(Tuesday, October 2, 2012; Shaded Street)

After autumn, the sky is dark and the coolness suddenly rises. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoThe streets under the shade of trees are shadowy and there are few pedestrians, but the main roads are full of vehicles and lights.

Sora Akiyama walked down the street tiredly. Due to the large-scale equipment overhaul and update of the institute tomorrow, their researchers have to work overtime until late at night to sort out the equipment and data, and properly place the experimental animals.

However, the thought of the next few days when he basically had to work except for teaching tasks made him feel very good.

Traditionally, students and postdocs at the Institute of Japanese Studies have worked hard. Although there is no explicit time to go to the laboratory, from Monday to Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., there are basically people in the morning. The professors are also very hard-working, and Sora Akiyama can often receive replies from other professors at two or three o'clock in the morning.

However, he did not agree with this ethos. The spirit of hard work is certainly encouraged, but the laws of nature do not change due to the will of the individual, and adequate rest is essential for the brain.

The brain weighs only about 1.36 kilograms, about 2% of the average adult weight, but takes up 20% to 25% of the body's energy consumption. The brain produces large amounts of junk protein and other biological waste in its physiological processes, and about 7 grams of junk protein needs to be removed every day and replaced with brand new proteins.

The brain's waste removal system is called the glial lymphatic system, which involves a type of supporting cell called astrocytes. Astrocytes can provide a variety of functions for a complex network of neurons and help conduct signals in the brain, and their extended part of the astrocyte terminal foot will wrap around the blood vessels in the brain and spinal cord, like two tubes one thick and one thin together. Cerebrospinal fluid first enters the space around the arteries, exits the brain through the spaces around the capillaries and venules, and takes away waste products, which eventually enter the normal lymphatic system and are disposed of by the kidneys or liver along with waste fluid from other organs.

During sleep, the spaces between brain cells widen, increasing the flow of fluid in the glial lymphatic system, helping cerebrospinal fluid to remove waste from the brain more efficiently. Since the glial lymphatic system is more efficient at cleaning waste during sleep than when awake, sleep disturbances in patients with neurological diseases can further worsen the condition. Correspondingly, normal people will also experience similar symptoms after lack of sleep, such as decreased concentration, memory loss, fatigue, irritability, mood swings, etc. At the same time, controlled trials from psychology researchers have shown that interspersing sleep during learning can effectively improve long-term memory.

"Alas, the irony is that the gradual change in this ethos actually began after the Galaxy Federation launched the 'Other Shore' project. In the past, it was almost impossible for someone like me from Kyoto University to become a professor at the University of Tokyo, but in recent years, it has gotten a lot better. Thinking of this, Akiyama shook his head, "Forget it, I'm a [observer] who something." Not...... It seems that tomorrow is the school festival of Yuta Tomigashi and their school? Since there is nothing to do, it would be good to go and see it. I don't know what activities these secondary two diseases have?"

……

(Tuesday, October 2, 2012, late night; apartment 4th floor, Sora Akiyama)

"Hah...... ...... owed"

A paper push email sent before going to bed aroused Akiyama's interest, so that he couldn't help but stay up late after maintaining a regular schedule.

This is a paper published in the journal Neuron, from a team from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health in the United States, that illustrates a new chemogenetic technique. Chemogenetics uses small molecule organic compounds to systematically interfere with and explore biological processes within cells, which were mostly used to design drugs targeting specific receptors in the past, and have been used in the field of anti-cancer drug development in recent years. The novelty of this paper is that it can be applied to manipulate neurons in animal brains.

The team's researchers artificially modified the chemical structure of the G protein-coupled receptor so that it could only be activated or inhibited by the specified compound. Researchers use viral vectors to deliver artificial receptors into specific neurons, which are then manipulated by injecting the specified compounds to manipulate the activation or inhibition of the neurons. Using mice as experimental subjects, the team successfully manipulated the mice's feeding through this technique.

Although the paper ended up suggesting that the technology could be used to treat neurological disorders, Akiyama considered the possibility of a similar technology being applied to brain-computer interfaces. His work in the field of invasive brain-computer interfaces involves the fusion of implanted artificial devices and biological tissues to form "cyborg" tissues, and the input information is mainly in the form of stimulating specific neurons, such as the sensory cortex and the motor cortex.

"If the implanted artificial device itself is a "cyborg" tissue, it is made by fusing genetically modified artificial cells and electronic devices, and the specific protein produced by it can act on receptors on pre-engineered nerve cells...... Isn't this some kind of brain control?"

He jot down the idea casually.

"Anyway, with the [Galactic Federation] secretly manipulating, it shouldn't be like watching humans die on their own. But then again, their manipulative thinking skills are somehow much higher than that. ”

……