A recent study used computational methods to identify novel compounds that activate receptors involved in pain modulation to relieve pain in mouse models without causing sedation. Further research is needed to assess the side effects of these drugs and optimize the compounds for therapeutic use.
In a study using specialized imaging techniques, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report distinctive changes in the “white matter” and other brain tissue physiology of those with post-treatment Lyme disease, a condition affecting 10% to 20% of the nearly half a million Americans who contract Lyme disease annually.
The study’s findings, published October 26 in the journal PLOS ONE, substantiate and help validate that memory difficulties and other cognitive difficulties experienced long-term by individuals with post-treatment Lyme disease are linked to functional and structural changes in the brain.
Lyme disease, whose early symptoms may include a characteristic rash, flu-like aches and fever, joint pain, and fatigue, is treated using a rigorous course of antibiotics, which usually clears the illness.
When you cut yourself, a mass migration begins inside your body: Skin cells flood by the thousands toward the site of the wound, where they will soon lay down fresh layers of protective tissue.
In a new study, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder have taken an important step toward unraveling the drivers behind this collective behavior. The team has developed an equation learning technique that might one day help scientists grasp how the body rebuilds skin, and could potentially inspire new therapies to accelerate wound healing.
“Learning the rules for how individual cells respond to the proximity and relative motion of other cells is critical to understanding why cells migrate into a wound,” said David Bortz, professor of applied mathematics at CU Boulder and senior author of the new study.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have identified a particular protein network that is necessary for cell regeneration to restore hearing in zebrafish. Researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) led the research, which may help in the creation of human hearing loss treatments. The findings were recently published in the journal Cell Genomics.
Many animals, like zebrafish, may recover their hearing after injury through the regeneration of hair cells, however, human hair cell loss cannot be restored. The regenerating properties of zebrafish hair cells inspired researchers to use this species to better understand certain fundamental properties of regeneration.
Researchers claim to have built a “decoder” algorithm that can reconstruct what somebody is thinking just by monitoring their brain activity using MRI.
Researchers from Northwestern University have made a significant advance in the way they produce exotic open-framework superlattices made of hollow metal nanoparticles.
Using tiny hollow particles termed metallic nanoframes and modifying them with appropriate sequences of DNA, the team found they could synthesize open-channel superlattices with pores ranging from 10 to 1,000 nanometers in size—sizes that have been difficult to access until now. This newfound control over porosity will enable researchers to use these colloidal crystals in molecular absorption and storage, separations, chemical sensing, catalysis and many optical applications.
The new study identifies 12 unique porous nanoparticle superlattices with control over symmetry, geometry and pore connectivity to highlight the generalizability of new design rules as a route to making novel materials.
Researchers conclude that one hemisphere of the brain can adequately function as if it were doing so for two hemispheres.
People who underwent surgery as children to remove half of their brain were still able to accurately recognize differences between pairs of words or faces.
The research was done to study brain plasticity and perception. Plasticity is when the brain can be molded to reorganize itself in the hemispheric region not injured, or in this case, the only hemispheric region that is there. The participants were able to correctly identify differences between words or faces with more than 80% accuracy.
The new design came with three fundamental improvements.
Researchers have finally managed to reduce the two-photon fluorescence microscope into a thumb size device that allows them to see inside the brain of live and active animals. The device called Mini2P weighs just 2.4 grams and can be attached to a mouse’s head without compromising its natural movements.
The microscope can record live images of neural landscapes, the likes of which have never been seen before. The innovation “opens the door to lines of scientific inquiry that were difficult, if not impossible, to initiate,” says Denise Cai, a neuroscientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. feat was achieved by Edvard Moser, professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, together with Weijing Zong, a biological engineer and neuroscientist at the Moser Group.
face_with_colon_three Tricorder from star trek here we come. #Singularity
An instrument found on workbenches around the world has been scaled down enough to be used in a smartphone.
Dr. Peter Fedichev, Ph.D. is the CEO of Gero (https://gero.ai/), a biotech company focused on hacking complex diseases, including aging, with AI for novel drug discovery, as well as digital biomarkers.
Gero’s models originate from the physics of complex dynamic systems, combining the potential of deep neural networks with the physical models to study dynamical processes and understand what drives diseases.
Dr. Fedichev has a background in biophysics, bioinformatics and condensed matter physics, earning his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam, and he conducted research at FOM Institute AMOLF (part of the institutes organization of the Dutch Research Council of Netherlands) and the University of Innsbruck.
To date, Dr Fedichev has published over 70 papers covering his research on physics, biophysics and aging biology.
