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What Are Cardiac Arrest and Heart Attack?
Fast Action Saves Lives. When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during an NFL game against the Cincinnati Bengals, it brought urgency to knowing signs of a cardiac arrest and what to do in case of a medical emergency involving the heart. It’s a common misunderstanding that cardiac arrest and heart attack are the same. They are different, but both are very serious heart problems and require fast action to save lives. "I think the very best bit of news for Mr. Hamlin is that the emergency medical technicians got to him very quickly." Heart attack and other conditions, including a rare type of trauma called commotio cordis, may disrupt the heart’s rhythm and lead to cardiac arrest. Commotio cordis can occur from a severe blow to the chest as in a sports injury. What is cardiac arrest? Cardiac arrest happens when the heart malfunctions and stops beating unexpectedly. Cardiac arrest is triggered by an electrical malfunction in the heart that causes an irregular heartbeat known as arrhythmia. The heart’s cardiac conduction system – or “electrical” system – is a specialized network of heart cells that keeps it beating regularly and effectively. With the heart’s pumping action disrupted, it cannot pump blood to the brain, lungs or other organs. Cardiac arrest often happens to people who didn’t know they had a heart problem. Symptoms of cardiac arrest Seconds after a cardiac arrest, a person becomes unresponsive, is not breathing or is only gasping. Death can occur within minutes if the victim does not receive treatment. Causes of cardiac arrest Cardiac arrest can run in families. People who have a family history of sudden cardiac death have a higher risk for sudden cardiac death. Other health problems can increase the chance of a deadly heart rhythm including: Heart disease (coronary artery disease). A heart attack. Heart failure. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This makes the heart thicker and larger than normal. Blow to the chest that disrupts the heart rhythm as in commotio cordis. Speak with your health care provider to learn if you have a health problem that raises your risk of cardiac arrest; treatment of that problem may help lower your risk. Medicine often can control the heart rhythm. Helping someone having a cardiac arrest Cardiac arrest can be reversible in some victims if treated within a few minutes. Health professionals, family or friends and even strangers may be able to help a person right away who has cardiac arrest. First, call 911 and start CPR right away. Click here for CPR basics, including videos. Then, if an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) is available, use it as soon as possible. AEDs are often available in airports, malls, and other public places. Click here for how to use an AED. If two people are available to help, one should begin CPR immediately while the other calls 911 and finds an AED. In the ambulance and hospital, the person will receive emergency care. This care keeps the heart and lungs working to prevent damage to the body due to lack of oxygen. Doctors will try to find the cause of the cardiac arrest to prevent another one. AEDs are portable, life-saving devices designed to treat people experiencing sudden cardiac arrest, a medical condition in which the heart stops beating suddenly and unexpectedly. What is a heart attack? A heart attack occurs when blood flow to the heart is blocked. A heart attack is a circulation problem with the heart. A heart attack occurs when part of the heart muscle does not get enough blood and oxygen. This part of the heart starts to die. Symptoms of a heart attack The most common symptom of a heart attack is chest pain or pressure. Some people describe it as discomfort, squeezing, or heaviness in the chest. Other symptoms may be immediate and may include intense discomfort in the chest or other areas of the upper body, shortness of breath, cold sweats, nausea or vomiting. Some people feel symptoms in other parts of their upper body such as: Pain or discomfort in your back, jaw, throat, upper belly or arm. Sweat, feeling sick to your stomach or vomiting. Trouble breathing. Feeling lightheaded or suddenly weak. A racing or fluttering heartbeat. More often, though, heart attack symptoms start slowly and persist for hours, days or weeks before a heart attack. Unlike with cardiac arrest, the heart usually does not stop beating during a heart attack. The longer the person goes without treatment, the greater the damage. Heart attack symptoms in women can be different than men (shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting, and back or jaw pain). Address heart attack symptoms immediately Even if you’re not sure it’s a heart attack, call 911 if you have symptoms. Every minute matters. Emergency medical services staff can begin treatment when they arrive — up to an hour sooner than if someone gets to the hospital by car. These professionals also are trained to revive someone whose heart has stopped. Patients with chest pain who arrive by ambulance usually receive faster treatment at the hospital, too. Click here for CPR training classes held by the American Heart Association in your area.
Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics (AIFL) is part of the project to infer authorship of uncredited documents based on writing style AIFL’s Professor Tim Grant and Dr Krzysztof Kredens are experts in authorship analysis Applications may include identifying counterintelligence risks, combating misinformation online, fighting human trafficking and even deciphering authorship of ancient religious texts. Aston University’s Institute for Forensic Linguistics (AIFL) is part of the AUTHOR research consortium which has won an $11.3 million contract to infer authorship of uncredited documents based on the writing style. The acronym stands for ‘Attribution, and Undermining the Attribution, of Text while providing Human-Oriented Rationales’. Worth $1.3 million, the Aston University part of the project is being led by Professor Tim Grant and Dr Krzysztof Kredens, who both are recognised internationally as experts in authorship analysis and who both engage in forensic linguistic casework as expert witnesses. In addition to their recognised general expertise and experience in this area, Professor Grant has specific expertise in using linguistic analysis to enhance online undercover policing and Dr Kredens has led projects to develop authorship identification techniques involving very large numbers of potential authors. The AUTHOR team is led by Charles River Analytics and is one of six teams of researchers that won The Human Interpretable Attribution of Text Using Underlying Structure (HIATUS) programme sponsored by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). The programme uses natural language processing techniques and machine learning to create stylistic fingerprints that capture the writing style of specific authors. On the flip side is authorship privacy - mechanisms that can anonymize identities of authors, especially when their lives are in danger. Pitting the attribution and privacy teams against each other will hopefully motivate each, says Dr Terry Patten, principal scientist at Charles River Analytics and principal investigator of the AUTHOR consortium. “One of the big challenges for the programme and for authorship attribution in general is that the document you’re looking at may not be in the same genre or on the same topic as the sample documents you have for a particular author,” Patten says. The same applies to languages: We might have example articles for an author in English but need to match the style even if the document at hand is in French. Authorship privacy too has its challenges: users must obfuscate the style without changing the meaning, which can be difficult to execute.” In the area of authorship attribution, the research and casework experience from Aston University will assist the team in identifying and using a broad spectrum of authorship markers. Authorship attribution research has more typically looked for words and their frequencies as identifying characteristics. However, Professor Grant’s previous work on online undercover policing has shown that higher-level discourse features - how authors structure their interactions - can be important ‘tells’ in authorship analysis. The growth of natural language processing (NLP) and one of its underlying techniques, machine learning, is motivating researchers to harness these new technologies in solving the classic problem of authorship attribution. The challenge, Patten says, is that while machine learning is very effective at authorship attribution, “deep learning systems that use neural networks can’t explain why they arrived at the answers they did.” Evidence in criminal trials can’t afford to hinge on such black-box systems. It’s why the core condition of AUTHOR is that it be “human-interpretable.” Dr Kredens has developed research and insights where explanations can be drawn out of black box authorship attribution systems, so that the findings of such systems can be integrated into linguistic theory as to who we are as linguistic individuals. Initially, the project is expected to focus on feature discovery: beyond words, what features can we discover to increase the accuracy of authorship attribution? The project has a range of promising applications – identifying counterintelligence risks, combating misinformation online, fighting human trafficking, and even figuring out the authorship of ancient religious texts. Professor Grant said: “We were really excited to be part of this project both as an opportunity to develop new findings and techniques in one of our core research areas, and also because it provides further recognition of AIFL’s international reputation in the field. Dr Kredens added: “This is a great opportunity to take our cutting-edge research in this area to a new level”. Professor Simon Green, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, commented: “I am delighted that the international consortium bid involving AIFL has been successful. As one of Aston University’s four research institutes, AIFL is a genuine world-leader in its field, and this award demonstrates its reputation globally. This project is a prime example of our capacities and expertise in the area of technology, and we are proud to be a partner.” Patten is excited about the promise of AUTHOR as it is poised to make fundamental contributions to the field of NLP. “It’s really forcing us to address an issue that’s been central to natural language processing,” Patten says. “In NLP and artificial intelligence in general, we need to find a way to build hybrid systems that can incorporate both deep learning and human-interpretable representations. The field needs to find ways to make neural networks and linguistic representations work together.” “We need to get the best of both worlds,” Patten says. The team includes some of the world’s foremost researchers in authorship analysis, computational linguistics, and machine learning from Illinois Institute of Technology, Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Howard Brain Sciences Foundation.
Baylor Expert: Finding Work-Life Balance with Remote Work
Before March 2020, the idea of remote work was not a realistic option for many businesses. However, the COVID-19 pandemic changed options drastically for employees almost overnight, and the remote work experiment began. Fast forward to today, and traditional work styles are no longer considered the only option and many employees are looking for the freedom to choose where they work. Remote work is generally viewed positively, but it has its own distinct set of challenges, and businesses that help employees respond to these challenges will benefit with a more productive and healthier workforce, said remote/hybrid work expert Sara J. Perry, Ph.D., The Ben Williams Professor of Management at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business. This is especially important as remote work continues to be a popular option. According to a Gallup poll conducted in August 2022, 34% of employees prefer to work exclusively remote, 60% said they would like a hybrid model and only 6% would like to return to a traditional full-time on-site model. Two keys to success for remote work: flexibility and intentionality Perry has researched the issues around changes to the workplace for over a decade. In a recent article, Interruptions in Remote Work: A Resource-based Model of Work and Family Stress, published in the Journal of Business and Psychology, Perry and her research team surveyed 391 couples to understand the difficulties in finding the balance between work and family when at least one of them works from home. The research shows the keys to success for remote work are flexibility and intentionality. “You can't have a one-size-fits-all; it has to be a nuanced approach,” Baylor University's Sara J. Perry said. Perry identified two risks to successful remote working: Increased interruptions from family members Blurring of work life with family life Develop healthy break habits Unexpected work interruptions make it difficult to focus on the work tasks, and the lack of boundaries between work and family can turn job duties into a non-stop endeavor for the remote employee. These interruptions can cause frustration, a lack of focus and difficulties getting back on task that can eventually put stress on family relationships. “The simple act of establishing effective breaks during work hours can help people sustain their well-being and job satisfaction without sacrificing productivity. The negative effects of not establishing healthy break habits include increased stress for the employee and their family,” Perry said. “If you’re using your breaks wisely, the study suggests that those intentional breaks reduce the damage that interruptions.” A good place to start for remote employees is incorporating some non-work goals into breaks throughout the workday, which can be as simple as starting or finishing a household chore. According to Perry, these activities make a difference in overall stress, engagement and productivity. Breaks focused on self care are also important to include throughout the workday. “Meditating or taking a nap makes you feel restored because you are doing things that make you feel accomplished and give your brain a break from your actual work,” Perry said. Employers also have an important role to play in establish a habit of intentional work breaks. “A lot of people say, ‘I never take breaks,’ or ‘I don't take enough breaks,’” Perry said. “By offering staff the autonomy to plan their own workday that includes breaks without guilt, employers also benefit. Reducing the stress of struggling to maintain a work-life balance will also reduce burnout.” Understanding how to overcome these and other remote work challenges requires employers and employees be “intentional about meaningful communications and connections,” Perry said. She added that leaders who recognize the importance of work versus family time can help employees to develop strategies that allow them to grow and learn while maintaining a healthy balance between work and family.
Researchers awarded £2 million to develop drugs to prevent epileptic seizures in children
• Three-year research project to develop new drug treatments for childhood epilepsy • Scientists will test new treatment on pieces of living brain tissue • The research is a collaboration between Aston University, Bristol University and Jazz Pharmaceuticals. Scientists at Aston University have started work on a project that will look for new drug treatments to prevent the onset of childhood epilepsy. The three-year Medical Research Council (MRC) funded project is a collaboration led by researchers in the College of Health and Life Sciences at Aston University, partnered with Bristol University and Jazz Pharmaceuticals. They have been awarded £2 million to explore how epilepsy becomes established in the brain and how this process might be prevented. The researchers will test new drugs in the human brain, using samples of living tissue taken from children with difficult to treat epilepsies who have had to have brain surgery. Epilepsy is a brain disease which is characterised by seizures. As Professor Gavin Woodhall, lead researcher and co-director of Aston Institute of Health and Neurodevelopment, explains: “Seizures are periods of time when networks of brain cells are too active and are uncontrollably excited and spiking. If uncontrolled excitation spreads to brain regions that control movement, then too many brain cells are ‘talking at the same time’ and we can see seizures as changes in movement such as jerks and twitches.” Upon receiving the grant, Professor Woodhall said: “We will be able to study epilepsy in such detail that we hope to be able to treat the problems that underly epilepsy and not just the seizures themselves. And this could help pave the way to prevent epilepsy from developing in children at all. “Essentially we want to find a treatment that stops the brain from being able to establish epilepsy after the first seizure - via a new drug treatment. We will be testing a known drug and a new drug to see if the drug can do this.” As part of the research for this project the scientists will look at how different amounts of epileptic activity in the brain can alter the brain’s excitability. The researchers predict that if there are a lot of seizures, the synapses in the brain will decrease their activity and brain cells will become more likely to spike. Professor Woodhall added: “This is why we will test antiepileptic drugs, and new drugs designed to interfere with homeostatic scaling - which is a form of plasticity, in which the brain responds to chronically elevated activity in a neural circuit with negative feedback, allowing individual neurons to reduce their overall action potential firing rate. “By interfering with homeostatic scaling we will be able to see if they can prevent seizures from developing or reducing their intensity.” The research will allow Professor Woodhall and his team to be able to record the life history of the disease. This is something which has not been done before in this level of detail and it is predicted it will help to shed light on how epilepsy initially develops in the brain. Following on from the three-year project the team will move into drug development and then clinical trial. For more information about research being undertaken at AIHN please go to our website. If you are interested in the courses we have available in this area please go to our course pages.
Evidence that behaviour follow a two-step process when we’re in a crowd We are likely to imitate the crowd first and think independently second Findings will increase understanding of how humans make decisions based on others’ actions. An Aston University computer scientist has used artificial intelligence (AI) to show that we are not as individual as we may like to think. In the late 1960s, famous psychologist Stanley Milgram demonstrated that if a person sees a crowd looking in one direction, they’re likely to follow their gaze. Now, Dr Ulysses Bernardet in the Computer Science Research Group at Aston University , collaborating with experts from Belgium and Germany, has found evidence that our actions follow a two-step process when we’re in a crowd. Their results, Evidence for a two-step model of social group influence, published in iScience show that we go through a two-stage process, where we’re more likely to imitate a crowd first and think independently second. The researchers believe their findings will increase the understanding of how humans make decisions based on what others are doing. To test this idea the academics created an immersive virtual reality (VR) experiment set in a simulated city street. Each of the 160 participants was observed individually as they watched a movie within the virtual reality environment that had been created for the experiment. As they watched the movie, 10 computer-generated ‘spectators’ within the VR simulated street were operated by AI to attempt to influence the direction of the gaze of the individual participants. During the experiment, three different sounds such as an explosion were played coming from either the left or right of the virtual street. At the same time, a number of the ‘spectators’ looked in a specific direction, not always in the direction of the virtual blast or the other two sounds. The academics calculated a direct, and an indirect, measure of gaze-following. The direct measure was the proportion of trials in which participants followed the gaze of the crowd. The indirect measure took into account the reaction speed of participants dependent on whether they were instructed to look in the same or opposite direction as the audience. The experiment’s results support the understanding that the influence of a crowd is best explained by a two-step model. Dr Bernardet, said: “Humans demonstrate an initial tendence to follow others – a reflexive, imitative process. But this is followed by a more deliberate, strategic processes when a person will decide whether to copy others around them, or not. “One way in which groups affect individuals is by steering their gaze. “This influence is not only felt in the form of social norms but also impacts immediate actions and lies at the heart of group behaviours such as rioting and mass panic. “Our model is not only consistent with evidence gained using brain imaging, but also with recent evidence that gaze following is the manifestation of a complex interplay between basic attentional and advanced social processes.” The researchers believe their experiments will pave the way for increased use of VR and AI in behavioural sciences.
Physical models of a patient’s brain help researchers treat neurological disorders and diseases
Brain phantoms are a creative solution for a challenging question: How do you tune an electromagnetic field to a patient without testing on the actual patient? Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is an application of electromagnetic research with the potential to change the way we treat migraines, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and even conditions like schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease. Ravi Hadimani, Ph.D., associate professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, leads a team of researchers who seek to use TMS to excite or inhibit brain neurons to alter specific brain functions and treat these conditions. This team includes faculty from VCU Health, including Mark Baron, M.D., professor of neurology and Kathryn Holloway, M.D., professor of neurosurgery, as well as outside collaborators like Joan Camprodon, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “The brain phantom is a first step,” says Hadimani, “Our ultimate goal is to 3D print a brain fabricated with biomaterial scaffolds and printed neurons that produce a stimulation response similar to neurons in our brain. This model would behave more realistically than current brain phantoms. Our future work involves collaborating with researchers who are able to print lab-grown neurons on biomaterial scaffolds or researchers who directly fabricate artificial neurons onto any scaffold.” Coils used in TMS are responsible for generating the electromagnetic field used in treatment. Individual coils are designed to treat specific diseases, but additional settings like current strength, number of pulses and coil direction are unique to each patient. Refining these settings on the actual patient is not feasible. Computer modeling is also inefficient because creating head models and running simulations from MRI scans of the brain’s complex structure are not spontaneous. Hadimani and his team developed the brain phantom as a novel solution to this problem. In 2018, the first model was created by Hamzah Magsood, one of Hadimani’s Ph.D. students. The brain phantom is a physical model of a patient’s brain designed to specifications obtained from MRI scans. Materials used in brain phantom construction are designed to replicate the electrical conductivity and electromagnetic permeability of different brain sectors. The result is a representation that, when connected to electrodes, provides instantaneous feedback to researchers calibrating TMS coils. Elements of material science, electromagnetics and mechanical prototyping come together to create each brain phantom. The process starts with an MRI, which serves as a map for researchers designing the customized model. This is a careful process. Unlike other areas of the body with clear distinguishing features, like skin, muscle and bone, the brain has subtle differences between its many regions. Researchers must carefully distinguish between these areas to create an accurate brain phantom that will simulate a patient’s skin and skull as well as the brain’s gray and white matter. A composite material of polymer and carbon nanotubes that exhibits electric properties similar to the human brain is the foundation for the brain phantom. Additive manufacturing, more commonly known as 3D printing, is used to create shells for different brain regions based on the patient’s MRI. This shell becomes a mold for the polymer and carbon nanotube solution. Once the brain phantom takes shape within the mold, it is placed within a solution that dissolves the casing, leaving only the brain phantom behind. The conductive parts of the brain phantom are dark because of the carbon nanotubes and non-conductive parts are lighter in color. Electrodes are easily inserted into the brain phantom and provide feedback when an electromagnetic field from the TMS coil is applied. Adjustments to the strength, number of pulses of the field, and coil direction can then be made before applying the treatment to a patient. Having recently received a patent for the brain phantom, Hadimani and Wesley Lohr, a senior biomedical engineering undergraduate, formed Realistic Anatomical Model (RAM) Phantom. The pair have been awarded both the Commonwealth Commercialization Fund Award and the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative Dreams to Reality Incubator Grant. RAM Phantom’s goal is to market brain phantom technology to the growing neuromodulation market, which also includes transcranial direct current stimulation and deep brain stimulation. The company will also aid in the development of advanced brain models that more accurately simulate the properties of the human brain.
Researchers explore alternate delivery method for potential Alzheimer’s treatment
“Traditionally, the nose has been used as a route for delivery of locally acting drugs,” Laleh Golshahi, Ph.D., explained. “But recently, there has been a great deal of interest in the direct pathway through the olfactory region. That’s the same region where we smell, and that route is a direct pathway to the brain.” Golshahi, associate professor in VCU’s Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, leads the collaboration. Other members of the group are Worth Longest, Ph.D., the Louis S. and Ruth S. Harris Exceptional Scholar and Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering; Michael Hindle, Ph.D., the Peter R. Byron Distinguished Professor in VCU’s Department of Pharmaceutics; and Arya Bazargani, a Ph.D. student in VCU’s Interdisciplinary Center for Pharmaceutical Engineering and Sciences. The project is supported by a $200,000 internal grant from VCU Breakthroughs, a new internal funding mechanism as part of the Optimizing Health thrust of the One VCU Research Strategic Priorities Plan being implemented by the university’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation. Hindle said that studies of nasally administered insulin have shown some promise for reducing the effects of Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately, delivery by injection, the most common way to deliver insulin, is ineffective for Alzheimer’s and other cerebral conditions because of the blood-brain barrier. Bazargani explained that nose-to-brain delivery of pharmaceuticals circumvents the blood-brain barrier, the lining of the blood vessels that surround the brain, guarding the central nervous system against a host of pathogens. “It’s usually a good thing,” he said. “But not when you’re trying to induce therapeutic effects into the brain.” Bazargani explained that insulin molecules are so large that the blood-brain barrier filters out most of the insulin. Hindle pointed out that even though the VCU team is avoiding the blood-brain barrier, insulin delivery still presents a number of challenges. “Insulin is a pretty fragile molecule, you know. It’s stored in the fridge,” Hindle said. “We need to include insulin in some sort of stable formulation — either a powder or a liquid nasal spray. We have to create the right particle or droplet size to get it into the right area of the nose.” Formulation development is only half of a two-pronged challenge, Golshahi said. The second aspect is the creation of a device that can deliver a dose way up to the olfactory region. “The nose is a challenge, because it’s designed as a filter to keep aerosols out of the body,” said Longest, who, along with Golshahi and Hindle, brings expertise in computational fluid dynamics to the team. “And the olfactory region is an especially troubling or difficult region to target, because it’s designed just to let a few molecules of what we inhale deposit.” Chief among the nasal filtering defenses, Golshahi said, is mucociliary clearance. Nasal passages are lined with mucous-coated cilia — moving microscopic projections on cells — sweeping foreign substances out of the air we breathe. The cilia do an excellent job, she said, but their efficiency makes it difficult to achieve a consistent delivery to the olfactory region. Another challenge, she added, lies in the fact that all noses are different. The collaborators are using in vitro and in silico methodologies. For the in vitro work, they have an array of 3D printed nose models, based on computed tomography (CT) scans. Golshahi said they have multiple anatomical casts of human nasal airways to test likely device/formulation combinations for their insulin/Alzheimer’s initiative. “We are going to use three of those nasal casts as our starting point,” she said. “We’ll connect the casts to a breathing simulator, which is basically a machine you can program to add the air going through — sort of bringing them to life.” Golshahi added that data from the casts will inform the in-silico component of the work — computational analysis that is expected to verify or challenge observations from the lab. Hindle said that once the team has developed a satisfactory formulation-device system, they can tackle the next challenge: identifying the dominant pathway from the olfactory region to the brain. “There are a variety of theories out there,” he said. “It could go along the nerve passageway. It could go between the nerve walls and the cells linking them.” “We have all the equipment and all the expertise necessary to be able to develop a formulation, and to put it in a device that leads to the highest amount of delivery to the target region,” Golshahi said. “And we are able to quantify how successful that combination of formulation and device is.”
Researchers are exploring new ways to ‘listen’ to and record electrical signals emitted from brain cells Findings could be used to help treat conditions like epilepsy and schizophrenia Project will use newly developed nanomaterials to keep removed samples of brain healthy for longer to allow more understanding of what generates epileptic seizures. A new method of examining the brain’s electrical signals could hold the key to better treatment and understanding of conditions like epilepsy and schizophrenia. Researchers at Aston University are exploring new ways to ‘listen’ to and record electrical signals emitted from brain cells, which could be used to help treat the conditions. Dr Petro Lutsyk, lecturer in electronic engineering and systems in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences and member of Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AIPT), together with Dr Stuart Greenhill, senior lecturer in neuroscience in the College of Health and Life Sciences and member of Aston Institute of Health and Neurodevelopment (IHN), have been awarded £100,000 by the Royal Society to conduct the project Nanomaterial Webs for Revolutionary Brain Recording. Currently, epilepsy patients who can’t be helped by drugs may undergo brain surgery in order to prevent seizures, removing the part of the brain that is the ‘focus’ of the seizures. Dr Greenhill said: “The research project will use newly developed nanomaterials to keep samples of brain healthy and active for far longer than current technology allows, whilst recording the activity of the tissue. “This allows more understanding of what generates epileptic seizures and opens up new avenues for drug development, meaning fewer surgeries may be needed in the future. “Eventually, the technology may lead to new and better ways of recording from patients’ brains before surgery.” The two-year project will see materials and electronic engineering applied to translational neuroscience research. The grant is from the Royal Society APEX Awards scheme (Academies Partnership in Supporting Excellence in Cross-disciplinary research award) which offers researchers with a strong track record in their area an opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary research to benefit wider society. For more information about studying at Aston University please visit our website.
Aston University and ADInstruments Ltd (ADI) enter 24-month knowledge transfer partnership to develop ground-breaking animal telemetry system World-leading expertise in neuroscience to help bring game-changing system to market Outcomes of KTP will feed directly into the product hardware and software development, ensuring technological advantage for ADI. Aston University has teamed up with research software experts ADInstruments Ltd (ADI) through a knowledge transfer partnership to develop a revolutionary dual-function wireless telemetry system for neuroscience research that is set to transform how implanted biosensors are used for data generation in animals. Telemetry is the automatic recording and transmission of data from remote or inaccessible sources to an IT system in a different location for monitoring and analysis. ADI has an established reputation for developing, supplying and supporting its customers in specific areas of life science research, particularly in cardiovascular science. The company has recently acquired Kaha Sciences, which has developed ground-breaking telemetry technology that can be used to measure neuroscience-relevant signals in free-moving animals for research. The company is looking to use the KTP to harness the world-leading expertise of Aston University to build their reputation in neuroscience. Mark de Reus, head of support at ADInstruments, said: “The evidence-base of research papers, training and support materials from Aston University will be invaluable in improving the product design, identifying development opportunities and embedding a culture of neuroscience within the company.” A knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) is a three-way collaboration between a business, an academic partner and a highly qualified graduate, known as a KTP associate. The UK-wide programme helps businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills. Aston University is the leading KTP provider within the Midlands. The Aston University team features Professor Gavin Woodhall and Dr Stuart Greenhill from its Pharmacy School’s Pharmacology and Translational Neuroscience Research Group. Professor Woodhall is co-director of the Institute of Health and Neurodevelopment (IHN) and a neuroscientist who studies epilepsy and schizophrenia in rodent models of disease. Dr Stuart Greenhill is a member of IHN and senior lecturer in neuroscience, with a longstanding track record in developing and deploying novel and difficult mechanisms of recording from brain tissue both in vivo and in vitro. Dr Stuart Greenhill said: “It is a privilege to be involved in the development of this important technology, which will be invaluable to thousands of research groups across the globe, and we are delighted to be able to help the product team realise the potential of this device.”
Professor of biotechnology appointed as new executive editor of prestigious journal
A biotechnology professor in the College of Health and Life Sciences at Aston University has been appointed as the new executive editor of the journal, BBA Biomembranes. Professor Roslyn Bill is sharing the role with Professor Burkhard Bechinger of the University of Strasbourg and will be jointly responsible for the editorial direction of the journal, including overseeing the peer review process of submissions. Roslyn's own area of research focuses on membrane protein structure, function and regulation. She is particularly interested in the regulation of aquaporin water channels in the brain and their development as drug targets to prevent life-threatening brain swelling. BBA Biomembranes is part of a family of 10 Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) journals, which are celebrating their 75th year of continuous publication in 2022. They were the first international journals to cover the joint fields of biochemistry and biophysics. Commenting on her appointment, Roslyn said: “I am delighted and honoured to join BBA Biomembranes as Executive Editor in BBA’s 75th anniversary year. “The journal has an international reputation for publishing high-quality articles in all aspects of membrane biology and biophysics. I look forward to working with the BBAMEM team to drive the journal’s continuing success.” Areas of research covered by BBA Biomembranes include: membrane structure, function and biomolecular organization, membrane proteins, receptors, channels and anchors, fluidity and composition, model membranes and liposomes, membrane surface studies and ligand interactions, transport studies and membrane dynamics. For more information on Professor Bill’s research, visit the research pages. For more information about studying in the School of Biosciences at Aston University, please visit our website.
