32 results about "Neuronal circuits" patented technology

Disclosed herein are methods for modifying electrical currents in brain circuits through the simultaneous use of focused ultrasound pulse (FUP) and an existing brain-imaging system, such as a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) system. The methods are used for research, treatment and diagnosis of psychiatric, neurological, and neuroendocrine disorders whose biological mechanisms include brain circuits. The methods include the simultaneous steps of applying FUP to a live neuronal circuit within a brain and monitoring a brain image produced by a brain imaging system during the application of FUP.

The present invention provides methods of therapy of cognitive deficits associated with a central nervous system disorder or condition, methods of enhancing cognitive performance and methods for repeated stimulation of neuronal activity or a pattern of neuronal activity, such as that underlying a specific neuronal circuit(s). The methods comprise combining cognitive training protocols and a general administration of CREB pathway-enhancing agents.

A mobile brain-based device BBD includes a mobile base equipped with sensors and effectors (Neurally Organized Mobile Adaptive Device or NOMAD), which is guided by a simulated nervous system that is an analogue of cortical and sub-cortical areas of the brain required for visual processing, decision-making, reward, and motor responses. These simulated cortical and sub-cortical areas are reentrantly connected and each area contains neuronal units representing both the mean activity level and the relative timing of the activity of groups of neurons. The brain-based device BBD learns to discriminate among multiple objects with shared visual features, and associated “target” objects with innately preferred auditory cues. Globally distributed neuronal circuits that correspond to distinct objects in the visual field of NOMAD 10 are activated. These circuits, which are constrained by a reentrant neuroanatomy and modulated by behavior and synaptic plasticity, result in successful discrimination of objects. The brain-based device BBD is moveable, in a rich real-world environment involving continual changes in the size and location of visual stimuli due to self-generated or autonomous, movement, and shows that reentrant connectivity and dynamic synchronization provide an effective mechanism for binding the features of visual objects so as to reorganize object features such as color, shape and motion while distinguishing distinct objects in the environment.

The invention discloses a pulse coupling based silicon-nanowire CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductors ) neuronal circuit, which consists of a dendrite circuit, an integral summer and a pulse generating circuit, and the dendrite circuit, the integral summer and the pulse generating circuit are sequentially connected. The invention is characterized in that the outputs and inputs of the neuronal circuit are all pulse trains, and the components of the neuronal circuit are all silicon-nanowire CMOS transistors; the dendrite circuit is a CMOS circuit consisting of a set of parallelly-connected P-type nanowire MOS (metal oxide semiconductor ) transistors and an N-type nanowire MOS transistor which are connected in series by drain-terminal nodes, and the source terminals of the P-type nanowire MOS transistors input pulse voltage signals; the integral summer consists of a capacitor C sigma, and the capacitor is connected with the drain-terminal nodes of the P-type and N-type nanowire MOS transistors in the dendrite circuit and used for accumulating and weighting currents so as to form trigger voltage signals; and the pulse generating circuit is a feedback loop consisting of a plurality of even numbered serially-connected CMOS phase inverters and a dendrite CMOS circuit, and used for producing and outputting pulse trains, wherein the output frequency of the pulse trains is modulated by the input voltage pulse signals.

A method of inhibiting excitotoxicity by indirectly activating α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) which indirectly activate synaptic AMPA and NMDA receptors is disclosed. Inhibitors of α7 nACHRs, such as macrocyclic diterpenoids, more specifically cembranoids or methyllycaconitine (MLA), indirectly activate α4β2 nAChRs and can be used to treat neurodegenerative diseases, including, but not limited to, Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson Disease, AIDS related dementia and the delayed effects of stroke. They can also be used to treat diseases associated with neuronal impairment, including, but not limited to glaucoma caused by optical nerve damage, delayed effects of epilepsy; and multiple sclerosis.

Compositions and methods are provided for modulating the activity of cells using engineered receptors, polynucleotide encoded engineered receptors, and gene therapy vectors comprising polynucleotides encoding engineered receptors. These compositions and methods find particular use in modulating the activity of neurons, for example in the treatment of disease or in the study of neuronal circuits.

The invention discloses a dual-functional collagen scaffold material as well as a preparation method and an application thereof in spinal cord injury repair. The dual-functional collagen scaffold material consists of a nerve regeneration scaffold and a CBD-EGFR-Fab antibody which is bonded with the nerve regeneration scaffold, wherein the CBD-EGFR-Fab antibody comprises a collagen bonding area anda Fab area of an EGFR antibody which is linked to the collagen bonding area. According to the dual-functional collagen scaffold material provided by the invention, in vitro, exogenous neural stem cell bonding can be promoted and differentiation of inhibited neural stem cells towards neurons with the presence of myelin protein can be rescued, and in vivo, spread of the exogenous neural stem cellsfrom a transplantation site can be effectively relieved and a neuronal circuit can be reconstructed by promoting the differentiation of the neural stem cells towards functional neurons, so that the recovery of motor functions after spinal cord injury can be finally promoted.

The disclosed invention generally relates to pharmaceutical and nutraceutical compounds and methods for reducing neuropathic pain and depression caused by toxicity, metabolism abnormality, trauma, compression, autoimmune abnormality, congenital/hereditary abnormality, infection, abnormally activated neuronal circuits, emotional stress, chemical imbalance, mental health disorder, or other causes in subjects in need thereof. The disclosed invention further relates to naturally occurring, synthetic and semi-synthetic multifunctional compounds that exhibit antidepressant and analgesic activity where said compound contains a pharmacologically inactive substance.

An electronic neuronal circuit system to model the interaction between the postsynaptic terminal of a first synapse between two neurons and the postsynaptic terminal of a second synapse between two neurons includes comparators to model the presynaptic neurons of the synapses, plurality of three diodes connected to the comparators to model synapses, an AND gate and latch to model the formation of functional link between the postsynaptic terminals, and timer-controlled latches for controlling the life-span of the inter-postsynaptic functional link, durations of re-activation of inter-postsynaptic functional link and flow of activity through the output postsynaptic dendritic terminals.

The invention relates to the technical field of neurological rehabilitation tissue engineering and specifically discloses a preparation method of a TSP-1 gene modified mesenchymal stem cell. The preparation method comprises the following steps: 1, constructing a TSP-1-carrying adenovirus vector: preparing a pHBAd-MCMV-GFP vector and a TSP-1 target fragment with a double digestion method, connecting a target gene and the pHBAd-MCMV-GFP vector, and identifying pHBAd-MCMV-GFP-TSP-1 with a sequencing method, so that the correctness of an exogenous gene sequence is ensured; 2, transfecting BMSCs with a TSP-1 adenovirus, so as to obtain the TSP-1 gene modified mesenchymal stem cell. In the preparation method, by selecting the TSP-1 gene modified mesenchymal stem cell, the recovery of transplanted neurons of the neurological rehabilitation tissue engineering and the regeneration of neurite can be accelerated, and the construction speed of a damaged local neuronal circuit is accelerated.

Compositions and methods are provided for modulating cell activity using engineered receptors, engineered receptors encoded by polynucleotides, and gene therapy vectors comprising polynucleotides encoding engineered receptors. These compositions and methods are particularly useful for modulating the activity of neurons, such as in the treatment of disease or in the study of neuronal circuits.

A method of inhibiting excitotoxicity by indirectly activating α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) which indirectly activate synaptic AMPA and NMDA receptors is disclosed Inhibitors of α7 nACHRs, such as macrocyclic diterpenoids, more specifically cembranoids or methyllycaconitine (MLA), indirectly activate α4β2 nAChRs and can be used to treat neurodegenerative diseases, including, but not limited to, Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson Disease, AIDS related dementia and the delayed effects of stroke. They can also be used to treat diseases associated with neuronal impairment, including, but not limited to glaucoma caused by optical nerve damage, delayed effects of epilepsy; and multiple sclerosis.

A signal processing module comprises at least one operational unit incorporating computation units, input and output interfaces able to be linked to a bus and a memory storing data destined for the computation units, the memory being organized so that each data word is stored column-wise over several addresses according to an order dependent on the application, a column having a width of one bit, the words being transferred in series to the computation units.