A robot made from magnetic particles and gallium can easily change states — making it useful for a broad range of applications in medicine and manufacturing.
A new neuroimaging study showed that people suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exhibited increased activation in the amygdala region of the brain when shown surprised and neutral facial expressions. The same phenomenon was observed in identical twins of these individuals who did not suffer from PTSD.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, sheds new light on the neural mechanisms underlying the development of PTSD.
PTSD is a condition that develops in approximately 20% of individuals exposed to psychological trauma in their lifetime. It is defined by wide clusters of symptoms that include intrusive memories, negative alterations in mood, heightened levels of arousal, and other symptoms. Currently, there are many treatment options available for PTSD; however, for some patients, the treatments offered do not provide clinical relief.
Twelve-hour (12 h) ultradian rhythms are a well-known phenomenon in coastal marine organisms. While 12 h cycles are observed in human behavior and physiology, no study has measured 12 h rhythms in the human brain. Here, we identify 12 h rhythms in transcripts that either peak at sleep/wake transitions (approximately 9 AM/PM) or static times (approximately 3 PM/AM) in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region involved in cognition. Subjects with schizophrenia (SZ) lose 12 h rhythms in genes associated with the unfolded protein response and neuronal structural maintenance. Moreover, genes involved in mitochondrial function and protein translation, which normally peak at sleep/wake transitions, peak instead at static times in SZ, suggesting suboptimal timing of these essential processes.
You can grasp a hand. You can also grasp a concept. One is literal. One is metaphorical. Our brains know the difference, but would we be able to understand the latter without the former?
Previous studies have suggested that our understanding of metaphors may be rooted in our bodily experience. Some functional MRI, o fMRI, brain imaging studies have indicated, for example, that when you hear a metaphor such as “she had a rough day,” regions of the brain associated with tactile experience are activated. If you hear, “he’s so sweet,” areas associated with taste are activated. And when you hear action verbs used in a metaphorical context, like “grasp a concept,” regions involved in motor perception and planning are activated.
A study by University of Arizona researcher Vicky Lai, published in the journal Brain Research, builds on this research by looking at when, exactly, different regions of the brain are activated in metaphor comprehension and what that tells us about the way we understand language.
Researchers at Stanford Medicine have shown they can measure thousands of molecules — some of which are signals of health — from a single drop of blood.
The new approach combines a microsampling device — a tool used to self-administer a finger prick — with “multi-omics” technologies, which simultaneously analyze a vast array of proteins, fats, by-products of metabolism and inflammatory markers.
“Even more importantly, we’ve shown you can collect the blood drop at home and mail it into the lab,” said Michael Snyder, PhD, director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine and senior author on the research, which was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering on Jan. 19.
Year 2014 Essentially this could scan blood very quickly compared to older outdated methods with mass spectrometry.
Rapid identification of the causative microorganism is important for appropriate antimicrobial therapy of bloodstream infections. Bacteria from positive blood culture (BC) bottles are not readily available for identification by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization—time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Lysis and centrifugation procedures suggested for direct MALDI-TOF MS from positive BCs without previous culture are associated with additional hands-on processing time and costs. Here, we describe an alternative approach applying MALDI-TOF MS from bacterial cultures incubated very briefly on solid medium. After plating of positive BC broth on Columbia blood agar (n = 165), MALDI-TOF MS was performed after 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12 and (for control) 24 h of incubation until reliable identification to the species level was achieved (score ≥2.0). Mean incubation time needed to achieve species-level identification was 5.9 and 2.0 h for Gram-positive aerobic cocci (GPC, n = 86) and Gram-negative aerobic rods (GNR, n = 42), respectively. Short agar cultures with incubation times ≤2, ≤4, ≤6, ≤8 and ≤12 h yielded species identification in 1.2%, 18.6%, 64.0%, 96.5%, 98.8% of GPC, and in 76.2%, 95.2%, 97.6%, 97.6%, 97.6% of GNR, respectively. Control species identification at 24 h was achieved in 100% of GPC and 97.6% of GNR. Ethanol/formic acid protein extraction performed for an additional 34 GPC isolates cultivated from positive BCs showed further reduction in time to species identification (3.1 h). MALDI-TOF MS using biomass subsequent to very short-term incubation on solid medium allows very early and reliable bacterial identification from positive BCs without additional time and cost expenditure.
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Mycoplasma pneumoniae are tiny bacteria typically known to cause lung infections. But now, a group of scientists have turned them into double agents. Genetically engineered Mycoplasma helped break down biofilms of another pathogenic microbe, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in a mouse model of ventilator-associated pneumonia and on tube samples taken from human patients, the team reported January 19 in Nature Biotechnology. It is one of the first times that scientists have used live bacteria to treat a lung disease, and is the first therapeutic use of Mycoplasma.
“This approach is really powerful,” says Dave Hava, a microbiologist who wasn’t involved in the research, but who works at a company called Synlogic that develops live bacteria therapeutics for gut issues. “It offers the chance to target diseases and mechanisms that you can’t do with conventional therapies.”
Biological and chemical weapons have the potential to pose a national security threat to the U.S. that the country is not equipped to handle, a panel of lawmakers and a military leader told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum.
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Nearly 15,500 people in the U.S. over age 50 are estimated to have VEXAS syndrome.
A rare disorder called VEXAS syndrome has bemused the United States’ health services since 2020. The syndrome was a great mystery until the researchers’ work yielded results.
As stated by NYU Langone Health, with up to 50 percent of sufferers, mostly men, passing away within five years of diagnosis, this illness has a significant mortality rate.
Continue reading “VEXAS: Mysterious disease with high mortality rate detailed in study” »
