They discover method to revert the memory leak

Canadian scientists discovered for accident a mechanism that could figure out the mysteries of the operation of the memory and to help in the treatment of some illnesses, as you publish the magazine Annals of Neurology.

The discovery happened when the scientists carried out a surgical exploration in the brain of a 50 year-old man in an attempt to reduce you the appetite and to neutralize your growing obesity. For it, they already used a technique successful of cerebral" "stimulation, in which electrodes are inserted and certain sectors are boosted by means of an electric petty imposition.

This cerebral stimulation is applied for more than ten years to treat a comprehensive range of dysfunctions, including the depression, Parkinson's wrong and other associated to the physical involuntary movement.

But, instead of losing the appetite, the man remembered with width particulars of events had happened for 30 years and the later tests demonstrated that you had increased in a considerable way your learning capacity. In moments in that it were carried out the process in the field of the linked hipotálamo with the sensation of the hunger, the man suddenly informed you that the memories were crowded together.

After this surprising fact, the technique is already applying in the treatment of patients of the wrong of Alzheimer, to see the results.

We are before an unusual fact, since it is the first time that are possible to raise the process of the memory from a person to which electrodes have been inserted in the brain. Also, those memories became clearer in the proportion in that you/they raised the stimuli.

According to the scientists, this fact provides us a bigger knowledge on the cerebral structures involved in the memory. Let us hope they can really open new hopes for the patients with illnesses neurodegenerativs.

Artificial retina will allow to see to blind

Recently he commented the development of a bionic contact len that allowed to raise the vision of the focused objects. Now, we meet with a more interesting notice, a team of Japanese scientists of the University of Osaka and the Institute Nara of Science and technology they have developed a system of artificial vision that make arrive visual signals to the brain, what would allow to undelete the mediating vision this blind technical people.

The device consists on some glasses of sun that take incorporate some chambers of filming of images and in some electrodes that are implanted in the eye with a not very invasive surgery. Each electrode has a similar resolution to that of a píxel of digital image, and the scientists hope to end up implanting up to 100 electrodes in some years, what would suppose that a blind man could distinguish objects with articulation to 30 centimeters of distance.

Also, the system includes the implant in the eye of a game of electrodes of four square millimeters that you/they boost the optical ledge. Once the signals reach the brain, the patient can see again. The quality of the vision procured by the system depends on the number of electrodes that you/they are implanted in the eye, so that we make ourselves an idea, each one of these electrodes is comparable with a píxel of the digital picture. The implanted electrodes are floppy thanks to the use of chips of integrated circuits.

The idea of the investigators is that your invention you can market in 2012, for the moment, this year, the plans are to implant, with surgery, 49 electrodes of the third generation of the system in the eye of a patient, with the objective of improving the effectiveness of the device so that you allow to see something more than you shine.

They measure the conductivity of the DNA

The first question before this notice is... For what reason? and the investigators answer us that thanks to this they will be been able to detect mutations.

To achieve it, they have wired the DNA between two nanotubos of carbon, like one can see in the image, and they have been able to measure the capacity of the molecule to take electricity circulating. According to the investigators, a single base chemistry of the DNA can change the submitted of this drastically, this way, they could be identified linked illnesses quickly to the mutations.

In spite of everything, the measurement of the electric states of DNA has been difficult because the molecule and your riders to the electrodes spread to be very brittle. But in the new studio, Colin Nuckolls, chemistry professor in the University of Columbia, in New York and Jacqueline Barton, chemistry professor in Caltech, they were able to develop a method for the biosafety of the molecules connecting alone to the walls of the nanotubos of carbon that act as the electrodes in a minuscule circuit, the links are this way, the quite robust ones as to resist electric enormous fields.

The system is still very novel, and they will have years to pass to demonstrate your actual effectiveness and your practical applications.