A new study finds that mitochondria in our brain cells frequently fling their DNA into the cells’ nucleus, where the mitochondrial DNA integrates into chromosomes, possibly causing harm.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 437
New Nanoparticle Cancer Treatment Successfully Shrinks and Eliminates Pancreatic Tumors
Innovative research has led to a new treatment for pancreatic cancer that utilizes nanoparticles to stimulate immune responses and improve drug delivery.
This strategy has produced significant results, with eight out of nine mice showing tumor improvements and two seeing their tumors completely eradicated. This approach holds promise for broader applications in oncology.
Innovative Pancreatic Cancer Therapy Development.
New Biomedical Device Offers Rapid Relief for Chronic Pain Patients
How can ultrasonic waves be used to treat chronic pain? This is what a recent study published in the journal Pain hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how a noninvasive treatment known as Diadem, which is a novel biomedical device designed to use ultrasonic waves for combating chronic pain. This study holds the potential to help researchers develop more effective methods at treating chronic pain aside from invasive, surgical treatments.
For the study, the researchers enlisted 20 patients who suffer from chronic pain to participate in trials for the Diadem device or sham stimulations, the latter of which involved auditory masking that has been used in previous research. Each patient received two 40-minute sessions comprised of either the Diadem or sham treatments, followed by being monitored for one week. In the end, the researchers found that 60 percent of patients were received the Diadem treatments reported improved pain management on day 1 and day 7. In contrast, 15 percent and 20 percent of patients who received the sham treatment reported the same for day 1 and day 7, respectively.
“If you or your relatives suffer from chronic pain that does not respond to treatments, please reach out to us; we need to recruit many participants so that these treatments can be approved for the general public,” said Dr. Jan Kubanek, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah and a co-author on the study. “With your help, we think chronic pain can be effectively silenced. And with new pain treatment options, we can tackle the opioid crisis, too.”
High frequency oscillations in human memory and cognition: a neurophysiological substrate of engrams?
The results published by Tong et al. 60 reconcile the previous observations that increased power across a broad range of frequencies is composed of multiple HFO bursts detected at discrete frequencies. 32, 33, 85 In Figs 2 and 3, we summarize the general mechanism from micro-scale ensembles of firing neurons, through bursts of individual HFOs detected in particular trials at specific frequencies, to the resultant trial-averaged enhanced power across a broad frequency range. Coordinated firing in response to a stimulus presentation gives rise to HFOs at particular frequencies depending on the size and spread of the underlying neural ensemble (Fig. 3A and C). Other ensembles generate HFOs at particular frequencies in response to stimuli in subsequent trials. Eventually, multiple trials result in a uniform shift in power across a broad frequency range of the spectrum relative to a pre-stimulus baseline (Fig. 3C). Detections from specific trials can be displayed together as points at their corresponding peak-amplitude on a cumulative time-frequency plot, producing a pattern closely overlapping with the trial-averaged power spectrogram (Fig. 3D).
This is an explanation for the resultant broadband shift in power across the high-frequency spectrum associated with cognitive and motor tasks and increased neural firing, 92–95 which argued against oscillations at particular frequency bands. If the intermediate step of detecting individual bursts of oscillations on a trial-by-trial basis is skipped, the overall trial-averaged power will be most highly correlated with general firing rates in the entire neural population without any common temporal pattern or coordination to oscillations. If, however, independent constituent bursts of oscillations and the underlying firing in subsets of neural ensembles are first resolved one by one, then multiple patterns of coordinated activity emerge. In this large-scale mechanism, coordinated electrical activity from multiple neural sources generating oscillations at distinct frequencies could explain the broadband shifts in power across the spectrum. 24 Separate sources of HFO bursts detected at various frequencies remain to be demonstrated on the macro-and micro-recording scales.
Assuming that individual HFOs can indeed be separated based on their spectral features 96–98 and thus identify particular sources of LFP activities, it should be possible to resolve the neurophysiological substrates of memory and cognition proposed in our title question. High frequency LFP activities were suggested to track particular neuronal assemblies on the level of micro-contact LFP in rodents. 91 Intracranial recordings in non-human primates 86, 87 and in human patients 22, 32, 85 can also resolve distinct bursts in the frequency-time space of individual trials, which could hypothetically be the features of particular neuronal assemblies. 24 HFO bursts beyond the ripple frequency range, which were shown to be generated very locally on the scale of a single cortical column, 64 would correspond to arguably the fundamental level of neural organization and information processing. 99 In the next section, we will review the roles of temporal coordination in gamma and higher frequencies in supporting processes of memory and cognition.
Para-astronaut John McFall hopes to see an ISS astronaut with a disability fly by 2030 (exclusive, video)
Astronaut John McFall hopes to see an ISS astronaut with a disability fly by 2030 — video.
A European Space Agency (ESA) reserve astronaut, McFall was selected for the program in 2022 based on his experience as a trauma and orthopedic specialist, surgeon and exercise scientist. McFall also has lived experience with a disability as he has used prosthetics regularly since the amputation of his right leg at age 19, following a motorcycle accident. (He even won a bronze medal in the 2008 Paralympics in the 100-meter sprint, class T42.)
A recent study dubbed “Fly!” — in which McFall played a key role — found there would be no major issues to International Space Station missions should an astronaut use a prosthesis on board. There is more work to be done, but the goal is for it all to culminate in flying “someone with a physical disability” to the ISS, McFall told Space.com in an exclusive interview on Aug. 8. “By the end of this decade, hopefully that would have happened.”
Twists of Fate: How 50,000 Mysterious DNA Knots Could Help Cure Diseases Like Cancer
An innovative study of DNA ’s hidden structures may open up new approaches for the treatment and diagnosis of diseases, including cancer.
Researchers at the Garvan Institute have unveiled the first comprehensive map of over 50,000 i-motifs in the human genome, structures distinct from the classic double helix that may play crucial roles in gene regulation and disease. These findings highlight the potential of i-motifs in developing new therapies, particularly in targeting genes associated with cancers.
Unraveling the Mysteries of DNA i-Motifs.
Neuralink’s first patient says he’s named his brain-implant device and is using it to learn French and Japanese
Neuralink’s first patient says he’s given his brain-chip implant a name seven months after it was surgically implanted.
Noland Arbaugh, who is quadriplegic and became the first person to get the computer-controlling implant developed by Elon Musk’s brain-interface company, said Wednesday that he had named the device “Eve” and was working with it to improve himself in different ways.
Can Better Biotech Finally Replace Lab Animals?
We have to do this ❤️
Replacing research animals with tools that better mimic human biology could improve medicine.
By Rachel Nuwer
When it came time for Itzy Morales Pantoja to start her Ph.D. in cellular and molecular medicine, she chose a laboratory that used stem cells—not only animals—for its research. Morales Pantoja had just spent two years studying multiple sclerosis in mouse models. As an undergraduate, she’d been responsible for giving the animals painful injections to induce the disease and then observing as they lost their ability to move. She did her best to treat the mice gently, but she knew they were suffering. “As soon as I got close to them, they’d start peeing—a sign of stress,” she says. “They knew what was coming.”