientists, including Carnegie Museum of Natural History paleontologist Christopher Beard, suggests that anthropoids—the primate group that includes humans, apes, and monkeys—"colonized" Africa, rather than originally evolving in Africa as has been widely accepted. According to this paper, what is exceptional about these new fossils—discovered at the Dur At-Talah escarpment in central Libya—is the diversity of species present: the site includes three distinct families ...
2010-10-28
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered the most massive neutron star yet found, a discovery with strong and wide-ranging impacts across several fields of physics and astrophysics.
"This neutron star is twice as massive as our Sun. This is surprising, and that much mass means that several theoretical models for the internal composition of neutron stars now are ruled out," said Paul Demorest, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). "This mass measurement also has implications for our understanding of all ...
2010-10-28
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A team of scientists, led by biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside, has found new evidence linking "Snowball Earth" glacial events to the rise of early animals.
The controversial Snowball Earth hypothesis posits that the Earth was covered from pole to pole by a thick sheet of ice lasting, on several occasions, for millions of years. These glaciations, the most severe in Earth history, occurred from 750 to 580 million years ago. The researchers argue that the oceans in the aftermath of these events were rich in phosphorus, a nutrient ...
2010-10-28
Boston, MA—A new study has found that regular consumption of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a clear and consistently greater risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. According to the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, the study provides empirical evidence that intake of sugary beverages should be limited to reduce risk of these conditions.
The study appears online October 27, 2010, in the journal Diabetes Care and will appear in the November print edition.
"Many previous studies have examined the relationship between ...
2010-10-28
Pancreatic cancer develops and spreads much more slowly than scientists have thought, according to new research from Johns Hopkins investigators. The finding indicates that there is a potentially broad window for diagnosis and prevention of the disease.
"For the first time, we have a quantifiable estimate of the development of pancreatic cancer, and when it would be best to intervene," according to Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of pathology and oncology at Hopkins' Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center, "so there is potentially ...
2010-10-28
Researchers at the University of Bristol reveal today in the journal Nature that they have developed a seismological 'speed gun' for the inside of the Earth. Using this technique they will be able to measure the way the Earth's deep interior slowly moves around. This mantle motion is what controls the location of our continents and oceans, and where the tectonic plates collide to shake the surface we live on.
For 2,900 km (1800 miles) beneath our feet, the Earth is made of the rocky mantle. Although solid, it is so hot that it can flow like putty over millions of years. ...
2010-10-28
Green tea does not protect against breast cancer. A study of data from approximately 54,000 women, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research, found no association between drinking green tea and breast cancer risk.
Motoki Iwasaki, from the National Cancer Center, Tokyo, worked with a team of researchers to carry out the study. He said, "Although in vitro and animal-based studies have suggested that green tea may have beneficial protective effects against breast cancer, results from human studies have been inconclusive. Our large-scale, population-based ...
2010-10-28
In new research published today, researchers uncover evolution in action in cancer cells. They show the forces of evolution in pancreatic tumours mean that not only is cancer genetically different between different patients, but each new focus of cancer spread within a patient has acquired distinct mutations.
Effectively, ten different foci of cancer spread are ten different, but related, tumours. The complexity of pancreatic cancer genetics uncovered in this work helps to explain the difficulty of treating the disease but also strengthens the need for improved methods ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] The brain's journey from early Internet to modern-day fiber optics -- all in 1 lifetime
A new computer program shows how the brain's complex fiber tracks mature as we grow up