How sleep, memory team up to help humans learn: New Study

A new study has provided deeper insight into how sleep and memory team up to help humans with learning.Scientists have long known that sleep, memory and learning are deeply connected. Most animals, from flies to humans, have trouble remembering when sleep deprived, and studies have shown that sleep is critical in converting short-term into long-term memory, a process known as memory consolidation. But just how that process works has remained a mystery.

Paula Haynes and Bethany Christmann in the Griffith Lab observed, for the first time, that when DPM neurons are activated, the flies slept more; when deactivated, the flies kept buzzing.

These memory consolidators inhibit wakefulness as they start converting short-term to long-term memory. All this takes place in a section of the Drosophila brain called the mushroom body, similar to the hippocampus, where our memories are stored. As it turns out, the parts of the mushroom body responsible for memory and learning also help keep the Drosophila awake.

Understanding how sleep and memory are connected in a simple system, like Drosophila, can help scientists unravel the secrets of the human brain.

Gut bacteria affects brain health

The hundred trillion bacteria living in your gut have a significant impact on your behaviour and brain health, say scientists, including one of Indian-origin.

In an article in the Journal of Medicinal Food, Leo Galland, Director of Foundation for Integrated Medicine, New York, presented the most up-to-date understanding of the relationship between the proteins produced by intestinal bacteria and the human central nervous system.

Galland explores the various mechanisms through which the microbiome can influence the brain: by stimulating and over-stimulating the immune system, producing neurotoxic agents, releasing hormones or neurotransmitters identical to those made by the human body, or through direct neuronal stimulation that sends signals to the brain.

“The microbiome has become a hot topic in many branches of medicine, from immune and inflammatory diseases, such as Crohn’s and IBD to cardiovascular diseases,” said Co-Editor-in-Chief Sampath Parthasarathy, Florida Hospital Chair in Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Central Florida, Orlando.

“Scientists are not only aware of the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ microbes in the gut but are becoming increasingly aware of how they could alter the metabolism beyond gut,” Parthasarathy said.

Turmeric Fights Alzheimer's, Study

Curcumin is a natural product in turmeric, an interesting part of your spice garden. It is also a wonder drug that treats Alzheimer's disease. A recent study shows that a close chemical analog of curcumin may make it a useful treatment for the brain disease, according to sciencedaily.com. 

"Curcumin has demonstrated ability to enter the brain, bind and destroy the beta-amyloid plaques present in Alzheimer's with reduced toxicity," said Wellington Pham, Ph.D., assistant professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences and Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt and senior author of a study that has been published in theJournal of Alzheimer's Disease.

"Accumulation and aggregation of protein fragments, known as beta-amyloid, drives the irreversible loss of neurons in Alzheimer's disease," according tonews.vanderbilt.edu. 

To bring down the accumulation and eliminate this demolition, tiny molecules have to be developed. However, the ability of these molecules to cross the blood-brain barrier has prevented the drug from entering the brain.

An interesting strategy has been devised to deliver a molecule just like curcumin effectively to the brain by Pham and colleagues at Shiga University of Medical Science in Otsu, Japan. In order to give the drug intravenously, the researchers have developed an atomizer that would develop a curcumin aerosol. They created a molecule similar to curcumin, FMeC1, which was the one actually used in this study.

Phame said that the plus point of the FMeC1 is that it is a perfluoro compound, which can be tracked by the biodistribution in the brain noninvasively, with the help of magnetic resonance imaging. As the curcumin is a "very simple chemical structure", it does not cost too much to generate the analog, explained Pham.

He added that in this manner, the drug can be breathed in and reach the brain. He also pointed out that the relevant nebulizers are already out in the market, and are relatively inexpensive.

"In this paper we also showed that delivery to the cortex and hippocampal areas is more efficient using aerosolized curcumin than intravenous injection in a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease," Pham said.