Built with funding for basic research from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Miguel Nicolelis and the Walk Again Project have built an exoskeleton that will allow paraplegics to walk again. The exoskeleton uses computer algorithms to interpret the user's brain activity, which powers the exoskeleton forward.

Theoretical biophysicist William Bialek discusses how all of the parts in our brain work together to produce all of the simple and complex thoughts that humans have.

Theoretical biophysicist William Bialek discusses the BRAIN Initiative and how his team plans to study neuron activity.

How two unlikely microbes (that don’t even have brains) led to the development of one of today’s most promising brain research techniques—which is being used to study many diseases including schizophrenia and Parkinson’s.

Melina Hale of the University of Chicago is studying neuronal circuits in zebrafish that generate startle responses. Because little is known about how circuits operate in any organism and because startle responses are controlled by relatively simple circuits, an improved understanding of the circuitry of the zebrafish's startle responses is expected to help lay the groundwork for research on more complicated circuits.

Clifton Ragsdale of the University of Chicago is researching the nervous system of the octopus, which is a successful predator partly because it has excellent eyesight--the best of any invertebrate. The octopus's excellent eyesight enables it to visually zero in and focus on prey.

Partha Mitra of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is currently focused on the Mouse Brain Architecture Project (MAP), which is aimed at creating 3-D maps of the mouse brain at various scales.

Autophagy is a cellular degradation pathway essential for neuronal survival, but little is known about the dynamics of autophagic organelles in neurons. Maday et al. reveal that autophagosomes form and engulf cargo at the distal tips of neurites and then mature into degradative autolysosomes as they move toward the cell body. This biosights episode presents the paper by Maday et al. from the February 20, 2012, issue of The Journal of Cell Biology and includes an interview with authors Sandra...

Diana Woodruff-Pak (Temple University, Philadelphia, PA) used cholesterol-fed rabbits as a model of AD for evaluation of currently available and potential anti-Alzheimer drugs. These animals developed typical Alzheimer pathology, including behavioral changes and deposition of ß-amyloid and even
tau. Galantamine and donepezil partially protected animals from Alzheimer symptomatology.

Dr. Remi Quirion (McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada) described enhancement of the effects of pain-related peptides by PGE2 . This finding suggests a new, possible complimentary approach to the therapy of pain. Qurion also discussed anti-Alzheimer effect of polyphenols. This effect appears to be due not due to their antioxidant activity only. Quirion suggested the existence of membrane protein than binds polyphenols.