New type of brain cell discovered

Researchers have discovered a strange new type of brain cell that sends signals by bypassing the cell body altogether.

Neurons come in different shapes and sizes but the basic blueprint consists of a cell body, from which protrudes spindly appendages called dendrites and axons.

Dendrites are branchlike structures that receive signals from other nerve cells and deliver them to the cell body. The neuron then processes the signals and zaps along information to the next cell via a long projection called the axon.

The newly discovered cells, however, have a different, and until now, unknown process. In these cells, the signals skip the cell body altogether, instead traveling along an axon that projects directly from one of the dendrites.

"We found that in more than half of the cells, the axon does not emerge from the cell body, but arises from a lower dendrite," said study researcher Christian Thome, a neuroscientist at Heidelberg University and the Bernstein Center Heidelberg-Mannheim.

The new cells were discovered in the hippocampus of a mouse.

Humans have the same general brain structure and types of hippocampus cells as mice.

The hippocampus is home to extensively branched neurons called pyramidal cells because of their triangular cell bodies, 'Live Science' reported.

To map out the connections between these cells, researchers used a fluorescent red protein that stuck to the origin of each axon protruding from a cell.

They expected the axons to extend from the cell bodies. Instead, they saw that in many cases, the axons emerged from the branching dendrites instead.

The base of the hippocampus is divided into areas labelled CA1, CA2, CA3 and CA4. The most common site for strangely shaped cells was in the CA1 region, where about 50 per cent of cells had dendrite-originating axons.

About 28 per cent of cells in the CA3 region were the newly discovered shape, researchers said.

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Brain implant could restore lost memory

US military researchers have revealed that in the next few months, they will unveil new advances toward developing a brain implant that could one day restore a wounded soldier's memory.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is forging ahead with a four-year plan to build a sophisticated memory stimulator, as part of President Barack Obama's 100 million-dollar initiative to better understand the human brain, Discovery News reported.

The science has never been done before, and raises ethical questions about whether the human mind should be manipulated in the name of staving off war injuries or managing the ageing brain.

Some say that those who could benefit include the five million Americans with Alzheimer's disease and the nearly 300,000 US military men and women who have sustained traumatic brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan.

DARPA program manager Justin Sanchez said this week at a conference in the US capital convened by the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas, said that they think they could develop neuroprosthetic devices that can directly interface with the hippo-campus, and can restore the first type of memories which are the declarative memories.

Declarative memories are recollections of people, events, facts and figures, and no research has ever shown they can be put back once they are lost. 

 

 

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