IMAGE: THIS IS DR. HUDA ZOGHBI. Having twice the normal amount of the protein MeCP2, a condition called MECP2 duplication syndrome, causes severe progressive neuropsychiatric disorders that include intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders, motor dysfunction and other medical complications. In animal models, normalization of MeCP2 levels has largely reversed the neurological problems, opening the possibility...
Post
Researchers Have Discovered the Mechanism for Memory Retrieval
IN BRIEF Researchers have discovered that memories form and get recalled along two distinct circuits in the brain. This could be relevant to the study of Alzheimer’s disease. WHERE MEMORIES FORM New research suggests that the subiculum, a part of the hippocampus that is rarely studied, is central to the memory retrieval process. This work also...
Post
Poor REM Sleep Linked To Increased Dementia Risk: Study
Researchers found a link between low levels of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and dementia risks. Participants who got less REM sleep had higher risks of developing dementia. Sleep And Dementia Poor sleep has been previously linked to increased Alzheimer’s and dementia risks in various studies. However, there has also been mixed results when it comes to the exact...
Post
Could this new approach fix the crisis in clinical research publishing?
The clinical research process isn’t perfect, but like all scientific processes, it is constantly in flux, reviewing itself, and hopefully improving. One of the biggest problems to rear its head in recent years has been the trend towards certain trials going unpublished, for a variety of reasons. A new format of journal article has recently...
Post
FDA cracks down on stem-cell clinics, including one using smallpox vaccine in cancer patients
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday announced a crackdown on stem-cell clinics offering on “unapproved and potentially dangerous” treatments, including an outfit in California that has been using the smallpox vaccine on seriously ill cancer patients. U.S. marshals on Friday raided San Diego-based StemImmune Inc. and seized the vaccine, which the FDA said had been combined...
Post
Brain recovery longer than clinical recovery among athletes following concussion, new research suggests
Brains of university athletes with concussion still exhibit physical changes at the time of medical clearance to return to play, new study finds University athletes with a recent concussion had changes in their brain structure and function even after they received medical clearance to return to play, a new study has found. In a study...
Post
Scientists find RNA with special role in nerve healing process
Scientists may have identified a new opening to intervene in the process of healing peripheral nerve damage with the discovery that an “anti-sense” RNA (AS-RNA) is expressed when nerves are injured. Their experiments in mice show that the AS-RNA helps to regulate how damaged nerves rebuild their coating of myelin, which, like the cladding around...
Post
99 percent of microbes in your body are completely unknown to science
Whenever you feel lonely, just remember: you’re always carrying several hundred trillion friends with you. A dizzying number of microbes call the human body home, and it turns out that science knows very little about most of them. In fact, a new Stanford survey of the foreign DNA fragments circulating in the human body has...
Post
Study finds efficacy rate of over 70 percent in Chinese medicine treatment of chronic renal failure
The School of Chinese Medicine (SCM) of Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) recently conducted a clinical observation of traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of chronic renal failure (CRF). The results indicate that a particular type of Chinese medicine treatment that nourishes the kidneys, and removes blood stasis and turbidity is effective in improving the...
Post
Concurrent treatment with OX40- and PD1-targeted cancer immunotherapies may be detrimental
Concurrent administration of the T-cell stimulating anti-OX40 antibody and the immune checkpoint inhibitor anti-PD1 antibody attenuated the effect of anti-OX40 and resulted in poor treatment outcomes in mice. “While immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as anti-PD1 and anti-CTLA4, are already in clinics and are used mainly as single agents, there are currently almost a thousand clinical...