Neuroscience Daily for 27 September: Childhood Epilepsy, Riluzole And Glia, Brain As Computer

Neuroscience Daily for 27 September follows 3 stories from r/neuro and r/neuroscience, moving through childhood epilepsy, riluzole and glia, brain as computer. Chapters 00:00:00 — Intro 00:00:10 — Childhood Epilepsy 00:01:12 — Riluzole And Glia 00:02:16 — Brain As Computer 00:03:08 — Closing 1. Childhood Epilepsy This story is about how human brain organoids are revealing a possible cause of childhood epilepsy, in a study published by Nature. Researchers modeled tuberous sclerosis complex by removing both copies of the TSC2 gene in selected human brain cells, then tracked what happened as the organoids developed. Source link Reddit discussion 2. Riluzole And Glia The second story concerns riluzole and memory in a rat model of Alzheimer’s-related toxicity, reported in the Journal of Neuroinflammation. Researchers injected amyloid-beta oligomers into the hippocampal CA1 region of male rats and gave the animals riluzole for seven days. Source link Reddit discussion 3. Brain As Computer The final story asks whether the brain is really best understood as a computer, in a review from Cognitive Wonderland discussing Romain Brette’s book The Brain, In Theory. The argument is that the computer comparison can quietly make researchers treat the brain as a passive device that receives inputs, while unexplained activity gets labeled noise. Source link Reddit discussion That's your five minutes.