A new study has affirmed the anesthetic drug xenon can help prevent long-term damage associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI). The researchers, from Imperial College London and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, have effectively demonstrated in mice that if xenon is administered within a few hours of a TBI it can prevent brain tissue damage that would result in long-term cognitive problems.
Mayo Clinic researchers have demonstrated the safety and feasibility of stem cell therapy for lung transplant recipients with moderate obstructive chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD). A larger clinical study is planned, which might eventually yield regenerative-medicine options for managing acute or chronic CLAD.
“The primary purpose is to improve lung function, or at least arrest the rate of decline in lung function, in transplant patients with progressive obstructive disease that is refractory to medical therapy,” says Cesar A. Keller, M.D., emeritus professor at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.
Although lung transplantation is a life-saving treatment option, chronic rejection is considerably more common than in other solid organ transplants, due to the lungs’ continuous exposure to environmental factors. Within five years of lung transplant, 45 percent of recipients develop obstructive CLAD, also known as bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) — which has an associated mortality rate ranging from 25 percent to 56 percent. There is no standardized therapeutic protocol for BOS, and the existing therapies have had variable success.
Researchers have developed a brain-computer interface the size of a baby aspirin that can restore mobility to people with paralysis or amputated limbs.
How does it work? It rewires neural messages from the brain’s motor cortex to a robotic arm, or reroutes it to the person’s own muscles. In this video, Big Think contributor Susan Hockfield, president emerita of MIT, explains further.
In a new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago, researchers examining post-mortem brain tissue from people ages 79 to 99 found that new neurons continue to form well into old age. The study provides evidence that this occurs even in people with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, although neurogenesis is significantly reduced in these people compared to older adults with normal cognitive functioning.
They publish their results in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
The idea that new neurons continue to form into middle age, let alone past adolescence, is controversial, as previous studies have shown conflicting results. The UIC study is the first to find evidence of significant numbers of neural stem cells and newly developing neurons present in the hippocampal tissue of older adults, including those with disorders that affect the hippocampus, which is involved in the formation of memories and in learning.
The electronic Barnett effect, first observed by Samuel Barnett in 1915, is the magnetization of an uncharged body as it is spun on its long axis. This is caused by a coupling between the angular momentum of the electronic spins and the rotation of the rod.
Using a different method from that employed by Barnett, two researchers at NYU observed an alternative version of this effect called the nuclear Barnett effect, which results from the magnetization of protons rather than electrons. Their study, published in Physical Review Letters (PRL), led to the first experimental observation of this effect.
“I was a graduate student at NYU where a group of colleagues were involved in a project related to brain imaging,” Mohsen Arabgol, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. The fundamental idea behind the project was polarizing the brain molecules by inducing rotation using the Barnett effect and then applying the MRI-type imaging. I became interested and decided to work on the detection of the nuclear Barnett effect as my Ph.D. dissertation.”
A recent study has outlined the relationship between B cells, atherosclerosis, and the transcription factor c-Myb. While this factor is necessary for hematopoiesis, the formation of new blood cells, it has been shown to affect B cells, a type of lymphocyte, in a way that makes atherosclerosis more severe.
A new look at inflammaging
Inflammation can have beneficial effects in the short term, but chronic, long-term inflammation is known to exacerbate serious diseases. With age, the immune system falters and constantly reacts to things that it sees as threats, thus leading to the rise in chronic inflammation known as inflammaging. In the case of atherosclerosis, the relationship between cholesterol and immune cells plays a major role in making things worse [1].
A technique to stabilise alkali metal vapour density using gold nanoparticles, so electrons can be accessed for applications including quantum computing, atom cooling and precision measurements, has been patented by scientists at the University of Bath.
Alkali metal vapours, including lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium and caesium, allow scientists to access individual electrons, due to the presence of a single electron in the outer ‘shell’ of alkali metals.
This has great potential for a range of applications, including logic operations, storage and sensing in quantum computing, as well as in ultra-precise time measurements with atomic clocks, or in medical diagnostics including cardiograms and encephalograms.