Insomnia genes found
An international team of researchers has found, for the first time, seven risk genes for insomnia. With this finding the researchers have taken an important step towards the unraveling of the biological mechanisms that cause insomnia.
In addition, the finding proves that insomnia is not, as is often claimed, a purely psychological condition. Nature Genetics published the results of this research.

Insomnia is probably the most common health complaint. Even after treatment, poor sleep remains a persistent vulnerability for many people. By having determined the risk genes, professors Danielle Posthuma (VU and VUmc) and Eus Van Someren (Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, VU and VUmc), the lead researchers of this international project, have come closer to unraveling the biological mechanisms that cause the predisposition for insomnia.

In a sample of 113,006 individuals, the researchers found 7 genes for insomnia. These genes play a role in the regulation of transcription, the process where DNA is read in order to make an RNA copy of it, and exocytosis, the release of molecules by cells in order to communicate with their environment. One of the identified genes, MEIS1, has previously been related to two other sleep disorders: Periodic Limb Movements of Sleep (PLMS) and Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS).

By collaborating with Konrad Oexle and colleagues from the Institute of Neurogenomics at the Helmholtz Zentrum, München, Germany, the researchers could conclude that the genetic variants in the gene seem to contribute to all three disorders. Strikingly, PLMS and RLS are characterized by restless movement and sensation, respectively, whereas insomnia is characterized mainly by a restless stream of consciousness.

Professor Van Someren, specialized in sleep and insomnia, believes that the findings are the start of a path towards an understanding of insomnia at the level of communication within and between neurons, and thus towards finding new ways of treatment.

Source & further reading:
https://www.vu.nl/en/news-agenda/news/2017/apr-jun/insomnia-genes-found.aspx

Journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.3888

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Egocentric hearing: Study clarifies how we can tell where a sound is coming from
A new UCL and University of Nottingham study has found that most neurons in the brain’s auditory cortex detect where a sound is coming from relative to the head, but some are tuned to a sound source’s actual position in the world.

The study, published in PLOS Biology, looked at whether head movements change the responses of neurons that track sound location.

“Our brains can represent sound location in either an egocentric manner – for example, when I can tell that a phone is ringing to my left – or in an allocentric manner – hearing that the phone is on the table. If I move my head, neurons with an egocentric focus will respond differently, as the phone’s position relative to my ears has changed, while the allocentric neurons will maintain their response,” said the study’s first author, Dr Stephen Town (UCL Ear Institute).

The researchers monitored ferrets while they moved around a small arena surrounded by speakers that emitted clicking sounds. Electrodes monitored the firing rates of neurons in the ferrets’ auditory cortex, while LEDs were used to track the animals’ movement.

Among the neurons under investigation that picked up sound location, the study showed that most displayed egocentric orientations by tracking where a sound source was relative to the animal’s head, but approximately 20% of the spatially tuned neurons instead tracked a sound source’s actual location in the world, independent of the ferret’s head movements.

The researchers also found that neurons were more sensitive to sound location when the ferret’s head was moving quickly.

“Most previous research into how we determine where a sound is coming from used participants with fixed head positions, which failed to differentiate between egocentric and allocentric tuning. Here we found that both types coexist in the auditory cortex,” said the study’s senior author, Dr Jennifer Bizley (UCL Ear Institute).

The researchers say their findings could be helpful in the design of technologies involving augmented or virtual reality.

“We often hear sounds presented though earphones as being inside our heads, but our findings suggest sound sources could be created to appear externally, in the world, if designers incorporate information about body and head movements,” Dr Town said.

Source & further reading:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0617/150617-egocentric-hearing

Journal article:
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2001878

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Billions of neuronal junctions make up new ‘synaptome’ map
Researchers have charted billions of synapses in the mouse brain and sorted them by type, according to unpublished findings presented today at the 2017 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
They used a new technique that captures and categorizes these tiny gaps between neurons by labeling and sorting the proteins that line them. The method involves a new way to illuminate the proteins at synapses and a machine-learning method to analyze them. The resulting ‘synaptome’ is a comprehensive catalog of synapses in the mouse brain.
The technique could be used to map synapses in mouse models of conditions such as autism.
“We can apply this method to any disease model, in principle,” says Zhen Qiu, a postdoctoral researcher in Seth Grant’s lab at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Synapses are junctions between neurons, and they mediate the transfer of information between the cells. Abnormalities in proteins at synapses have been implicated in autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
Some of these proteins are on the neuronal branch that sends the signal, and others are on the neuron that receives it. The researchers injected into the brains of mice florescent markers that attach to proteins at the receiving end. The markers reveal the number of parts, or subunits, that make up the protein by the intensity of the light emitted. And the pattern of fluorescence indicates each protein’s shape.
The researchers used a spinning disk confocal microscope to capture the fluorescence. The result is a detailed picture of the location, size, shape and other features of these proteins.
The method is fast: Imaging an entire mouse brain took just half a day, Qiu says.
“That is feasible and practical for our study because we are doing hundreds of brains in our experiments,” he says.
The researchers wound up with terabytes of data. So they developed a machine-learning technique that automatically detects and categorizes the proteins based on the pattern of florescence. For instance, the software could determine how round or oblong the proteins are. It could decipher the proteins’ size and pinpoint the number of synapses within various brain regions.
The program then used the characteristics of proteins at each synapse to sort the junctions into categories. For instance, it revealed that the hippocampus has several synapse subtypes.
The team plans to test the effect of drugs such as ketamine on synapse organization and characteristics. They also hope to generate mouse synaptomes across all stages of development, from pup to adult.
https://spectrumnews.org/news/billions-neuronal-junctions-make-new-synaptome-map/
Image: Abnormalities in proteins at synapses are implicated in autism. Science Picture Co / Science Source
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Scientists Find New Evidence About How to Prevent Worsening Pneumonia

Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University have found that the TIP peptide, a synthetic version of the tip of the cancer-killing immune molecule tumor necorsis factor, may strengthen the barrier created by sodium channels in the cells that line capillaries in our lungs. Strengthening this barrier may prevent worsening pneumonia.

“We showed that these channels are present in human capillary endothelial cells and that these channels play a really important role in protecting us from pneumolysin,” says Dr. Rudolf Lucas, vascular biologist at the Vascular Biology Center at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and the study’s corresponding author.

“We also provided more evidence that targeting these channels with the TIP peptide or something similar is a solid strategy for reducing dangerous fluid volume in your lungs,” says Lucas. The studies were conducted in the endothelial cells that line human lung capillaries, known to form a tight barrier for the blood vessels.

Source:
http://jagwire.augusta.edu/archives/47212

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