It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, November 27, 2023
Vaccine created by University of Tartu researchers to prevent a dangerous tropical disease received approval
The chikungunya virus is widespread in tropical regions, where it is spread to humans by mosquitoes of the genus Aedes. Chikungunya is characterised by high fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, rash and sometimes diarrhoea. This viral disease has become a global health threat. At least five million cases of chikungunya virus infection have been reported in the last 15 years. The highest risk of infection is in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of the Americas where mosquitoes carrying the virus are endemic. However, chikungunya virus has also spread to new geographical areas, causing a rise in global prevalence of the disease. So far, there is no specific medicine for the disease.
According to Professor Andres Merits, head of the working group that prepared the vaccine candidate at the University of Tartu, the vaccine was assembled on a desk in room 435 of the Institute of Technology. Merits made a synthetic copy of the chikungunya virus genome, which was attenuated by introducing mutations into it by then UT virologists Aleksei and Valeria Lulla. The virus was first made in January 2011, then it was analysed and subjected to pre-clinical trials in collaboration with researchers from Sweden, the UK, France and other countries. "This is a major achievement – probably the first in Estonian research – where a vaccine designed and made by us becomes available for human use," said Merits.
Obtaining FDA approval is the most important step in the drug development process, which opens up the possibility of using the vaccine in the US. In other regions, it will need to be approved by other regulatory authorities, such as the European Medicines Agency in Europe. Usually, the FDA is the first to give approval, with others following suit some time later.
The application to the FDA was submitted in February 2023, so the approval was issued quite quickly. The approval will be followed by a rigorous follow-up to further assess the effectiveness of the vaccine and the adverse effects of its use. According to Merits, the biggest market for the vaccine is likely to be Brazil and other South American countries, as well as Southeast Asia, where the virus is a major problem. In the US, the vaccine is primarily intended for people wishing to travel to high-risk areas.
Developing a new perspective for the EU beekeeping sector: B-GOOD legacy booklet
The EU Horizon 2020 project B-GOOD has published a special Legacy booklet to showcase its main achievements and key research for the past four and a half years.
The aim of the B-GOOD project (Giving Beekeeping Guidance By Computational-Assisted Decision Making) was to pave the way towards healthy and sustainable beekeeping within the European Union by following a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach. By merging data from within and around beehives, as well as wider socioeconomic conditions and by developing and testing innovative tools to perform risk assessments, B-GOOD provided guidance for beekeepers and helped them make better and more informed decisions.
The communication of scientific information and the transformation of scientific results into practical recommendations are integral to the project’s success. To do so, B-GOOD has published a special Legacy booklet dedicated to the project’s main achievements and key research. Their visual impact promotes memorability, making complex concepts more digestible and they demonstrate real-world applications more easily.
The first part summarises the key findings of each work package, thus offering a glimpse into what B-GOOD has achieved throughout the project’s duration. In the spirit of delivering practice-relevant research outputs, the second part of the new booklet contains a section for its key published research papers, focusing on the publications’ main outcomes with practical value. It contains 15 graphical abstracts produced thus far, providing concise recommendations on the benefits to the stakeholder when the generated knowledge is implemented.
Professor Dirk de Graaf, B-GOOD’s coordinator, says “Over the past four and a half years, the B-GOOD project has given us the opportunity to develop a new perspective for the beekeeping sector in Europe. The use of advanced technologies was herewith not avoided. While this new perspective initially looked very futuristic and perhaps even daring, it has now become really concrete and we notice a growing enthusiasm among the actors in the beekeeping sector. The legacy of B-GOOD cannot be underestimated. I am proud that I was able to be part of this.”
New research indicates that acoustic stimulation of the brain may ease persistent symptoms in individuals who experienced mild traumatic brain injury in the past.
The study, which is published in Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, included 106 military service members, veterans, or their spouses with persistent symptoms after mild traumatic brain injury 3 months to 10 years ago. Participants were randomized 1:1 to receive 10 sessions of engineered tones linked to brainwaves (intervention), or random engineered tones not linked to brainwaves (sham control). All participants rested comfortably in a zero-gravity chair in the dark with eyes closed and listened to the computer-generated tones via earbud-style headphones. The primary outcome was change in symptom scores, with secondary outcomes of heart rate variability and self-reported measures of sleep, mood, and anxiety.
Among all study participants, symptom scores clinically and statistically improved compared with baseline, with benefits largely sustained at 3 months and 6 months; however, there were no significant differences between the intervention and control groups. Similar patterns were observed for secondary outcomes.
The results indicate that although acoustic stimulation is associated with marked improvement in postconcussive symptoms, listening to acoustic stimulation based on brain electrical activity, as it was delivered in this study, may not improve symptoms, brain function, or heart rate variability more than randomly generated, computer engineered acoustic stimulation.
"Postconcussive symptoms have proven very difficult to treat, and the degree of improvement seen in this study is virtually unheard of, though further research is needed to identify what elements are key to its success," said corresponding author Michael J. Roy, MD, MPH, of Uniformed Services University and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda.
Additional Information NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.
About the Journal Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurologyis a peer-reviewed journal for rapid dissemination of high-quality research related to all areas of neurology. The journal publishes original research and scholarly reviews focused on the mechanisms and treatments of diseases of the nervous system; high-impact topics in neurologic education; and other topics of interest to the clinical neuroscience community.
About Wiley Wiley is a knowledge company and a global leader in research, publishing, and knowledge solutions. Dedicated to the creation and application of knowledge, Wiley serves the world’s researchers, learners, innovators, and leaders, helping them achieve their goals and solve the world's most important challenges. For more than two centuries, Wiley has been delivering on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Article Title: Suicidal ideation, plan, and attempt among men who have sex with men in Nepal: Findings from a cross-sectional study
Author Countries: Nepal, USA
Funding: RS received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Award Number: K01DA051346). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. The authors received no specific funding for this work.
During missions into space, astronauts are exposed to high levels of galactic cosmic radiation and weightlessness. Simulation experiments in male rats indicated that these aspects of spaceflight can negatively affect vascular tissues relevant to erectile dysfunction, even after a period of long-term recovery.
The research, which is published in The FASEB Journal, indicated that vascular alterations are induced by relatively low doses of galactic cosmic radiation and to a lesser extent simulated weightlessness, primarily through increases in oxidative stress. Treatment with different antioxidants could counter some of these effects.
“With manned missions to outer space planned for the coming years, this work indicates that sexual health should be closely monitored in astronauts upon their return to Earth,” said corresponding author Justin D. La Favor, PhD, of Florida State University. “While the negative impacts of galactic cosmic radiation were long-lasting, functional improvements induced by acutely targeting the redox and nitric oxide pathways in the tissues suggest that the erectile dysfunction may be treatable.”
Additional Information NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.
About the Journal The FASEB Journal publishes high quality and impactful multidisciplinary research covering biology and biomedical sciences at every level of organization: atomic, molecular, cell, tissue, organ, organismic, and population. The journal’s scope includes the spectrum of biological and biomedical sciences as well as interdisciplinary research cutting across multiple fields and extending in related areas.
About Wiley Wiley is a knowledge company and a global leader in research, publishing, and knowledge solutions. Dedicated to the creation and application of knowledge, Wiley serves the world’s researchers, learners, innovators, and leaders, helping them achieve their goals and solve the world's most important challenges. For more than two centuries, Wiley has been delivering on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Neurovascular dysfunction associated with erectile dysfunction persists after long-term recovery from simulations of weightlessness and deep space irradiation
“Not dead yet” - Oxford experts identify interventions that could rescue 1.5°C
To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and limit global heating to 1.5°C, global annual emissions will need to drop radically over the coming decades. Today [22 Nov], a new paper from climate economists at the University of Oxford says that this goal
To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and limit global heating to 1.5°C, global annual emissions will need to drop radically over the coming decades. Today [22 Nov], a new paper from climate economists at the University of Oxford says that this goal could still be within our reach. They identify key “sensitive intervention points” that could unlock significant progress towards the Paris Agreement with the least risk and highest impact. These include:
Investing in clean energy technologies with consistent cost declines
Enacting central bank policies to reduce the value of polluting assets
'This is not to suggest that reaching the Paris goals will be straightforward, or easy, but like Achilles’ heel, our research points to the areas that could have an outsized impact,' says lead author Dr Penny Mealy, associate at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, University of Oxford.
'We need climate policies which are pragmatic and practical, designed with an understanding of where the economy and technologies are capable of quickly transforming our economies for the better. These are those policy areas. This is how we design policy for 1.5°C,' affirms co-author Dr Pete Barbrook-Johnson of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
The research also highlights the areas where interventions will be more difficult and less impactful, including nuclear fission, which would be slow to roll out and could have unintended consequences; and carbon capture and storage, which presents both high barriers and risks.
To reach their conclusions, the authors devised a new framework for identifying sensitive intervention points, or SIPs, that have the characteristics necessary to radically decarbonize our global economy.
SIPs include critical tipping points – like renewable energy becoming cheaper than coal; critical points in networks – like powerful political figures or important technologies, and critical points in time or “windows of opportunity” that might prime the existing systems for change, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. These intervention points must be assessed by the ease with which they can be implemented, their impact potential, and the potential for creating risks. The authors stress that, while the framework is highly applicable to climate change, it could also be applied to solving other economic and social problems.
The ratings provided for each SIP intervention were applied subjectively based on discussions with experts, literature research, and modelling. The framework can and should be applied regularly to reassess priorities as new data and insights become available, the authors say.
Co-author Dr Matt Ives, comments, '1.5°C is not dead yet, but targeted and speedy interventions that can bring about the non-linear change necessary to keep it alive. As COP28 nears, our research highlights key sensitive intervention points we can prioritise to help turn the tide, while providing a valuable framework for policymakers.'
Sensitive intervention points: a strategic approach to climate action is published today, 22nd November, in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy.
THE TOP FIVE WHITE MATTER FEATURES (REGION PAIRS) IN A SINGLE IMAGE. THE COLOR MAP IS: YELLOW = SUPERIOR CEREBELLAR PEDUNCLE (R)/UNCINATE FASCICULUS (R), ORANGE = COLUMN AND BODY OF FORNIX/POSTERIOR CORONA RADIATA (L), PURPLE = SPLENIUM/RETROLENTICULAR INTERNAL CAPSULE (L), BLUE = DORSAL CINGULUM (L)/CRES OF FORNIX (R), GREEN = SPLENIUM/EXTERNAL CAPSULE (R)
CHICAGO – A newly developed artificial intelligence (AI) system that analyzes specialized MRIs of the brain accurately diagnosed children between the ages of 24 and 48 months with autism at a 98.5% accuracy rate, according to research being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Mohamed Khudri, B.Sc., a visiting research scholar at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, was part of a multi-disciplinary team that developed the three-stage system to analyze and classify diffusion tensor MRI (DT-MRI) of the brain. DT-MRI is a special technique that detects how water travels along white matter tracts in the brain.
“Our algorithm is trained to identify areas of deviation to diagnose whether someone is autistic or neurotypical,” Khudri said.
The AI system involves isolating brain tissue images from the DT-MRI scans and extracting imaging markers that indicate the level of connectivity between brain regions. A machine learning algorithm compares the marker patterns in the brains of children with autism to those of the normally developed brains.
“Autism is primarily a disease of improper connections within the brain,” said co-author Gregory N. Barnes, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurology and director of the Norton Children’s Autism Center in Louisville. “DT-MRI captures these abnormal connections that lead to the symptoms that children with autism often have, such as impaired social communication and repetitive behaviors.”
The researchers applied their methodology to the DT-MRI brain scans of 226 children between the ages of 24 and 48 months from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange-II. The dataset included scans of 126 children affected by autism and 100 normally developing children. The technology demonstrated 97% sensitivity, 98% specificity, and an overall accuracy of 98.5% in identifying the children with autism.
“Our approach is a novel advancement that enables the early detection of autism in infants under two years of age,” Khudri said. “We believe that therapeutic intervention before the age of three can lead to better outcomes, including the potential for individuals with autism to achieve greater independence and higher IQs.”
According to the CDC’s 2023 Community Report on Autism, fewer than half of children with autism spectrum disorder received a developmental evaluation by three years of age, and 30% of children who met the criteria for autism spectrum disorder did not receive a formal diagnosis by 8 years of age.
“The idea behind early intervention is to take advantage of brain plasticity, or the ability of the brain to normalize function with therapy,” Dr. Barnes said.
The researchers said infants and young children with autism receive a delayed diagnosis for several reasons, including a lack of bandwidth at testing centers. Khudri said their AI system could facilitate precise autism management while reducing the time and costs associated with assessment and treatment.
“Imaging offers the promise of quickly detecting autism in an objective fashion,” Dr. Barnes said. “We envision an autism assessment that begins with DT-MRI followed by an abbreviated session with a psychologist to confirm the results and guide parents on next steps. This approach could reduce the psychologists’ workload by up to 30%.”
The AI system produces a report detailing which neural pathways are affected, the anticipated impact on brain functionality, and a severity grade that can be used to guide early therapeutic intervention.
The researchers are working toward commercializing and obtaining FDA clearance for their AI software.
Additional co-authors are Mostafa Abdelrahim, B.Sc., Yaser El-Nakieb, Ph.D., Mohamed Ali, Ph.D., Ahmed S. Shalaby, Ph.D., A. Gebreil, M.D., Ali Mahmoud, Ph.D., Ahmed Elnakib, Ph.D., Andrew Switala, Sohail Contractor, M.D., and Ayman S. El-Baz, Ph.D.
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Note: Copies of RSNA 2023 news releases and electronic images will be available online at RSNA.org/press23.
RSNA is an association of radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists promoting excellence in patient care and health care delivery through education, research and technologic innovation. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Illinois. (RSNA.org)
Editor’s note: The data in these releases may differ from those in the published abstract and those actually presented at the meeting, as researchers continue to update their data right up until the meeting. To ensure you are using the most up-to-date information, please call the RSNA Newsroom at 1-312-791-6610.
For patient-friendly information on brain MRI, visit RadiologyInfo.org.
AI identifies non-smokers at high risk for lung cancer
FRONTAL CHEST X-RAY SHOWS A SMALL NODULAR OPACITY (ARROW) IN THE LEFT UPPER LUNG ZONE. AXIAL, NON-CONTRAST, LOW-DOSE CHEST CT SCAN SHOWS A 9-MM SOLID NODULE (ARROW) IN THE LEFT UPPER LOBE.
CHICAGO – Using a routine chest X-ray image, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool can identify non-smokers who are at high risk for lung cancer, according to a study being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death. The American Cancer Society estimates about 238,340 new cases of lung cancer in the United States this year and 127,070 lung cancer deaths. Approximately 10-20% of lung cancers occur in “never-smokers” – people who have never smoked cigarettes or smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime.
The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) currently recommends lung cancer screening with low-dose CT for adults between the ages of 50 and 80 who have at least a 20 pack-year smoking history and currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years. The USPSTF does not recommend screening for individuals who have never smoked or who have smoked very little. However, incidence of lung cancer among never-smokers is on the rise, and—without early detection through screening—when discovered, these cancers tend to be more advanced than those found in smokers.
“Current Medicare and USPSTF guidelines recommend lung cancer screening CT only for individuals with a substantial smoking history,” said the study’s lead author, Anika S. Walia, B.A., a medical student at Boston University School of Medicine and researcher at the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School in Boston. “However, lung cancer is increasingly common in never-smokers and often presents at an advanced stage.”
One reason federal guidelines exclude never-smokers from screening recommendations is because it is difficult to predict lung cancer risk in this population. Existing lung cancer risk scores require information that is not readily available for most individuals, such as family history of lung cancer, pulmonary function testing or serum biomarkers.
For the study, CIRC researchers set out to improve lung cancer risk prediction in never-smokers by testing whether a deep learning model could identify never-smokers at high risk for lung cancer, based on their chest X-rays from the electronic medical record. Deep learning is an advanced type of AI that can be trained to search X-ray images to find patterns associated with disease.
“A major advantage to our approach is that it only requires a single chest-X-ray image, which is one of the most common tests in medicine and widely available in the electronic medical record,” Walia said.
The “CXR-Lung-Risk” model was developed using 147,497 chest X-rays of 40,643 asymptomatic smokers and never-smokers from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) cancer screening trial to predict lung-related mortality risk, based on a single chest X-ray image as input.
The researchers externally validated the model in a separate group of never-smokers having routine outpatient chest X-rays from 2013 to 2014. The primary outcome was six-year incident lung cancer, identified using International Classification of Disease codes. Risk scores were then converted to low, moderate and high-risk groups based on externally derived risk thresholds.
Of 17,407 patients (mean age 63 years) included in the study, 28% were deemed high risk by the deep learning model, and 2.9% of these patients later had a diagnosis of lung cancer. The high-risk group well exceeded the 1.3% six-year risk threshold where lung cancer screening CT is recommended by National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines.
After adjusting for age, sex, race, previous lower respiratory tract infection and prevalent chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, there was still a 2.1 times greater risk of developing lung cancer in the high-risk group compared to the low-risk group.
“This AI tool opens the door for opportunistic screening for never-smokers at high risk of lung cancer, using existing chest X-rays in the electronic medical record,” said senior author Michael T. Lu, M.D., M.P.H., director of artificial intelligence and co-director of CIRC at MGH. “Since cigarette smoking rates are declining, approaches to detect lung cancer early in those who do not smoke are going to be increasingly important.”
Additional co-authors are Saman Doroodgar Jorshery, M.D., Ph.D., and Vineet K. Raghu, Ph.D.
The researchers report support from the Boston University School of Medicine Student Committee on Medical School Affairs, National Academy of Medicine/Johnson & Johnson Innovation Quickfire Challenge, and the Risk Management Corporation of the Harvard Medical Institutions Incorporated.
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Note: Copies of RSNA 2023 news releases and electronic images will be available online at RSNA.org/press23.
RSNA is an association of radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists promoting excellence in patient care and health care delivery through education, research and technologic innovation. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Illinois. (RSNA.org)
Editor’s note: The data in these releases may differ from those in the published abstract and those actually presented at the meeting, as researchers continue to update their data right up until the meeting. To ensure you are using the most up-to-date information, please call the RSNA Newsroom at 1-312-791-6610.
For patient-friendly information on lung cancer screening, visit RadiologyInfo.org.
New method for determining the water content of water-soluble compounds
Researchers at the University of Eastern Finland School of Pharmacy have developed a new method for the accurate determination of the water content of water-soluble compounds. This plays a significant role in, e.g., drug dosage. The method utilises solution-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, i.e., NMR spectroscopy.
In pharmaceutical research and development, it is very important to know the exact structure and water content of the compound being studied, as they affect both the physicochemical and pharmaceutical properties of the compound. Additionally, the water content affects the total molecular weight of the compound that is needed for the calculation of the correct drug dosage. There are several methods for determining the water content of chemical compounds, of which titration and thermogravimetry (TGA) are the most common ones. However, most methods require accurate weighing, destroy the sample, require special expertise or are time-consuming.
The NMR method developed in the study is simple and accurate and works very well for determining the water content of water-soluble compounds, as the NMR results were comparable with the water contents obtained by TGA and X-ray crystallography determinations.
“The research also revealed that the previously determined water content may change during storage. For example, the commercial sodium salt of citric acid had changed from a form containing 5.5 crystal water molecules to one containing 2 crystal water molecules,” Senior Researcher Tuulia Tykkynen and Senior Researcher Petri Turhanen of the University of Eastern Finland point out.
The advantages of the NMR method are easy sample handling (no accurate weighing required), speed (the measurement of one sample and the calculation of the result takes ca. 15–20 minutes) and the possibility to recover the investigated compound after the measurement, as the method does not destroy the sample. The method is also sufficiently precise and repeatable. An NMR spectrometer is a very expensive investment, but it can be stated that the equipment in question is almost always found in laboratories where new compounds and pharmaceuticals are synthesized, as it is an essential tool for structure determinations.
The study was published in the prestigious Analytical Chemistry journal published by the American Chemical Society. The study was conducted in collaboration with the Department of Technical Physics of the University of Eastern Finland (TGA measurements) and the Department of Chemistry of the University of Crete (crystal structures).
Contrary to the commonly-held view, the brain does not have the ability to rewire itself to compensate for the loss of sight, an amputation or stroke, for example, say scientists from the University of Cambridge and Johns Hopkins University.
Writing in eLife, Professors Tamar Makin (Cambridge) and John Krakauer (Johns Hopkins) argue that the notion that the brain, in response to injury or deficit, can reorganise itself and repurpose particular regions for new functions, is fundamentally flawed – despite being commonly cited in scientific textbooks. Instead, they argue that what is occurring is merely the brain being trained to utilise already existing, but latent, abilities.
One of the most common examples given is where a person loses their sight – or is born blind – and the visual cortex, previously specialised in processing vision, is rewired to process sounds, allowing the individual to use a form of ‘echolocation’ to navigate a cluttered room. Another common example is of people who have had a stroke and are initially unable to move their limbs repurposing other areas of the brain to allow them to regain control.
Krakauer, Director of the Center for the Study of Motor Learning and Brain Repair at Johns Hopkins University, said: “The idea that our brain has an amazing ability to rewire and reorganise itself is an appealing one. It gives us hope and fascination, especially when we hear extraordinary stories of blind individuals developing almost superhuman echolocation abilities, for example, or stroke survivors miraculously regaining motor abilities they thought they’d lost.
“This idea goes beyond simple adaptation, or plasticity – it implies a wholesale repurposing of brain regions. But while these stories may well be true, the explanation of what is happening is, in fact, wrong.”
In their article, Makin and Krakauer look at a ten seminal studies that purport to show the brain’s ability to reorganise. They argue, however, that while the studies do indeed show the brain’s ability to adapt to change, it is not creating new functions in previously unrelated areas – instead it's utilising latent capacities that have been present since birth.
For example, one of the studies – research carried out in the 1980s by Professor Michael Merzenich at University of California, San Francisco – looked at what happens when a hand loses a finger. The hand has a particular representation in the brain, with each finger appearing to map onto a specific brain region. Remove the forefinger, and the area of the brain previously allocated to this finger is reallocated to processing signals from neighbouring fingers, argued Merzenich – in other words, the brain has rewired itself in response to changes in sensory input.
Not so, says Makin, whose own research provides an alternative explanation.
In a study published in 2022, Makin used a nerve blocker to temporarily mimic the effect of amputation of the forefinger in her subjects. She showed that even before amputation, signals from neighbouring fingers mapped onto the brain region ‘responsible’ for the forefinger – in other words, while this brain region may have been primarily responsible for process signals from the forefinger, it was not exclusively so. All that happens following amputation is that existing signals from the other fingers are ‘dialled up’ in this brain region.
Makin, from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “The brain's ability to adapt to injury isn’t about commandeering new brain regions for entirely different purposes. These regions don’t start processing entirely new types of information. Information about the other fingers was available in the examined brain area even before the amputation, it’s just that in the original studies, the researchers didn’t pay much notice to it because it was weaker than for the finger about to be amputated.”
Another compelling counterexample to the reorganisation argument is seen in a study of congenitally deaf cats, whose auditory cortex – the area of the brain that processes sound – appears to be repurposed to process vision. But when they are fitted with a cochlear implant, this brain region immediately begins processing sound once again, suggesting that the brain had not, in fact, rewired.
Examining other studies, Makin and Krakauer found no compelling evidence that the visual cortex of individuals that were born blind or the uninjured cortex of stroke survivors ever developed a novel functional ability that did not otherwise exist.
Makin and Krakauer do not dismiss the stories of blind people being able to navigate purely based on hearing, or individuals who have experienced a stroke regain their motor functions, for example. They argue instead that rather than completely repurposing regions for new tasks, the brain is enhancing or modifying its pre-existing architecture – and it is doing this through repetition and learning.
Understanding the true nature and limits of brain plasticity is crucial, both for setting realistic expectations for patients and for guiding clinical practitioners in their rehabilitative approaches, they argue.
Makin added: “This learning process is a testament to the brain's remarkable – but constrained –capacity for plasticity. There are no shortcuts or fast tracks in this journey. The idea of quickly unlocking hidden brain potentials or tapping into vast unused reserves is more wishful thinking than reality. It's a slow, incremental journey, demanding persistent effort and practice. Recognising this helps us appreciate the hard work behind every story of recovery and adapt our strategies accordingly.
“So many times, the brain’s ability to rewire has been described as ‘miraculous’ – but we’re scientists, we don’t believe in magic. These amazing behaviours that we see are rooted in hard work, repetition and training, not the magical reassignment of the brain’s resources.”
