Scientists have reconsidered the role of so-called glial cells that interact with neurons
Human brain cells don't work the way scientists previously thought. Its main “residents” are not considered to be neurons at all… There is also a new theory about the formation of long-term memory — before manifesting itself, it “hides” in the depths of the brain for several hours. The Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences was dedicated to brain health last Tuesday. Academicians reported on a paradigm shift explaining the functions of brain cells, as well as on the fate of the federal scientific and technical program “Brain: Health, Intelligence, Innovation.”
The head of the Scientific Center for Neurology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Mikhail Piradov reminded the audience about the importance of neuroscience. He said that every fourth inhabitant of the Earth has brain dysfunction. This is an increase in the number of still incurable neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multivascular dementia and, finally, the disease of the century, in which part of the younger generation is now “drowning” — digital dementia. He cited data from Norwegian colleagues who, having tested 34 thousand residents of the European Union, came to the conclusion that the IQ level of those born after 1981 is 20 percent lower than that of generations born from the 1930s to 1980.
In general, there is enormous interest in the problem of studying the brain all over the world. In developed countries, the cost of treating patients with related diseases exceeds a third of all healthcare costs, and multi-billion dollar sums are allocated for scientific programs in the USA, China, the European Union, Japan and other countries.
Against this background, according to Mikhail Alexandrovich, things are not going very well with the domestic Federal scientific and technical program “Brain: Health, Intelligence, Innovation”. MK wrote earlier that, despite the fact that it was developed and, by the way, approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin several years ago, no money has yet been allocated for it.
Meanwhile, the situation has changed over the years, the modern reality is that the emphasis in all areas of science is on priority, last-minute projects, which means that the brain research program had to change a little. According to Piradov, the FNTP has already been finalized and will soon be presented to members of the government.
Now it also pays attention to solving the problems of demography, the fight against cancer, labor productivity of Russians, etc.
In particular, according to the Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientists already have some achievements: by performing magnetic stimulation of the brain on healthy volunteers, they are already able to improve their memory by 20 percent. This effect lasts up to six months.
But the scientific director of the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pavel Balaban, spoke about the cellular-molecular mechanism of memory. His report concerned the increased role of so-called glial cells, which were previously perceived exclusively as service ones. Now, thanks to them, scientists can explain the process of formation of long-term memory.
“Usually, a neural network model is presented to us in the form of cells that are connected to each other, and some of them can represent images: an airplane, a car, an animal,” Pavel Miloslavovich began his explanation. — According to the latest data, the brain works differently — time and space must be added to the existing ideas. Scientists also reconsidered the role of so-called glial cells, astrocytes, that interact with neurons. This is a significant part of the nervous system, 8–10 times larger than the number of neurons, and today we understand that their function is not limited to the official function of transporting substances from the blood to neurons and back. It turned out that astrocytes have a huge, if not decisive role in the formation of our long-term memory.
Pavel Balaban revealed the latest data from world science on how this long-term memory is formed: “British scientists conducted a model experiment on a mollusk. At first, the test subject developed short-term memory, but the scientists continued to test the animal every minute and at some point discovered that the short-term memory had already disappeared, and the long-term memory had not yet appeared. She simply did not exist for 3-4 hours, and then she appeared. This mysterious period has left us perplexed: where has long-term memory been hiding all this time?
RAS Academician Pavel Balaban. Photo: mozg_ras.ru
According to Balaban, his research team, almost simultaneously with other researchers in the West, came to the conclusion that time was needed for the mollusk brain to consolidate the neurons encoding memory.
“If during those four hours the animal had received a blow to the head, the memory might not have formed,” the scientist explained to the MK correspondent after the speech.
— Yes, everything speaks about this. First, neurons respond to external stimuli (those that they need to remember). If the reaction is strong, they release many substances into the environment. Diffusion begins — the exchange of data between neighbors, glial cells. Those, it turns out, have their own substances, which they begin to synthesize and transmit to nerve cells as if in response. This diffusion takes hours.
— There is no discovery as such yet, this is just a hypothesis to which we devoted one of the latest scientific articles. We work with glia and clearly see that it can control the functioning of neurons.
— Of course! And for everyone, long-term memory takes a long time to form.
“This depends on the general state of the neural networks, which we can bring to a normal state with the help of external epigenetic regulators transmitted by glia. That is, the information is already there in the neurons, you just need to help it open up.
— In experiments on snails at our institute, we used, for example, sodium butyrate. After its introduction, we caused complete memory recovery in the “B” students without additional training.
— In fact, regulatory substances are already used in some laboratories abroad. Only they have not yet passed clinical trials as medicines or dietary supplements.
— Yes, they are found in butter, in all dietary fiber, and microorganisms in the intestines produce sodium butyrate from them right there.
— Yes, this is the basis of memory and the basis of the functioning of the brain as a whole. I liked one of the latest comparisons of glial cells, given by one of my foreign colleagues. He said that cities and illuminated roads, which are visible from an airplane at night, are different brain structures, the main population of the city is glial cells, and neurons are their transport. That is, a paradigm shift is taking place before our eyes: the main “population” of the brain is not neurons, but glial cells, or astrocytes. If they “want” to react to this or that event, you will remember the information; if they filter it out, you won’t remember it.
— Neurons connect different parts of the brain, receive information from the outside, extract it from memory, are responsible for short-term memory.
In addition to fundamental work on studying the functioning of the brain, Pavel Miloslavovich highlighted a number of applied developments for medicine. For example, scientists at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have learned to selectively erase memory, for example, traumatic memory. According to the academician, they already know which molecules and in which places provide this memory. It is also known that nitric oxide can “erase” it. All that remains is to develop a method for delivering the necessary genetic constructs to these places.
A number of subsequent reports at the presidium meeting were devoted to the treatment of brain tumors and neurodegenerative diseases.
And academician Konstantin Anokhin supplemented the overall picture with two more important aspects. Firstly, he noted the great role of modeling the cognitive processes of the human brain for the developing technologies for creating artificial intelligence (AI). The scientist recalled that, for example, China announced a national strategy plan back in 2017, in which the main role was assigned to AI. According to this strategy, by 2030, China should become a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence technologies and their application in industry and the economy. “For this purpose, the China Brain Project program worth 60 billion yuan has been launched and a large number of laboratories and centers of excellence in this area have been created,” Anokhin noted. “I think it’s important to pay attention to this movement in China. Moreover, the topic of the development of artificial intelligence is also contained in the Russian program.” The second aspect that the academician focused on concerned the political interaction of the BRICS countries in the development of neurosciences. It turns out that Chinese scientists have recently stopped being allowed to attend major American conferences of the Society for Neuroscience, which attract up to 30 thousand employees every year.
“Therefore, in the fall of this year, an initiative was taken to create a new BRICS Society for Neuroscience. It seems to me that this is a window of opportunity,” the scientist said.
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