(IFNs) are a family of antiviral and immunomodulatory signaling proteins produced by host cells to fight pathogens like viruses, bacteria, and tumors.
As cytokines, they alert neighboring cells to activate defenses, inhibit viral replication, and regulate immune responses.
Common uses include treating hepatitis B and C, multiple sclerosis, and certain cancers like melanoma and lymphoma.
For more information click on the link below: sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission.
We all know we live in three-dimensional space. But what does it mean when people talk about four dimensions? Is it just a bigger kind of space? Is it “space-time,” the popular idea which emerged from Einstein’s theory of relativity?
If you have wondered what four dimensions really look like, you may have come across drawings of a “four-dimensional cube.” But our brains are wired to interpret drawings on flat paper as two-or at most three-dimensional, not four-dimensional.
The almost insurmountable difficulty of visualizing the fourth dimension has inspired mathematicians, physicists, writers and even some artists for centuries. But even if we can’t quite imagine it, we can understand it.
Degs1-related hypomyelinating leukodystrophy: four individuals from same family and review of literature.
ObjectivesDEGS1-related leukodystrophy has been described in 33 individuals to date with varying degrees of neurologic symptoms and atrophy/hypomyelination on MRI brain. We describe a family of 4 individuals with DEGS1-related leukodystrophy with phenotypic heterogeneity both within the family and in previously reported individuals.
Lacunar infarcts and vascular dementia are important phenotypic characteristics of cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy, the most common inherited cerebral small vessel disease. Individuals with the disease show variability in the nature and onset of symptoms and rates of progression, which are only partially explained by differences in pathogenic mutations in the NOTCH3 gene. Recognizing the disease early in its course and securing a molecular diagnosis are important clinical goals, despite the lack of proven disease-modifying treatments.
Scientists may have new answers to why pop-ups or notifications grab our attention. Turns out our attention is on a cycle, shifting seven to 10 times per second. This rhythmic occurrence may be crucial for survival, as it prevents us from becoming overly focused on one thing in our environment. It could help us to see a car backing up in a parking lot while we search for where we parked, or to duck to avoid a low-hanging tree branch on a walk while watching a kid ride a bike.
However, these windows that shift our attention could also make us more susceptible to distractions, especially in modern times. As we live in a world surrounded by screens, digital alerts, and other visual stimuli, these frequent and innate windows for shifting attention may make it easier to be pulled away from a task.
“For our ancestors who had to continue to monitor the environment for predators while foraging for food, this was a beneficial trait,” said Ian Fiebelkorn, Ph.D., assistant professor of Neuroscience at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester and senior author of a study out in the journal PLOS Biology. “But in our modern environment, with laptops open in front of us and a smartphone nearby, rhythmically occurring windows for beneficial attentional shifts might also work against us. That is, rhythmically occurring windows for attentional shifts are also associated with increased susceptibility to distracting information.”
Professor Earl Miller discusses, Mind-Body Solution podcast.
Earl K. Miller is the Picower Professor of Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has faculty positions in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He holds degrees from Kent State University (B.A.) and Princeton University (M.A., Ph.D.) as well as an honorary Doctor of Science from Kent State University.
For decades, neuroscience treated the brain like a digital machine — storing information in synaptic connections and sustaining activity like a switch flipped on. But what if that model is incomplete?
In this conversation, I sit down with Earl Miller, MIT professor and head of the Miller Lab, to explore a growing shift in cognitive neuroscience: the brain may compute using dynamic electrical waves.
We discuss how oscillations coordinate millions of neurons, how waves interact with spikes in a two-way system, why large-scale brain organization may depend on rhythmic patterns, and what this means for artificial intelligence.
Tumor-immune-neural circuit in cancer cachexia.
The mechanisms involved in cancer-mediated cachexia and anorexia are not well understood.
The researchers in this study delineate an interplay among tumor cells, immune cells, and the nervous system that drives cancer cachexia and anorexia.
The authors show thay loss of GDF15 protects against appetite loss, muscle wasting, and fat loss in pancreatic, lung, and skin cancers.
Disrupting this feedforward loop with GDF15-neutralizing antibody, anti-CSF1R antibody, or Rearranged during Transfection (RET) inhibitor alleviates cachexia and anorexia across cancer models. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/Tumor-immune-neural-circuit
Shi et al. delineate an interplay among tumor cells, immune cells, and the nervous system that drives cancer cachexia and anorexia. Specifically, tumor-derived CSF1 induces macrophage GDF15, which signals through the GFRAL-RET neural axis to enhance β-adrenergic activity and systemic wasting. Disrupting this feedforward loop alleviates cachexia across cancer models.
Normative modeling of morphometric similarity networks in ADHD identified three distinct biotypes with unique clinical-neural profiles, supporting more neurobiologically informed stratification for ADHD management.
Question Can normative modeling of topological properties derived from brain morphometric similarity networks yield robust stratification biomarkers for pediatric populations with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)?
Findings This multisite case-control study included 1,154 participants, characterizing ADHD heterogeneity through hub-centric topological deviations derived from morphometric similarity networks. Three distinct biotypes emerged, each exhibiting unique clinical-neural profiles with characteristic neurochemical and functional correlates, validated in an independent transdiagnostic cohort of 554 ADHD cases.
Meaning The integration of normative modeling with heterogeneity through discriminative analysis (HYDRA) clustering yielded both dimensional and categorical insights into ADHD heterogeneity, thereby enhancing our understanding of the ADHD’s neurobiological complexity.
