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Category: biotech/medical – Page 112

Brain chips get smarter. Elon Musk’s Neuralink gets competition

Recent advances suggest the technology is hitting its stride. The UC Davis team’s speech synthesis system represents a fundamental shift from previous approaches. Rather than translating brain signals into text and then synthesizing speech — a process that created significant delays — UC Davis’ system converts thoughts directly into sounds with near-instantaneous 10-millisecond latency.

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Meanwhile, researchers at Carnegie Mellon achieved real-time control of individual robotic fingers using non-invasive EEG technology, wearing a cap that reads brain signals through the skull. This suggests that future brain interfaces might not require surgery at all for certain applications.

AI model analyzes speech to detect early neurological disorders with high accuracy

A research team led by Prof. Li Hai from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a novel deep learning framework that significantly improves the accuracy and interpretability of detecting neurological disorders through speech. The findings were recently published in Neurocomputing.

“A slight change in the way we speak might be more than just a slip of the tongue—it could be a from the brain,” said Prof. Hai, who led the team. “Our new model can detect early symptoms of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Wilson disease, by analyzing voice recordings.”

Dysarthria is a common early symptom of various neurological disorders. Since speech abnormalities often reflect underlying neurodegenerative processes, voice signals have emerged as promising noninvasive biomarkers for the early screening and continuous monitoring of such conditions.

Steering brain cells with magnetic nanoparticles to rebuild lost connections

A collaborative study led by Professor Vittoria Raffa at the University of Pisa and Assistant Professor Fabian Raudzus (Department of Clinical Application) has unveiled a novel approach that uses magnetically guided mechanical forces to direct axonal growth, aiming to enhance the effectiveness of stem cell-based therapies for Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other neurological conditions.

Parkinson’s disease is characterized by the progressive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the (SN), which project to the striatum (ST) via the nigrostriatal pathway. The loss of these connections leads to dopamine deficiency and the onset of motor symptoms.

While cell replacement therapies using human stem cell-derived dopaminergic progenitors have shown encouraging results in , a key limitation remains: the inability to guide the axons of transplanted cells over long distances to their appropriate targets in the adult brain.

Diabetes drug cuts migraines in half by targeting brain pressure

A common diabetes drug may be the next big thing for migraine relief. In a clinical study, obese patients with chronic migraines who took liraglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist, experienced over 50% fewer headache days and significantly improved daily functioning without meaningful weight loss. Researchers believe the drugs ability to lower brain fluid pressure is the key, potentially opening a completely new way to treat migraines. The effects were fast, sustained, and came with only mild side effects.

A diabetes medication that lowers brain fluid pressure has cut monthly migraine days by more than half, according to a new study presented today at the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Congress 2025.

Researchers at the Headache Center of the University of Naples “Federico II” gave the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist liraglutide to 26 adults with obesity and chronic migraine (defined as ≥15 headache days per month). Patients reported an average of 11 fewer headache days per month, while disability scores on the Migraine Disability Assessment Test dropped by 35 points, indicating a clinically meaningful improvement in work, study, and social functioning.

Scientists reverse Parkinson’s symptoms in mice — Could humans be next?

Scientists at the University of Sydney have uncovered a malfunctioning version of the SOD1 protein that clumps inside brain cells and fuels Parkinson’s disease. In mouse models, restoring the protein’s function with a targeted copper supplement dramatically rescued movement, hinting at a future therapy that could slow or halt the disease in people.

Healthy lifestyle linked to lower diverticulitis risk, irrespective of genetic susceptibility

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle—specifically, a diet rich in fiber but light on red/processed meat, regular exercise, not smoking, and sticking to a normal weight—is linked to a significantly lower risk of diverticulitis, finds a large long-term study, published online in the journal Gut.

What’s more, these five components seem to offset the effects of inherited genes, the findings indicate.

Diverticulitis occurs when “pouches” develop along the gut and become inflamed or infected in the wall of the large intestine (colon), explain the researchers. It’s a common cause of hospital admissions and a major reason for emergency colon surgery, they add.

Brain tumor growth patterns may help inform patient care management

As brain tumors grow, they must do one of two things: push against the brain or use finger-like extensions to invade and destroy surrounding tissue.

Previous research found that tumors that push—or put mechanical force on the brain—cause more neurological dysfunction than tumors that destroy tissue. But what else can these different tactics of tumor growth tell us?

Now, the same team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame, Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, and Boston University has developed a technique for measuring a brain tumor’s mechanical force and a new model to estimate how much brain tissue a patient has lost. Published in Clinical Cancer Research, the study explains how these measurements may help inform patient care and be adopted into surgeons’ daily workflow.

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