Jul 29, 2022 06:48 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 29, 2022 06:53 PM by C C.)
Neuronal scaffolding plays unexpected role in pain
https://www.quantamagazine.org/neuronal-...-20220728/
EXCERPT: . . . Chronic pain, which persists long after an injury, reflects a change in neuronal circuitry that can be difficult to overcome. When something hurts, our whole body gets involved. Specialized pain neurons throughout the body transmit neural impulses into the spinal cord, where they are relayed to the brain. This means the spinal cord plays a major role in our sense of pain; indeed, doctors often manage the pain of childbirth by administering an epidural, which involves injecting anesthetics into the space surrounding the lumbar spinal cord, blocking neural impulses from reaching the brain.
Now imagine if instead of suppressing neural transmission at this point, a nerve injury made those neurons hypersensitive. Even a gentle touch in the affected area would cause a barrage of neuronal impulses to travel up the spinal cord, registering as intense pain. Previous research identified several mechanisms that can cause such hypersensitization, but no one expected PNNs [perineuronal nets] to be involved.
A few years ago, however, Khoutorsky saw a paper reporting that PNNs were coating certain small neurons in a brain region where pain information is transmitted. These “inhibitory interneurons” form synapses on the pain neurons, suppressing their ability to transmit pain signals. Khoutorsky wondered if PNNs might be doing something similar at the critical pain relay point inside the spinal cord, and he asked his graduate student Shannon Tansley to look into it. “At that time nothing was known,” Khoutorsky said.
Tansley did indeed find that PNNs were encasing certain neurons in the spinal cord where it relays pain signals to the brain. The neurons have long axons (the “tail” that sends signals to the next cell in line) that point up the spinal cord to the brain. They also have a set of inhibitory interneurons attached to them through small holes in the PNN, and the inhibitory neurons can squelch the firing of the long projecting neurons, shrinking the signal reaching the brain and blunting the sensation of pain. Tansley discovered, to her surprise, that only these inhibitory neurons in the spinal cord relay point were coated with PNNs.
This finding inspired Khoutorsky’s team to undertake experiments on laboratory mice to determine if these nets were somehow involved in chronic pain after a peripheral nerve injury... (MORE - missing details)
New research finds women don’t like to participate in competitive situations when deciding for themselves, but when deciding for others, they are all in
https://www.informs.org/About-INFORMS/Ne...are-All-In
Takeaways
• Women shy away from competitive environments more than men when making decisions for themselves.
• When deciding for others, more women compete but at an indistinguishable rate to men. This is true whether the gender of the person one is choosing for is known.
• The closure of the gender gap reached this way is not efficient.
RELEASE: Although most decisions in life are made by individuals themselves, many are influenced by others such as principals, managers, parents or colleagues. New research in the INFORMS journal Management Science finds that women take part in competitive environments more when they are making decisions for other people rather than themselves.
"We find that women shy away from competitive environments more than men when deciding for themselves, only 35% of women choose to compete compared to 56% of men. But, when choosing for others, more women compete, resulting in an equal representation of men and women," says Helena Fornwagner of the University of Regensburg and University of Exeter.
The study, "Choosing Competition on Behalf of Someone Else," conducted by Fornwagner alongside, Nina Serdarevic of the Centre for Applied Research, FAIR Insight Team, and Monika Pompeo of the University of Bologna, finds that despite these results, this comes at the cost of fewer payoff-maximizing outcomes than when individuals decide for themselves.
"Gender plays an essential role in most labor market decisions, particularly those relating to the willingness to compete. Nonetheless, when making competitive decisions on behalf of others, we show that gender does not matter; neither the gender of the person deciding nor the person one is deciding for," concludes Fornwagner.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/neuronal-...-20220728/
EXCERPT: . . . Chronic pain, which persists long after an injury, reflects a change in neuronal circuitry that can be difficult to overcome. When something hurts, our whole body gets involved. Specialized pain neurons throughout the body transmit neural impulses into the spinal cord, where they are relayed to the brain. This means the spinal cord plays a major role in our sense of pain; indeed, doctors often manage the pain of childbirth by administering an epidural, which involves injecting anesthetics into the space surrounding the lumbar spinal cord, blocking neural impulses from reaching the brain.
Now imagine if instead of suppressing neural transmission at this point, a nerve injury made those neurons hypersensitive. Even a gentle touch in the affected area would cause a barrage of neuronal impulses to travel up the spinal cord, registering as intense pain. Previous research identified several mechanisms that can cause such hypersensitization, but no one expected PNNs [perineuronal nets] to be involved.
A few years ago, however, Khoutorsky saw a paper reporting that PNNs were coating certain small neurons in a brain region where pain information is transmitted. These “inhibitory interneurons” form synapses on the pain neurons, suppressing their ability to transmit pain signals. Khoutorsky wondered if PNNs might be doing something similar at the critical pain relay point inside the spinal cord, and he asked his graduate student Shannon Tansley to look into it. “At that time nothing was known,” Khoutorsky said.
Tansley did indeed find that PNNs were encasing certain neurons in the spinal cord where it relays pain signals to the brain. The neurons have long axons (the “tail” that sends signals to the next cell in line) that point up the spinal cord to the brain. They also have a set of inhibitory interneurons attached to them through small holes in the PNN, and the inhibitory neurons can squelch the firing of the long projecting neurons, shrinking the signal reaching the brain and blunting the sensation of pain. Tansley discovered, to her surprise, that only these inhibitory neurons in the spinal cord relay point were coated with PNNs.
This finding inspired Khoutorsky’s team to undertake experiments on laboratory mice to determine if these nets were somehow involved in chronic pain after a peripheral nerve injury... (MORE - missing details)
New research finds women don’t like to participate in competitive situations when deciding for themselves, but when deciding for others, they are all in
https://www.informs.org/About-INFORMS/Ne...are-All-In
Takeaways
• Women shy away from competitive environments more than men when making decisions for themselves.
• When deciding for others, more women compete but at an indistinguishable rate to men. This is true whether the gender of the person one is choosing for is known.
• The closure of the gender gap reached this way is not efficient.
RELEASE: Although most decisions in life are made by individuals themselves, many are influenced by others such as principals, managers, parents or colleagues. New research in the INFORMS journal Management Science finds that women take part in competitive environments more when they are making decisions for other people rather than themselves.
"We find that women shy away from competitive environments more than men when deciding for themselves, only 35% of women choose to compete compared to 56% of men. But, when choosing for others, more women compete, resulting in an equal representation of men and women," says Helena Fornwagner of the University of Regensburg and University of Exeter.
The study, "Choosing Competition on Behalf of Someone Else," conducted by Fornwagner alongside, Nina Serdarevic of the Centre for Applied Research, FAIR Insight Team, and Monika Pompeo of the University of Bologna, finds that despite these results, this comes at the cost of fewer payoff-maximizing outcomes than when individuals decide for themselves.
"Gender plays an essential role in most labor market decisions, particularly those relating to the willingness to compete. Nonetheless, when making competitive decisions on behalf of others, we show that gender does not matter; neither the gender of the person deciding nor the person one is deciding for," concludes Fornwagner.