Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity: The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural

connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the neurons (nerve cells) in
the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in
response to new situations or to changes in their environment.

Brain reorganization takes place by mechanisms such as "axonal sprouting" in

which undamaged axons grow new nerve endings to reconnect neurons whose
links were injured or severed. Undamaged axons can also sprout nerve endings
and connect with other undamaged nerve cells, forming new neural pathways to
accomplish a needed function.

For example, if one hemisphere of the brain is damaged, the intact hemisphere
may take over some of its functions. The brain compensates for damage in effect
by reorganizing and forming new connections between intact neurons. In order to
reconnect, the neurons need to be stimulated through activity.

Neuroplasticity sometimes may also contribute to impairment. For example,

people who are deaf may suffer from a continual ringing in their ears (tinnitus),
the result of the rewiring of brain cells starved for sound. For neurons to form
beneficial connections, they must be correctly stimulated.

Neuroplasticity is also called brain plasticity or brain malleability.

Scientists Design a Network That Lives
Inside Your Body
The horror story practically writes itself: hacked pacemakers and insulin pumps.
Gaining control of medical devices through wireless connections would allow
hackers to visualize vital signs or potentially even cause harm. But a team of
engineers at Purdue have been working on a solution to this problem that involves
the body itself.

"We're connecting more and more devices to the human body network, from smart
watches and fitness trackers to head-mounted virtual reality displays," says Shreyas
Sen, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering who specialize s
in sensing and communication systems, in a press statement.

"The challenge has not only been keeping this communication within the body so
that no one can intercept it, but also getting higher bandwidth and less battery
consumption," he says.

Currently, many medical devices and pieces of wearable tech meld Bluetooth
technology with a body area network, also known as a BAN. That means that the
devices send out electromagnetic waves that can be picked up in a radius of around
32 feet (10 meters) of the wearer before returning to the device. That radius leaves
ample room for hackers.

Using what's known as a magnetoquasistatic field, they were able to create signals
that did not venture further a centimeter off the skin and, as a plus, used 100 times
less energy than traditional Bluetooth communication. Using a prototype smart
watch, Sen's team was able to transmit commands through a tightly limited BAN.

Beyond hacking protection, Sen says, the technology could allow for doctors to
reprogram medical devices without the need for any invasive surgery. It could event
usher in an era of what Sen calls "closed-loop bioelectronic medicine - in which
wearable or implantable medical devices function as drugs, but without the side
effects - and high-speed brain imaging for neuroscience applications."

But for right now, privacy is paramount.

"We show for the first time a physical understanding of the security properties of
human body communication to enable a covert body area network, so that no one
can snoop important information," Sen says.

The technology behind the device has gotten multiple patents through the Purdue
Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization. Sen hopes to
commercialize the technique.
Scientists Spot Mysterious Unknown Breed
of Killer Whales
Earlier this year in January, scientists working off the coast of Chile spotted
something exciting and unusual: Whales that didn't look like anything they had seen
before, that have appeared only in stories. Now known as Type D whales, scientists
at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will use genetic
sample to determine they actually constitute a new species.

“We are very excited about the genetic analyses to come. Type D killer whales
could be the largest undescribed animal left on the planet and a clear indication of
how little we know about life in our oceans,” says Bob Pitman, a researcher from
NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, in
a press statement.

Using a cross dart, three tiny pieces of skin taken have been taken harmlessly from
the whales. These samples will play a crucial role in the Type D whale's
classification. “These samples hold the key to determining whether this form of killer
whale represents a distinct species,” says Pitman.

Stories of Type D whales go back at least as far as 1955, when 17 whales were
stranded on the coast of Paraparaumu, New Zealand. They seemed similar to killer
whales (Orcinus orca), but there were noticeable differences. These differences
included, according to NOAA, "rounded heads, a narrower and more pointed dorsal
fin, and a tiny white eyepatch." There was no known whale that matched that
description.

Scientists at the time felt these whales were genetic aberrations of the well-known
orca. But flash forward to 2005, when a French scientist shows Pitman pictures of
odd-looking whales in the Indian Ocean. Their bulbous heads and eye patches
indicate that those whales might not have been an aberration after all, and that
these whales might be more widespread than anyone knows.

As the years pass, both air travel and photographic technology improves. Travel to
Australia, New Zealand, and even Antarctica increases, and the ability to document
the whales does so with it. Pitman and colleagues start creating files of killer whale
images from the Southern Ocean. From the tens of thousands of photos, six
additional sightings of Type D whales were found.

And now the DNA samples will start to unveil some truths about animals shrouded
in myth for over 60 years.