This section can tell you about some of the things that are happening in the world of science and brain injury.

About brain science!

Science about the brain is called Neuroscience. Neuroscientists are making lots of discoveries about the brain all the time.

This section will tell you about some of the things that neuroscientists have discovered. They hope these new findings will be able to help people with neurological conditions one day including people with ABI.

Please try to remember, although new scientific breakthroughs are exciting, it can take the scientists and doctors a long time to figure out how these breakthroughs can help people.

A lot of new science is leant through animal testing and it can take a long time to figure out how to treat human beings with the same thing. New medication and surgery can therefore take a long time to become available to humans. A rough guide is to say, new discoveries in science can take between 5-10 years to become available as a treatment to humans.

The reasons for this are very complicated, but when new treatments are discovered it can take a long time for the doctors and scientists to check that the treatments are safe to use on humans.

Here are some things that neuroscientists have just discovered.

 

Remote Control Brains
FOX, D. (2007) ‘Remote control brains.’ New scientist. July. No 2613.


What is the discovery?

Scientists have discovered how to turn neurons ‘on’ or ‘off’ using different coloured light.

So far, the scientists have only managed to do it in worms. They can make the worms dance by shining different coloured light onto the worm’s brain.

Shining a blue light on to the worm’s brain makes it’s the worm tense its muscles so the worm looks like it is dancing.

Shining a yellow light makes the worm relax again.

What does this mean for humans?

Scientists are hoping they can use the same technology on human neurons. They hope they can turn off brain cells that are damaged and turn on brain cells that are healthy.

They hope they can fix lots of different neurological conditions by turning the damaged brain cells off for good.

What does this mean for ABI?

Once they have figured out how to get the light to the brain and figured out which neurons do what, they will hopefully be able to turn broken or damaged neurons off and turn the healthy neurons on.

If you have something like epilepsy, they might be able to turn the neurons that cause the seizures ‘off’ so that you don’t have the seizures anymore.

How long until this treatment is available?

This treatment is a long way off from being used on humans yet because they are still doing tests on the dancing worms.

The scientists also have to figure out a way of getting the light to the neurons that need turning on or off! The skull is really tough and the brain hidden away after all!

Is this good news?

Yes. It’s a long way off from being useful at the moment but scientists are excited to discover that brain cells can be turned on and off if they need to be.