377 points
by bookofjoe
about 20 hours ago
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73 comments
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[HN]
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— benoau's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
benoau
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about 19 hours ago
q=0.62
> “The goal is to have a medicine that stroke patients can take that produces the effects of rehabilitation,” said Dr. S. Thomas Carmichael, the study’s lead author and professor and chair of UCLA Neurology. “Rehabilitation after stroke is limited in its actual effects because most patients cannot sustain the rehab intensity needed for stroke recovery.
Sounds truly amazing, I have known two people who had severe strokes - one's PT was contingent on triaging resources to whoever was likely to recover more, another simply hated PT and speech therapy and often refused to participate or do the exercises. Even if it didn't help recovery a medicine like this would have reduced the stress of everyone involved.
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— 0xWTF's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
0xWTF
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.62
... in male mice.
I think savvy universities want PIs who are savvy enough to realize that the point of these is to boost measurable visibility like citation count and h-index, so the headline of a news release boosting the article doesn't matter. They can always blame a copy editor for the headlines. It could read "world peace solved with moon juice." The provost would only care if it generated negative feedback. So it's the PR department's job to juice it as much as possible without getting blowback.
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— somewhatgoated's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
somewhatgoated
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.58
Isn’t that where all drugs start out?
But yea the headline doesnt tell the full story
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— cwillu's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
cwillu
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about 12 hours ago
q=0.58
“…in mice” isn't a criticism of the science, it's a criticism of the popularization.
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— MattCruikshank's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
MattCruikshank
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.62
If you've read Ted Chiang's "Understand," you'll understand why this headline made my eyes pop out. For those who haven't, it's in the "Stories of Your Life and Others" collection, which includes the short story that the film Arrival was based on.
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— jadbox's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
jadbox
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about 15 hours ago
q=0.62
I'm a big fan of Ted Chiang's "Understand" short story, but I think your way over hyping the study there: more neuron growth does not even generally translate to higher intelligence and can often introduce a variety of degenerative effects because pathways are not being grown a an organized systematic way through natural process of experience adaptation.
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— TheGRS's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
TheGRS
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.58
I just read this a few months ago and it was my first thought as well! Like Flowers for Algernon taken to its extremes.
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— trhway's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
trhway
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about 14 hours ago
q=0.62
> This type of neuron helps generate a brain rhythm, termed a gamma oscillation, which links neurons together so that they form coordinated networks to produce a behavior, such as movement. Stroke causes the brain to lose gamma oscillations. Successful physical rehabilitation in both laboratory mice and humans brought gamma oscillations back into the brain and, in the mouse model, repaired the lost connections of parvalbumin neurons.
>Carmichael and the team then identified two candidate drugs that might produce gamma oscillations after stroke. These drugs specifically work to excite parvalbumin neurons.
Asking while being total layperson here - can we generate those gamma oscillations by an [may be implanted] electronic device?
Edit: and google search to help, judging by the dates seems to be a pretty fresh field :
"... by pairing robotic rehabilitation with a clinical-like noninvasive 40 Hz transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation, we achieved similar motor improvements mediated by the effective restoring of movement-related gamma band power, improvement of PV-IN maladaptive network dynamics, and increased PV-IN connections in premotor cortex. "
It also sounds like getting an exoskeleton for such patients can be helpful not only to perform immediate tasks, it also can be a part of the restoring process.
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— padolsey's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
padolsey
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about 13 hours ago
q=0.62
My understanding was that strokes caused brain cell death, and that there was no coming back from that, but my neurologists would speak of 'bruised' brain cells, and that after weeks or months or even years you can see recovered function. UCLA's work here is targeting this disconnection and the lost rhythm in the surviving, distant networks. However there is, as yet, NO concievable intervention that could recover function from cell death at that center of the infarct.
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— foota's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
foota
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about 13 hours ago
q=0.62
One wonders if someday we might be able to resurrect the neural network from dead cells by somehow reviving the connections between neurons. I imagine that the connections stay, but become dormant when the neuron dies.
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— steve_taylor's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
steve_taylor
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about 12 hours ago
q=0.58
Perhaps, but I think that by the time we're that far advanced, strokes will be entirely preventable.
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— mlmonkey's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
mlmonkey
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about 17 hours ago
q=0.58
Are there any supplements that can work for neurogenesis? I've heard Lions Mane extract can do this, but I'm not sure. Anybody know of anything?
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— toasty228's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
toasty228
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about 17 hours ago
q=0.62
If you don't sleep 8+ hours a day every single day, exercise regularly, live in a place with clean air, eat clean food, don't drink alcohol, etc. you're losing your time, no amount of supplement will make up for our modern way of life, you're going to optimise the 0.1% while missing the 99.9% that matters
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— SilentM68's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
SilentM68
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.62
That is true, but keep in mind that routine is very difficult to do for someone that makes their living running the rat race, with stress, no time, responsibilities, worry, untreated health problems, etc. If you have the money, job security, then you'll have peace of mind. That will then allow one to live that kind of optimized lifestyle.
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— rexpop's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
rexpop
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.19
This is why we cannot abide scabs.
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— SilentM68's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
SilentM68
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about 13 hours ago
q=0.19
I see your point :)
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— sysreq_'s reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
sysreq_
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.62
Nicotine is the only psychoactive substance proven to increase intellectual function. Rote neurogenisis does not - much in the same way height isn’t a proxy for IQ. Stimulants like Adderall, Caffiene, etc are Dunning-Kruger by proxy.
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— aeonik's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
aeonik
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.62
Alpha-GPC and Uridine Monophosphate appear to have some effect, though minor. Also not exactly neurogenesis, but adjacent stuff. Evidence is complicated, there seems to be a signal but it's a weak effect.
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— SilentM68's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
SilentM68
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about 13 hours ago
q=0.62
I've read online that "Bacopa Monnieri" is a particularly strong and researched herbal supplement for cognitive maintenance, enhancement and neuroprotection, with the potential of supporting neurogenesis.
I've not tried that stuff since money is hard to come by these days. There have been a few human studies.
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— dirtbagskier's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
dirtbagskier
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about 17 hours ago
q=0.58
Cardiovascular exercise and strength training. Both are thought to contribute to neurogenesis, even in healthy people
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— throwforfeds's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
throwforfeds
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about 17 hours ago
q=0.58
There's (minimal) research on psilocybin doing just that. One of the tragedies of prohibition is that we just weren't able to study these psychedelic compounds easily for 50+ years.
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— grvdrm's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
grvdrm
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about 15 hours ago
q=0.62
Have any sources? I’d love to read what you are thinking about.
I haven’t used psilocybin in a clinical setting but have gone through an alternative psychedelic-assisted therapy process. Very interesting results and many positives.
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— sowbug's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
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— nubg's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
nubg
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.58
How do they test this on mice? Do they trigger brain seizures in them?
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— Traubenfuchs's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
Traubenfuchs
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about 15 hours ago
q=0.62
Many different techniques for different types of stroke:
We can block certain arteries mechanically by inserting a tool, inject photosensitive agent then cause a targeted clot with a laser, inject clotting agent, choke, inject blood vessel dissolving agent and re-inject its own blood.
I understand why we research this but I just could not do it.
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— nose's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
nose
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about 14 hours ago
q=0.58
Could this treatment also help with other neurodegenerative diseases?
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— KnuthIsGod's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
KnuthIsGod
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.19
Potentially life changing for male mice...
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— bawolff's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
bawolff
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.62
People go on about this too much. Its the first step, it shows promise.
Does that mean it will neccesarily work? No, of course not. But its still exciting to see progress being made.
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— bena's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
bena
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.62
But it's not progress. Not really.
Mice are used only partly because they share a considerable amount of DNA with us. But they're mostly used because they're cheap. Both in financial and ethical costs.
They live for about two years, and breed in about three months. They are disposable. Over 100 million are killed each year in various labs across the country.
And for all of this, only about 5% of medicine that show positive animal results make it to market in some fashion. So basically, the best thing we can say about a mouse-tested drug is that "this most likely won't make things worse". But that's like a low bar.
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— whatshisface's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
whatshisface
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about 13 hours ago
q=0.62
I think there's some kind of fallacy where you can look at five drugs, all of which came from a pool of 100 promising candidates, then look at the next 100 candidates and say for each one individually that it is not worth celebrating. I call it the, "rounding to zero" fallacy.
In reality, if you have 100 5% chances of a cure for a previously incurable illness, you can celebrate each chance a lot.
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— bawolff's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
bawolff
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about 12 hours ago
q=0.62
> And for all of this, only about 5% of medicine that show positive animal results make it to market in some fashion.
I'm surprised its that high tbh. And i suspect it would be a similar low number if we tested on humans instead of animals.
And yes, being able to test early stage ideas cheaply is critical to innovating. We use mice in biology for the same reason we use computer simulations in other fields.
Anyways, if we took your numbers of 5% chance at face value, that means there is a 1 in 20 chance of this press release turning into a real drug that saves real people's lives. Personally i dont think the chance is actually that high, but if it was that would only further my point that this is a milestone worth celebrating.
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— 650REDHAIR's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
650REDHAIR
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.58
You’re right.
Let’s just skip straight to human trials.
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— functionmouse's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
functionmouse
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about 16 hours ago
q=0.19
very happy for those mice
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— kleton's reply was filtered, but the responses below were kept
"DDL-920 is a potent, selective and brain permeable negative allosteric modulator (NAM) of the γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptors (GABARs), inhibits parvalbumin (PV) expressing interneurons (PV+INs) and consequently enhances γ-oscillations both in vitro and in vivo."
Sounds truly amazing, I have known two people who had severe strokes - one's PT was contingent on triaging resources to whoever was likely to recover more, another simply hated PT and speech therapy and often refused to participate or do the exercises. Even if it didn't help recovery a medicine like this would have reduced the stress of everyone involved.
I think savvy universities want PIs who are savvy enough to realize that the point of these is to boost measurable visibility like citation count and h-index, so the headline of a news release boosting the article doesn't matter. They can always blame a copy editor for the headlines. It could read "world peace solved with moon juice." The provost would only care if it generated negative feedback. So it's the PR department's job to juice it as much as possible without getting blowback.
>Carmichael and the team then identified two candidate drugs that might produce gamma oscillations after stroke. These drugs specifically work to excite parvalbumin neurons.
Asking while being total layperson here - can we generate those gamma oscillations by an [may be implanted] electronic device?
Edit: and google search to help, judging by the dates seems to be a pretty fresh field :
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
"... by pairing robotic rehabilitation with a clinical-like noninvasive 40 Hz transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation, we achieved similar motor improvements mediated by the effective restoring of movement-related gamma band power, improvement of PV-IN maladaptive network dynamics, and increased PV-IN connections in premotor cortex. "
It also sounds like getting an exoskeleton for such patients can be helpful not only to perform immediate tasks, it also can be a part of the restoring process.
I've not tried that stuff since money is hard to come by these days. There have been a few human studies.
You can find more info here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=bacopa+monnieri+cognit...
and here:
https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/bacopa-monnieri
I haven’t used psilocybin in a clinical setting but have gone through an alternative psychedelic-assisted therapy process. Very interesting results and many positives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omberacetam
We can block certain arteries mechanically by inserting a tool, inject photosensitive agent then cause a targeted clot with a laser, inject clotting agent, choke, inject blood vessel dissolving agent and re-inject its own blood.
I understand why we research this but I just could not do it.
Does that mean it will neccesarily work? No, of course not. But its still exciting to see progress being made.
Mice are used only partly because they share a considerable amount of DNA with us. But they're mostly used because they're cheap. Both in financial and ethical costs.
They live for about two years, and breed in about three months. They are disposable. Over 100 million are killed each year in various labs across the country.
And for all of this, only about 5% of medicine that show positive animal results make it to market in some fashion. So basically, the best thing we can say about a mouse-tested drug is that "this most likely won't make things worse". But that's like a low bar.
In reality, if you have 100 5% chances of a cure for a previously incurable illness, you can celebrate each chance a lot.
I'm surprised its that high tbh. And i suspect it would be a similar low number if we tested on humans instead of animals.
And yes, being able to test early stage ideas cheaply is critical to innovating. We use mice in biology for the same reason we use computer simulations in other fields.
Anyways, if we took your numbers of 5% chance at face value, that means there is a 1 in 20 chance of this press release turning into a real drug that saves real people's lives. Personally i dont think the chance is actually that high, but if it was that would only further my point that this is a milestone worth celebrating.
Let’s just skip straight to human trials.
"DDL-920 is a potent, selective and brain permeable negative allosteric modulator (NAM) of the γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptors (GABARs), inhibits parvalbumin (PV) expressing interneurons (PV+INs) and consequently enhances γ-oscillations both in vitro and in vivo."
https://www.probechem.com/products_DDL-920.html