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Category: biotech/medical

The brainwaves of people with neuropathic pain show a distinct pattern: more slow theta waves, fewer alpha waves, and more fast, high beta waves, co-lead author Sylvia Gustin, a clinical psychologist and UNSW professor, said in the statement. Her research has investigated changes in the thalamus—a central brain structure that relays sensory and motor signals to the cerebral cortex—associated with nerve pain.

The PainWaive system consists of an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset that records brain activity paired with an app that instructs patients on how to control their brainwaves through neurofeedback games, according to a UNSW statement. Four participants who suffer from corneal neuropathic pain—a condition that causes painful hypersensitivity of the eyes, face, or head—underwent 20 PainWaive sessions over the course of four weeks.

This study offers new hope for drug-free pain treatments, but further trials will need to verify its results.

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Many different cancer treatments work to directly target the tumor or the cells around it. The immediate goal is to mitigate growth and progression, with the hope of complete eradication and long-term durable immunity. However, many barriers prevent complete treatment efficacy. Different proteins and molecules secreted by the tumor polarize the environment around it to allow tumor progression. Unfortunately, the tumor generates an advantageous environment that not only suppresses the immune system, but also dysregulates immune cells to promote the spread of cancer.

Different immune cells around the tumor, such as neutrophils, macrophages, T cells, dendritic cells, and others normally work together to elicit a robust immune response. In the context of cancer, these cells take on a pro-tumor function or are prevented from executing their function. In response, many immunotherapies work to re-activate T cells, which are responsible for eliminating infected cells. Other cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, works to directly kill the tumor.

While various therapies work through different biological mechanisms, it is still unclear how the tumor uses nutrients to fuel its progression and block immune cell response. Metabolism is the action of a cell that builds and breaks down molecules to provide energy. In general, it has been widely accepted that tumors rely on a metabolic process known as glycolysis to fuel its mass proliferation of cells. Specifically, cells breakdown glucose for energy. Although cancer cells gain energy through glycolysis, there is still a lot that is unclear about cellular metabolism and the influence it has on the environment around the tumor.

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Nuri Jeong remembers the feeling of surprise she felt during a trip back to South Korea, while visiting her grandmother, who’d been grappling with Alzheimer’s disease.

“I hadn’t seen her in six years, but she recognized me,” said Jeong, a former graduate researcher in the lab of Annabelle Singer in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

“I didn’t expect that. Even though my grandmother struggled to remember other family members that she saw all the time, she somehow remembered me,” Jeong added. “It made me wonder how the brain distinguishes between familiar and new experiences.”

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Turbulence in nature refers to the complex, time-dependent, and spatially varying fluctuations that develop in fluids such as water, air, and plasma. It is a universal phenomenon that appears across a vast range of scales and systems—from atmospheric and oceanic currents on Earth, to interstellar gas in stars and galaxies, and even within jet engines and blood flow in human arteries.

Turbulence is not merely chaotic; rather, it consists of an evolving hierarchy of interacting vortices, which may organize into large-scale structures or produce coherent flow patterns over time.

In nuclear fusion plasmas, plays a crucial role in regulating the confinement of thermal energy and the mixing of fuel particles, thereby directly impacting the performance of fusion reactors. Unlike simple fluid turbulence, plasma turbulence involves the simultaneous evolution of multiple physical fields, such as density, temperature, magnetic fields, and electric currents.

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People who follow a MIND diet, even if started later in life, were significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease or related forms of dementia, according to new research.

The MIND diet stands for “Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay” and combines many elements of the Mediterranean diet and DASH (“Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension”). It emphasizes brain-healthy foods like leafy greens, berries, nuts and olive oil.

The study, being presented Monday at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting, analyzed data from nearly 93,000 U.S. adults aged 45 to 75 starting in the 1990s.

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Objective To improve early diagnosis of patients who have basilar artery occlusion (BAO) and to provide evidence for treatment decisions based on clinical characteristics, treatment strategies, and prognostic outcomes of cases of bilateral hearing loss as a prodromal symptom.

Methods We conducted a retrospective analysis of six patients who had BAO with an initial symptom of hearing loss. This analysis encompassed demographic data, clinical symptoms, examination findings, treatment approaches, and prognostic outcomes.

Results Six patients (mean age 62±16.5 years) presented with bilateral sudden hearing loss and were diagnosed with proximal BAO. All had subtle initial symptoms, leading to diagnostic delays (mean 13 ± 5.4 hours). Five underwent endovascular treatment (EVT), and all patients required rescue balloon angioplasty because of underlying atherosclerotic stenosis.

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The venous system maintains the health of our brains by removing deoxygenated blood and other waste products, but its complexity and variability have made scientific study difficult. Now, a UC Berkeley-led team of researchers has developed an innovative MRI technique that may expand our understanding of this critical system.

In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers demonstrate how their new imaging method, Displacement Spectrum (DiSpect) MRI, maps blood flows “in reverse” to reveal the source of blood in the ’s veins. This approach could help answer long-standing questions about brain physiology as well as provide a safer, more efficient way to diagnose disease.

Like some current MRI methods, DiSpect uses the water in our blood as a tracing agent to map perfusion, or blood flow, in the brain. The water’s hydrogen atoms possess a quantum mechanical property called spin and can be magnetized when exposed to a magnetic field, like an MRI scanner. But what makes DiSpect unique is its ability to track the “memory” of these nuclear spins, allowing it to map blood flow back to its source.

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A trial of an interactive game that trains people to alter their brain waves has shown promise as a treatment for nerve pain—offering hope for a new generation of drug-free treatments.

The PainWaive technology, developed by UNSW Sydney researchers, teaches users how to regulate abnormal brain activity linked to chronic nerve , offering a potential in-home, noninvasive alternative to opioids.

A recent trial of the technology, led by Professor Sylvia Gustin and Dr. Negin Hesam-Shariati from UNSW Sydney’s NeuroRecovery Research Hub, has delivered promising results, published in the Journal of Pain.

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