Do astrocytes respond to light, sound, or electrical stimulation? – To activate maximum contrarianism I’d argue the answer to this question is no, they “respond” to changes in metabolic processes within the cells. But yes, you can manipulate those metabolic processes by changing the energetic environment around the cells.
Astrocyte dysfunction and neuronal network hyperactivity in a CRISPR engineered pluripotent stem cell model of frontotemporal dementia – Mostly including this one because of two interesting bits, first that “high” activation states in nervous systems are “cognitively” “bad”, and second the greater the synchronicity in electrical readings, the “worse” a nervous system performs over time.
Heterogeneous growth of the insula shapes the human brain – This one is funny to me because the insula is all the rage when attempting to assert things about behavior over the last decade and it’s one of the few remaining brain areas in mammals that we can still maybe make arguments similar to phrenological regionalism and “mental health”. The reality is that it’s not actually a “functional” “brain region” at all, it’s one of the many crossing points for brainstem/cortical activity. “Heterogeneity” is a hint that a pattern does not exist, no matter how much we want it to.
Intracellular Cholesterol Trafficking – Cholesterol and amyloids are the same picture. Leaky memory slime.
RAGE Against the Glycation Machine in Synucleinopathies: Time to Explore New Questions – Despite all my RAGE it’s still just a synucleinopathy CAAAAAGGEEEEE.
Astrocytic engagement of the corticostriatal synaptic cleft is disrupted in a mouse model of Huntington’s disease – More dementia and “hyper” states.
Convergence of Brain Transcriptomic and Neuroimaging Patterns in Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder – I love that we keep flogging the shit out of this horse that probably never existed in the first place.
Multicore fiber optic imaging reveals that astrocyte calcium activity in the cerebral cortex is modulated by internal motivational state – YEP. Peeling back the magic a layer at a time.
Brightness and shadows of mitochondrial ROS in the brain – This is kind of a holy shit on the scale of “neurons use 90% of the energy in the brain”. It makes me wonder if the benefit of things like HBOT isn’t in part due to juicing astrocytic energy production? That these two cell systems are in tension, pulling in different directions regarding rOS, provides a homeostatic mechanic. Really amazing result here, looking forward to follow up work.
Intracellular accumulation of tau oligomers in astrocytes and their synaptotoxic action rely on Amyloid Precursor Protein Intracellular Domain-dependent expression of Glypican-4 – My take on this is amyloids are just memory slime, those go down the drain pretty easy. It’s not until astrocytes accumulate “hairballs” (tau tangles) that things go haywire and the slime starts contributing to the drain clogging and flooding the shower/bath.
The Carotid Body “Tripartite Synapse”: Role of Gliotransmission – Yeah.
Astrocyte activities in the external globus pallidus regulate action-selection strategies in reward-seeking behaviors – This is kind of a low key banger no cap. This adds some weight to globes->putamen->dentate gyrus circuit as an iterative downselect and integration mechanism for top high level “cognitive” functions. As you might expect, “compulsive” or “ataxic” “disorders” should be show concentrated circuit differences through this pathway.