Astrocytes play a pivotal role in maintaining brain energy homeostasis, supporting neuronal function through glycolysis and lipid metabolism. This review explores the metabolic intricacies of astrocytes in both physiological and pathological conditions, highlighting their adaptive plasticity and diverse functions. Under normal conditions, astrocytes modulate synaptic activity, recycle neurotransmitters, and maintain the blood–brain barrier, ensuring a balanced energy supply and protection against oxidative stress. However, in response to central nervous system pathologies such as neurotrauma, stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease, astrocytes undergo significant morphological, molecular, and metabolic changes. Reactive astrocytes upregulate glycolysis and fatty acid oxidation to meet increased energy demands, which can be protective in acute settings but may exacerbate chronic inflammation and disease progression. This review emphasizes the need for advanced molecular, genetic, and physiological tools to further understand astrocyte heterogeneity and their metabolic reprogramming in disease states.

More and more evidence shows how brain energy metabolism is the linkage between physiological and morphological synaptic plasticity and memory consolidation. Different types of memory are associated with differential inputs, each with specific inputs that are upstream diverse molecular cascades depending on the receptor activity. No matter how heterogeneous the response is, energy availability represents the lowest common denominator since all these mechanisms are energy consuming and the brain networks adapt their performance accordingly. Astrocytes exert a primary role in this sense by acting as an energy buffer; glycogen granules, a mechanism to store glucose, are redistributed at glance and conveyed to neurons via the Astrocyte–Neuron Lactate Shuttle (ANLS). Here, we review how different types of memory relate to the mechanisms of energy delivery in the brain.

Despite the numerous challenges associated with the application of nanotechnology in neuroscience, it promises to have a significant impact on our understanding of how the nervous system works, how it fails in disease, and the development of earlier and less-invasive diagnostic procedures so we can intervene in the pre-clinical stage of neurological disease before extensive neurological damage has taken place. Ultimately, both the challenges and opportunities that nanotechnology presents stem from the fact that this technology provides a way to interact with neural cells at the molecular level. In this review we provide a neurobiological overview of key neurological disorders, describe the different types of nanomaterials in use and discuss their current and potential uses in neuroscience. We also discuss the issue of toxicity in these nanomaterials. This review presents many of the different applications that advances in nanotechnology are having in the field of neurological sciences, especially the high impact they are having in the development of new treatment modalities for neurological disorders that will induce the expected physiological response while minimizing undesirable secondary effects. In conclusion, we weigh in on what the promises and challenges are for future development in this groundbreaking field.

Serial sectioning and subsequent high-resolution imaging of biological tissue using electron microscopy (EM) allow for the segmentation and reconstruction of high-resolution imaged stacks to reveal ultrastructural patterns that could not be resolved using 2D images. Indeed, the latter might lead to a misinterpretation of morphologies, like in the case of mitochondria; the use of 3D models is, therefore, more and more common and applied to the formulation of morphology-based functional hypotheses. To date, the use of 3D models generated from light or electron image stacks makes qualitative, visual assessments, as well as quantification, more convenient to be performed directly in 3D. As these models are often extremely complex, a virtual reality environment is also important to be set up to overcome occlusion and to take full advantage of the 3D structure. Here, a step-by-step guide from image segmentation to reconstruction and analysis is described in detail.

The growing interest in nanomaterials in different application fields calls for the implementation of simple, economically appealing, and efficient preparative methods. Among the wide variety of nanomaterials, carbon nanostructures have a special place due to their potential technological applications. Here, we present a fast, cheap, and easy-to-implement microwave-assisted method for the preparation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon fibers (CFs) at room pressure conditions. The synthesis involves heating a mixture of graphite and ferrocene contained in a simple glass tube using a conventional microwave oven. A mixture of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and Fe₃O₄ magnetic nanoparticles were obtained quickly (less than 30 s) and in good yields. The products were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy.