Lifeboat Foundation

The factors mediating fatal SARS-CoV-2 infections are poorly understood. Here, we show that cigarette smoke causes a dose-dependent upregulation of Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2), the SARS-CoV-2 receptor, in rodent and human lungs. Using single-cell sequencing data, we demonstrate that ACE2 is expressed in a subset of secretory cells in the respiratory tract. Chronic smoke exposure triggers the expansion of this cell population and a concomitant increase in ACE2 expression. In contrast, quitting smoking decreases the abundance of these secretory cells and reduces ACE2 levels. Finally, we demonstrate that ACE2 expression is responsive to inflammatory signaling and can be upregulated by viral infections or interferon treatment. Taken together, these results may partially explain why smokers are particularly susceptible to severe SARS-CoV-2 infections. Furthermore, our work identifies ACE2 as an interferon-stimulated gene in lung cells, suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 infections could create positive-feedback loops that increase ACE2 levels and facilitate viral dissemination.

— Data remain sparse, but a few risks are emerging.

The average cost of stem cell treatment is $8,750.

I get asked many questions about stem cell therapies, but one of the most common over the years has been about the stem cell treatment cost. For instance, a reporter might ask, “How much does a stem cell treatment for MS cost?” and a patient might ask me, “How much is a fair cost for a stem cell therapy for arthritis?” Or, patients will voluntarily tell me what they paid or mention it in the comments. We hear various numbers thrown around about costs so I decided to do a poll on this. I even did an early update on the results of this poll, voicing my skepticism that the costs paid were worth it.

But the poll has gotten well over 500 responses now so I thought I would revisit it and what it might mean.

Continue reading “Update on stem cell treatment cost for 2018 from ongoing poll” »

Interesting articles on theranostic iron nanowires. I’m interested in watching all aspects of development of nanobots, because I think it may lead to new forms of treatments for superlongevity and superintelligence.

Phys.org: Iron nanorobots go undercover to do surveillance on living cells in real time:

https://phys.org/…/2020–05-iron-nanorobots-undercover-surve…

Continue reading “Magnetic core–shell nanowires as MRI contrast agents for cell tracking” »

Upon seeing the blood-stained gloves, O.J. Simpson may have had electrical activity in his brain that showed recognition, and guilt.

The ability to modulate neural activity in specific brain circuits remotely and systematically could revolutionize studies of brain function and treatments of brain disorders. Sound waves of high frequencies (ultrasound) have shown promise in this respect, combining the ability to modulate neuronal activity with sharp spatial focus. Here, we show that the approach can have potent effects on choice behavior. Brief, low-intensity ultrasound pulses delivered noninvasively into specific brain regions of macaque monkeys influenced their decisions regarding which target to choose. The effects were substantial, leading to around a 2:1 bias in choices compared to the default balanced proportion. The effect presence and polarity was controlled by the specific target region. These results represent a critical step towards the ability to influence choice behavior noninvasively, enabling systematic investigations and treatments of brain circuits underlying disorders of choice.

Noninvasive and reversible modulation of neuronal activity in specific brain circuits may allow us to diagnose and treat brain disorders in, targeted ways. Low-intensity ultrasound, applied to the brain noninvasively, can be used to modulate neural activity with spatial specificity superior to other noninvasive methods such as transcranial electrical or magnetic stimulation (1–5). The neuromodulatory potential of ultrasound has been highlighted in studies that targeted peri-motor regions of anesthetized rodents or rabbits. Brief, low-intensity stimuli lead to observable movements of the limbs or other body parts (6–13).

However, the enthusiasm about the neuromodulatory potential of ultrasound has recently been dampened by studies that called these effects into question (14, 15). In addition, such overt effects have not been observed in large mammals including humans. Only small changes in neural signals (16–23) or small changes in reaction time or other metrics (24–26) have been found. Yet, to make it truly useful, the approach would ideally provide neuromodulatory effects that are strong enough to manifest in behavior. For example, if clinicians are to determine which brain circuits drive a patient’s craving for an addictive drug, the neuromodulatory effects on a particular neural circuit should be potent enough to yield measurable changes in the subject’s choice behavior, i.e., whether the subject decides to use the drug or not.

A visual cortical prosthesis (VCP) has long been proposed as a strategy for restoring useful vision to the blind, under the assumption that visual percepts of small spots of light produced with electrical stimulation of visual cortex (phosphenes) will combine into coherent percepts of visual forms, like pixels on a video screen. We tested an alternative strategy in which shapes were traced on the surface of visual cortex by stimulating electrodes in dynamic sequence. In both sighted and blind participants, dynamic stimulation enabled accurate recognition of letter shapes predicted by the brain’s spatial map of the visual world. Forms were presented and recognized rapidly by blind participants, up to 86 forms per minute. These findings demonstrate that a brain prosthetic can produce coherent percepts of visual forms.

Israeli entrepreneurs and researchers have introduced facemask and face shield inventions we want to tell you about.

Let’s begin with an update on that first article highlighting washable masks from Sonovia and from Argaman. Each uses its own proprietary technology to embed microbe-killing metallic particles into textiles.

Continue reading “7 Israeli mask and face shield solutions for coronavirus” »

Schizophrenia is a devastating psychiatric disorder characterized by positive, negative and cognitive symptoms. While aberrant dopamine system function is typically associated with the positive symptoms of the disease, it is thought that this is secondary to pathology in afferent regions. Indeed, schizophrenia patients show dysregulated activity in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, two regions known to regulate dopamine neuron activity. These deficits in hippocampal and prefrontal cortical function are thought to result, in part, from reductions in inhibitory interneuron function in these brain regions. Therefore, it has been hypothesized that restoring interneuron function in the hippocampus and/or prefrontal cortex may be an effective treatment strategy for schizophrenia. In this article, we will discuss the evidence for interneuron pathology in schizophrenia and review recent advances in our understanding of interneuron development. Finally, we will explore how these advances have allowed us to test the therapeutic value of interneuron transplants in multiple preclinical models of schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is devastating psychiatric disorder that affects approximately 1% of the population¹. Positive symptoms, such as paranoia, grandiosity, delusions, and hallucinations, are often the most striking features of the disorder; however, schizophrenia patients also display characteristic negative and cognitive symptoms, which can be severely debilitating. Negative symptoms, such as blunted affect, emotional withdrawal, and social avoidance and cognitive symptoms, including disruptions in working memory, attentional deficits, disorganized thought, and cognitive inflexibility, can negatively influence social and occupational functioning and diminish quality of life^2–4. Currently prescribed antipsychotic medications, which act as antagonists at the dopamine D2 receptor⁵, have been somewhat effective in treating the positive symptoms of schizophrenia⁶.