This week in SciShow News, we’re starting with the most
important news, which is the end of the SciShow Calendar
Feud. Two months ago,
we launched a selection of calendars. There’s a SciShow calendar
themed around the digits of pi and a moon themed SciShow Space calendar, among
others that you can still buy today. But to add some stakes to our sales,
SciShow has been in a competition with SciShow
Space to see who sells more calendars–
And of course, SciShow Space won! So we’re taking over
News this week. Why don’t you leave this to the pros,
buddy! [♪ INTRO]
If you’d like a little optimistic news this week, here are
some stories that might get you moving and shaking.
Up first: Nine people with severe or complete paralysis are
walking again after electrical stimulation treatment . The
study they participated in was published this week in the
journal Nature and featured a surprising finding. It turns out that some important
neurons involved in regaining the ability to
walk aren’t the same as the ones used to walk before paralysis.
The participants were enrolled in a clinical trial to test the
effectiveness and safety of epidural electrical stimulation, also known as EES.
This technology involves surgically implanting a so-called
“paddle” right against the spinal cord about midway up the back.
Once inserted, the paddle delivers electrical stimulation
directly to the spine. While case studies of
one or two participants have tested this treatment before, this clinical
trial aimed to show that it can be a good option for
a broad group of people with paralysis looking to regain movement.
Six of the nine trial participants had some feeling in their
legs, while three had no sensation or movement in their
legs. But following the surgery and initial EES stimulation,
they all regained or improved the ability to walk.
While they did have a sort of robotic exoskeleton that
helped support their body weight, this is still pretty
incredible. The participants
then underwent five months of rehab, which involved hours-long sessions with physical
therapists four to five days a week. After five months,
most participants could rely on a walker rather than the robot exoskeleton to walk.
And four of the six participants with partial paralysis before
the procedure improved their lower-limb mobility to the
point where they were able to walk even when there wasn’t
electrical stimulation taking place. This suggests that EES was actually
building connections in the spinal cord.
So, the researchers measured activity in the neurons of the
spinal cord to see what was going on. But to their surprise,
the neurons in the lower lumbar section of the spine that
are usually involved in walking showed less activity after EES, not more.
That suggested that EES was somehow singling out and
activating neurons that are specifically involved in walking
after injury. To figure out
which neurons were involved, the researchers performed EES on mice with spinal injuries.
The mice also regained the ability to walk, could also still
walk after EES was turned off, and also showed less
activity in the lumbar spinal cord during walking after EES.
With all that in mind, the researchers developed an atlas of
all the cells in the lumbar spine of the mice, measuring how
EES changed their molecular make-up. And they found a specific
type of neuron that wasn’t involved in walking before injury,
but that was essential to walking after it.
Interestingly, these neurons were important post-injury
regardless of whether EES was used or not. Mice that
underwent rehab without EES often recovered some
walking ability, but they didn’t if these particular neurons
were inactivated. While this part of the
work was just in mice, it gives us a decent guess at the neurons that are
involved in human recovery, too.
And it’s exciting to be able to pinpoint the exact neurons
that are responsible for something like this, since it may
help us understand what very specific types of cells are
doing in all kinds of spinal cord injuries. This study is also the first to show that
EES can help lots of people with incomplete
spinal cord paralysis, even if the nature and extent of their injuries vary.
This opens the door for a lot of people with spinal cord
injuries to contemplate more freedom of movement, with or
without assistive devices, in the future. And that calls for a dance party, don’tcha think?
In a study published this week in the journal Current
Biology, researchers looked into what makes us dancey.
And they found that super-low bass frequencies can make
us dance more. To be exact, about 12% more. Now, while music is often mysterious,
the human tendency to drop it to a good bass
line is not in question. Studies have shown that music with more
low frequency sound makes us want to move.
But it’s not something that’s really been studied in the wild.
You know, like a crowded dance floor at an EDM concert.
The researchers behind this study have a performance-space-slash-lab
that’s set up with cool sound equipment so that it can replicate
all kinds of concert environments.
And they obtained informed consent from 62 people attending a concert for the
Canadian techno and EDM duo Orphx there in that space to wear
special headbands that measure movement.
Over the course of the 55-minute set, the researchers
played really low bass frequencies on and off in two-and-a-half minute intervals.
Reports from the concert-goers and a later study in the lab
suggested that these frequencies were too low to be heard
at a conscious level. And while the concert-goers reported
getting a nice tingly feeling from all the bass, they didn’t
report noticing it more than at any other concert. But even though the sound wasn’t noticeable, the
researchers noticed that it made them dance harder.
Because during that time? Their headbands moved about
12% more. What’s cool
is that this means low sounds make us dancier even when we don’t realize we’re hearing them.
The researchers think it’s likely that the vestibular system
of our inner ear is picking up on these frequencies. Which
might lend support to the theory that our vestibular system
causes us to want to move to music in the first place.
That’s what the researchers think, anyway, though this
study doesn’t confirm it. But in the meantime, the band
thought it was pretty cool! And it’s kind of awesome
to realize all the amazing things that just a little bit of stimulation
to our nervous systems can do.
Thanks for watching this SciShow News video! Wherever you get your news,
it’s important that the facts are right. And it’s really easy
to accidentally get them wrong by doing things
like misattributing a quote to the wrong person. That’s what happened
to Sharon Begley, a reporter whose quote
was so powerful that people thought it came from famous astronomer, Carl Sagan.
In honor of accurate reporting and this incredible quote, we
made a poster with the quote and its true author’s name.
You can find it at dftba.com/scishow, where you can also
find other new decorations to fill your home with science.
And if you’d like more things on your wall, we have a
pinboard that you could pin the poster to if you want. But
it’s a pretty cool design of the solar system, so it’s also just
a great place for pin collections, like the SciShow Space
pins of the month. Also, we have a new sticker! Oh! Also, we have a beautiful new sticker!
And who doesn’t love stickers? And the holidays are coming up.
Check it all out at dftba.com/scishow! And you can still buy the Space calendar.
Or our SciShow pi calendar at
ComplexlyCalendars.com! [♪ OUTRO]