Meet The 14-Year-Old Teen That Helped New York Become The 23rd State To Legalize Medical Marijuana

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

1. Just this past weekend, New York became to 23rd state in the US to legalize medical marijuana. Now, meet the 14-year-old teen who helped make it happen.

Video available at: http://www.youtube.com/v/7UR1UTAVplM. Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

2. Oliver Miller is a 14-year-old teen from Atlantic Beach, New York. When Oliver was still in utero, he suffered a brain stem injury.

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REUTERS/Mike Segar / Via news.yahoo.com

3. Because of the injury, Oliver suffers from hundreds of seizures a day, as well as a host other complicated medical issues.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

4. Recently, medical marijuana has gained international attention for curbing seizures in children. However, because of New York law, Oliver has not been given access to this treatment.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

5. With 22 states having legalized the use of medical marijuana, the spotlight turned to New Yorkers to rally behind the Compassionate Care Act, which would make New York the 23rd state to legalize marijuana.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

The Compassionate Care Act would allow healthcare providers to talk to their patients about medical marijuana and certify those with debilitating and life-threatening illnesses, so that they may have access to medical marijuana to relieve their symptoms.

6. Frustrated with the progress and action the state was taking on legalizing medical marijuana, Missy Miller, Oliver’s mother, devoted her life to fighting for the legalization of the drug.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

7. Within a span of a few months, Missy rallied together with other parents that have children who are also in need of help.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

8. Together, they urged local politicians to meet their children, so they could understand the importance of passing the bill.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

9. Missy then turned her attention to New York Senator Dean Skelos, who represents her district.

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Buck Ennis / Via crainsnewyork.com

10. She even rolled out a local television commercial to get his attention.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

11. Missy continued her fight up to Albany, New York, leading up to the big decision on June 19, 2014.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

12. The following day during the vote, Senator Dean Skelos had this to say:

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

13. Then he said this:

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

14. At that point, Missy realized that because of Oliver, Senator Dean Skelos had changed his vote.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

15. And with that, the bill had been passed.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

16. On Saturday, July 5th, Governor Cuomo signed the measure into effect.

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Elite Daily / Via youtube.com

A lot of people look at Oliver, or children like Oliver, and think what do they contribute. If they’re here with all these problems, what do they really contribute? But Oliver really has contributed.

Via Missy Miller

18. Missy is still continuing to fight for Oliver to receive expedite access to medical marijuana… But at least now, there’s hope.

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Missy Miller / Via liherald.com

Read more: http://buzzfeed.com/briantron/meet-the-14-year-old-teen-that-helped-new-york-become-the-23

Meet The 14-Year-Old Teen That Helped New York Become The 23rd State To Legalize Medical Marijuana

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Scientists Discover Strange New Brain Cell Shape

In your typical brain cell, the branched dendrites receive electrical signals from other neurons, and once they’re processed, these signals are passed on to other neurons along the axon, a long extension of the cell. Now, researchers have discovered a brain cell shape that has never been seen before — where the axon arises directly from one of the dendrites. The findings were published in Neuron last week.

The axon and dendrites are usually connected by the neuron’s cell body. Rather than conduct signals via the neuron’s center, these unusual nerve cells take a shortcut to transmit information: The signals go around the cell like a bypass road. “Input signals at this dendrite do not need not be propagated across the cell body,” explains study author Christian Thome of Heidelberg University in a news release. And they’re more efficiently forwarded than signals coming from elsewhere. 

The team colored the places of origin of axons of pyramidal cells in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory. In more than half of the cells, they found that the axon doesn’t emerge from the cell body but originates at a dendrite instead. Then, to study the effect of signals received at these axon-carrying dendrites, the team injected a neurotransmitter called glutamate into the brain tissue of mice that can be activated by light pulses. Using a high-resolution microscope, the team directed the light beam directly to a specific dendrite, and then activated the neurotransmitter to simulate an input signal.

“Our measurements indicate that dendrites that are directly connected to the axon, actively propagate even small input stimuli and activate the neuron,” says study author Tony Kelly from University of Bonn. They call it “privileged synaptic input.”

Using computer simulations, the team predicts that this effect is particularly pronounced when the information flow from other dendrites to the axon is suppressed by inhibitory input signals at the cell body. “That way,” Kelly adds, “information transmitted by this special dendrite influences the behavior of the nerve cell more than input from any other dendrite.” 

To figure out why these unusual shapes are there, the team is now looking for the biological functions that are strengthened through these sorts of dendrites.

Read more: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/scientists-discover-strange-new-brain-cell-shape

Scientists Discover Strange New Brain Cell Shape

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Aging Brains Aren’t Necessarily Declining Brains

For years, conventional wisdom held that growing older tends to be bad news for brains. Past behavioral data largely pointed to loss in cognitive – that is, thinking – abilities with age, including poorer memory and greater distractibility. Physical measures of brain structure also showed atrophy, or loss of volume, in many regions with age.

Watching older brains at work

Enter cognitive neuroscience, a subfield of psychology that incorporates methods from neuroscience. It uses measures of brain activity to understand human thought. The emphasis is on how the brain shapes behavior, asking questions like which brain regions help us form accurate memories or what area controls face perception.

Using cognitive neuroscience methods to study aging has unexpectedly revealed that, contrary to previous thought, aging brains remain somewhat malleable and plastic. Plasticity refers to the ability to flexibly recruit different areas of the brain to do different jobs. In contrast to the earlier, largely pessimistic view of aging, neuroimaging studies suggest aging brains can reorganize and change, and not necessarily for the worse.

^{fMRI scan shows areas of brain more active than others. John Graner, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center}

Researchers investigate which parts of the brain are engaged during different tasks using methods such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures blood flow to various areas of the brain while active. By tracking what happens inside the brain during particular activities, neuroimaging data reveal patterns of change with age. For instance, older adults sometimes use a region in both the left and right hemispheres of their brains to perform certain tasks, while young adults engage the region in only one half of the brain. Older adults also appear to activate more anterior regions of the brain whereas young adults exhibit more posterior activation.

The emergence of the cognitive neuroscience of aging occurred alongside advances in the understanding of neurogenesis; neuroscientists discovered that the growth of new neurons could continue throughout life, not just when we are very young. It is still unknown to what extent new neurons contribute to behavioral and brain changes with age. But there is some evidence in rodents that new learning and enriched, stimulating environments increase survival of new neurons potentially allowing the new neurons to contribute to abilities and even improve health.

External stimulation

^{Stimulating the left side of his brain generates movement in the right hand. Eric Wassermann, M.D., CC BY}

One exciting new direction for research on the aging brain uses neurostimulation to temporarily activate or suppress distinct neural regions. With transcranial magnetic stimulation, a coil is held over a participant’s head. Participants may be able to feel some stimulation on the scalp when the coil is turned on. Transcranial direct current stimulation is an even more surprising technique, with current administered from a 9V battery. These methods are non-invasive, simply involving holding a device over a person’s head or attaching electrodes to the scalp, and are quite safe when operated within guidelines.

They allow us, for the first time, to manipulate brain activity in a healthy, functioning person. Other neuroscience methods allow neurons to be turned on or turned off using pharmacological, genetic, or other methods, but such manipulations can’t ethically be applied to humans. While neuroimaging methods allow us to view which brain regions are active while performing cognitive tasks, we haven’t been able to test whether those brain regions cause, or are critical for, those tasks.

^{Shocking results! Older subjects did almost as well as young ones when their brains were direct current stimulated. Science/AAAS, Author provided}

The ability to manipulate brain regions – temporarily and safely – allows for new types of tests that couldn’t be done before. For example, stimulating the frontal cortex – the brain region behind the forehead – can decrease errors on cognitive tests. When older adults in one study were asked to give examples of items that fit into different categories, they made mistakes under time pressure. Administering transcranial direct current stimulation decreased the number of errors committed by older adults, bringing them close to the level of performance of younger adults.

Neurostimulation offers much promise to further understanding of how the brain works in aging people, but there are many limitations. The spatial area affected by neurostimulation is not very precise as the scientist passes the coil over the subject’s head. Many regions cannot be targeted because they’re located deep within the brain, particularly problematic for studying memory. And activating some regions can cause discomfort for participants, such as twitching induced in the area of the forehead.

It’s not all downhill

Much of our understanding of aging brains has thus far focused on declining cognitive abilities. But there is some evidence that social and emotional abilities are relatively well-preserved with age. Older adults seem to be just as good at forming impressions of others and are even better at regulating or controlling their emotions than younger adults.

This suggests that brain regions underlying these abilities may not exhibit the same downward trajectory with age as those associated with cognitive abilities; these brain areas may show different patterns of reorganization and change.

Should these abilities be better preserved with age, they could be harnessed to develop effective memory strategies. For instance, emphasizing the motivational, personal and emotional significance of information to be remembered could help older people’s memories. Much research remains to be done on these questions.

^{Active older brain, healthy older brain? Men image via www.shutterstock.com}

Brain workouts

Older brains’ plasticity suggests they could benefit from training programs and engaging, immersive experiences such as learning new skills like quilting or digital photography. Such a finding would have profound implications for the large population of active seniors who wish to stave off age-related cognitive decline.

While research is flourishing on a number of potential programs that could positively affect brain health – including physical exercise, cognitive regimens and engaged, social lifestyles – caution is warranted. For example, researchers warn there is little scientific evidence of the effectiveness of brain training software – so-called brain games – to date.

The aging brain has proven to be much more dynamic than early research would have suggested. Advances in research methods and widening the range of questions under investigation will further enhance our understanding of how the brain changes and adapts across the lifespan. With luck, this knowledge will reveal ways to harness plasticity to better support cognition as we age.

Angela Gutchess has current funding from NSF and the Alzheimer’s Association. Past funding was received from NIH and AFAR.

Read more: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/aging-brains-aren-t-necessarily-declining-brains

Aging Brains Aren’t Necessarily Declining Brains

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