by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Beginning in the first trimester of pregnancy, the body begins to produce the hormone relaxin, which loosens the expectant mother’s muscles, joints and ligaments to help her body accommodate a growing baby and prepare for birth. When Edward Rodriguez, MD, Ph.D., Chief of Orthopedic Trauma in the Department of...
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Understanding how the brain’s structure and functions generate consciousness
by CORDIS If we take a broad definition of consciousness as experience of ourselves and the outside world, it can be said to come and go. During dreamless sleep it seems absent, seemingly reappears during vivid dreaming, before more definitively reappearing on awakening. But how the brain transitions between these states is poorly understood. Acknowledging that answers...
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Astrocytes protect neurons from toxic buildup
by Howard Hughes Medical Institute Astrocytes are overtaxed neurons’ pit crew. The brain cells collect damaged lipids secreted by hyperactive neurons, then recycle those toxic molecules into energy, researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus report May 23, 2019, in the journal Cell. It’s a mechanism to protect neurons from the damaging side effects of overactivity. And it’s another important role for astrocytes, which support neurons in various...
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Radio-wave therapy proves effective against liver cancer cells
WAKE FOREST BAPTIST MEDICAL CENTER WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – May 31, 2019 – A new targeted therapy using non-thermal radio waves has been shown to block the growth of liver cancercells anywhere in the body without damaging healthy cells, according to a study conducted by scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist Health. The study findings are published in...
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Scientific discovery may lead to a treatment for lupus
By Dr. Liji Thomas, MD When there is an excessive number or hyperactivation of immune cells, very high levels of proteins known as cytokines are released, resulting in a cytokine storm that causes severe and often irreversible tissue damage. This accounts for the crippling nature of many autoimmune disorders such as lupus. Now, an international team of...
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ABSORBABLE ‘BANDAGE’ COMBINES CRAB SHELL STUFF AND NANOTECH
A new bioabsorbable wound dressing builds on the proven blood-flow-stanching properties of chitosan. The new work harnesses the combined power of organic nanomaterials-based chemistry and chitosan, a natural product found in crustacean exoskeletons, to help bring emergency medicine one step closer to a viable solution for mitigating blood loss. Hemorrhage is a leading cause of...
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Inflammation-driven deterioration of structural proteins contributes to aging
Posted YesterdayThis news or article is intended for readers with certain scientific or professional knowledge in the field. Aging-related inflammation can drive the decline of a critical structural protein called lamin-B1, which contributes to diminished immune function in the thymus, according to research from Carnegie’s Sibiao Yue, Xiaobin Zheng, and Yixian Zheng published in Aging Cell. Each of our cells is undergirded by...
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Bacteria and their Bearing on Bowels and Brain
Posted Today Microbiome’s effects on autism, inflammatory bowel disease explored. PNNL researchers today published a pair of papers, in Cell and in Nature, exploring the effects of the gut microbiome on our health, including autism, brain function, and inflammatory bowel disease. While scientists have known that the microbes that reside in us have far-reaching effects, the two...
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New regulator of immune responses discovered
Scientists have identified a new internal regulator that helps control the body’s response to fight infection. The discovery could be a target for new drugs to tackle autoimmune diseases, such as lupus and scleroderma, where healthy tissues are attacked by the body’s own immune system. The international collaboration was led by the University of Leeds and University of Pennsylvania and involved researchers from...
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A small electrical zap to the brain could help you retrieve a forgotten memory
by Stuart Wolpert, University of California, Los Angeles A study by UCLA psychologists provides strong evidence that a certain region of the brain plays a critical role in memoryrecall. The research, published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, also shows for the first time that using an electrical current to stimulate that region, the left rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, improves people’s...