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Category: health

Cognitive flexibility problems may arise months before memory impairment in Alzheimer’s

When most people think about Alzheimer’s disease, memory loss is usually the first thing that comes to mind. Forgetting a loved one’s name, missing appointments or repeatedly misplacing everyday items are often considered early warning signs. But what if the disease begins affecting the brain long before memory problems become noticeable? New research from scientists at Texas A&M Health suggests that another change in brain function may appear even earlier: difficulty adapting when circumstances change.

In a recent study published in Nature Communications, researchers found that animal models with Alzheimer’s-related brain changes developed problems with cognitive flexibility months before they showed signs of memory impairment. Cognitive flexibility refers to the brain’s ability to adjust behavior, learn new rules and adapt when situations change.

“We found that this function was impaired before we could detect deficits in spatial memory,” said neuroscientist Jun Wang, Ph.D., professor in the Texas A&M University Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine at Texas A&M Health.

Faulty calcium signaling may drive dry mouth in Down syndrome, raising gum disease risk

Researchers at NYU College of Dentistry have uncovered what may be biologically driving oral health issues unique to Down syndrome. Their study, published in Cell Reports, describes a molecular mechanism—a defect in calcium signaling—behind low saliva production, along with other factors that may contribute to gum disease.

“Understanding the processes responsible for low saliva in Down syndrome and developing therapies to restore salivation could have a transformative impact on the oral and overall health of people with Down syndrome,” said Rodrigo Lacruz, professor of molecular pathobiology at NYU College of Dentistry and the study’s senior author.

Addressing Barriers to Transitioning Pediatric Patients With Epilepsy to Adult Health Care in the United StatesA Narrative Review

Purpose of ReviewAdolescents with childhood-onset epilepsy, along with their families, must navigate a complex constellation of uncertainties related to physical, psychological, and social changes as well as medical and possibly legal ramifications as…

Lab-grown retinal cells show promise for new eye therapies

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to grow specialized blood vessel cells critical to retinal health for the first time. When injected into mouse models of retinal disease, these “retinal endothelial cells” integrated into the damaged tissue to regenerate blood vessels and restore retinal function. Researchers also demonstrated the cells’ ability to form functional retinal vascular tissue in a lab-grown environment, providing a pathway to model and research various eye diseases.

The results, published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, point toward the potential of using these retinal cells and models to develop new methods for treating vision loss and researching eye disorders.

“Retinal vascular diseases affect millions of people in the US, but our understanding remains limited, hindering our ability to discover and develop new therapeutics,” said Sharon Gerecht, the Paul M. Gross Distinguished Professor and chair of biomedical engineering at Duke. “Using human stem cells, we generated the cells found in retinal blood vessels, paving the way for new therapeutic approaches.”

Wireless biodegradable sensor could help injured knees heal without dangerous overloading

A biodegradable pressure sensor could help people with knee injuries exercise and heal faster, University of Connecticut researchers report in Science Advances. The knee can take a great deal of abuse, thanks to the cartilage that cushions it. But if it’s not moved and exercised enough, the knee stiffens and has poor blood flow. The cartilage can degrade or tear, worsening any injury already there. So people with injured knees have to move in order to heal. The challenge is knowing how much exercise or movement is too much.

To answer that question, UConn College of Engineering professor Thanh Nguyen, along with Ph.D. student Jinyoung Park and other colleagues, developed a pressure sensor that can be placed inside the knee joint and then degrade harmlessly in the body when no longer needed.

“Overloading destroys the cartilage. But if you don’t move and exercise, if you don’t run, walk, jump, you have a very stiff joint with little blood flowing to it,” says Nguyen, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, which is a joint effort by the College of Engineering, School of Medicine and School of Dental Medicine. “My lab developed a sensor that can monitor the force in real time.”

H. pylori screening could return fivefold value in gastric cancer prevention

Each unit of cost invested in Helicobacter pylori screening can generate approximately a fivefold return in gastric cancer prevention benefits.

The gastric cancer prevention research team at National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, has pioneered a globally applicable preventive model for gastric cancer control. To inform public health policymaking, the research team developed a globally adaptable decision-tree model to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of H. pylori screening. The findings were published in JAMA on June 1, 2026.

Building on Taiwan’s nationwide fecal immunochemical test-based colorectal cancer screening program, the gastric cancer prevention team has conducted a 10-year randomized clinical trial demonstrating that the additional use of an H. pylori stool antigen test (HPSA) alongside fecal occult blood testing could simultaneously achieve the dual goals of colorectal cancer and gastric cancer prevention. The findings were previously published on Sept. 30, 2024, in JAMA.

Rare inner ear cells point to regenerative hearing treatments

A study by a team of researchers from the Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at Tel Aviv University offers new hope to millions of people with irreversible hearing loss. The researchers identified a unique biological mechanism that could, in the future, enable the regeneration of sensory hair cells in the inner ear—a process previously thought impossible in humans.

The study was conducted under the leadership of Prof. Karen Avraham, dean of the Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences and Drs. Sarah and Felix Dumont Chair for Research of Hearing Disorders. It was spearheaded by Lama Khalaily, a Tel Aviv University doctoral student, in collaboration with Prof. David Sprinzak of TAU’s Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Shahar Kasirer from Sprinzak’s laboratory, Dr. Litao Tao of Creighton University in Omaha, and additional researchers. The findings are published in the journal Science Advances.

Generation Ships — The Hardest Part Is Not Distance

Could a generation ship actually stay alive long enough to cross interstellar space?

This video treats the generation ship as a closed-world survival problem, not as a simple starship fantasy. Distance matters, but the deeper challenge is whether air, water, food, spare parts, radiation shielding, population health, institutions, and culture can survive for centuries inside one sealed system.

The question is not only whether a ship can arrive. It is whether the human world inside it can remain repairable, governable, stable, and alive across generations that never chose the mission themselves.

00:00:00 — Opening.
00:02:05 — Distance Solves Nothing Yet.
00:08:55 — A Sealed World Begins.
00:17:23 — Air And Water Must Cycle.
00:25:38 — Food Becomes Ship Ecology.
00:34:11 — Closure Never Fully Closes.
00:42:44 — Radiation Taxes Every Generation.
00:51:31 — Time Multiplies Tiny Failures.
00:59:50 — Spare Parts Become Culture.
01:08:34 — Population Is A System.
01:17:26 — Genes Drift Under Constraint.
01:26:02 — Children Inherit The Burden.
01:34:47 — Institutions Must Outlive Founders.
01:43:58 — Arrival Can Still Fail.
01:51:57 — Faster Helps But Never Saves.
02:00:20 — Alive Is More Than Arrival.

AI analyses of eye scans can detect diseases like diabetes, osteoporosis and thyroid disease in seconds

A new study presents an artificial intelligence system that scans images of the retina to detect signs of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gout, osteoporosis and thyroid disease in seconds. The program—called Reti-Pioneer—is a step toward being able to diagnose many different conditions from a scan of the eye, providing people a quicker diagnosis for common conditions and increasing access to crucial testing.

Associate Professor Lisa Zhuoting Zhu, head of ophthalmic epidemiology at CERA, is one of the leading authors on the paper published in Nature Medicine. She says this technology is making disease diagnosis more efficient, particularly in remote or regional communities.

“This technology will be a real benefit to public health,” says Zhu. “Patients would be able to get information about their health instantly and start interventions as soon as possible instead of waiting for more time-consuming test results.”

Silk sticker is noninvasive way to monitor babies’ health

In the neonatal intensive care unit, the most fragile patients in medicine are often the most heavily wired. Premature babies, some weighing less than a pound, can be tethered to a tangle of cables, monitors and sensors. Each blood draw to check sugar levels or electrolytes means another needle, another bandage, another moment of stress for an infant whose skin is still forming.

A team of researchers from Tufts University’s Silklab, Helmholtz Munich, Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich and the Technical University of Munich have developed a radically gentler alternative: a featherlight, silk-based sticker, smaller than a coin, that quietly reads four critical health signals at once just by changing color.

The work, published in ACS Sensors, describes a wearable patch that captures temperature, pH, sodium and glucose from the wisps of fluid that pass naturally through a baby’s still-developing skin. An AI system reads the patch’s color shifts through any standard camera, even in the dim, humid, hard-to-photograph environment of an incubator, and translates them into precise numbers a clinician can act on.

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