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Category: biotech/medical – Page 676

3D Molecular Maps of the Brain: Unveiling Complexity with Spatial Omics

“If you look at the brain chemically, it’s like a soup with a bunch of ingredients,” said Dr. Fan Lam.

Can we map the brain to show its behavior patterns when a patient is healthy and sick? This is what a recent study published in Nature Methods hopes to address as a team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign used a $3 million grant obtained from the National Institute of Aging to develop a novel approach to mapping brain behavior when a patient is both healthy and sick. This study holds the potential to help researchers, medical professionals, and patients better understand how to treat diseases.

“If you look at the brain chemically, it’s like a soup with a bunch of ingredients,” said Dr. Fan Lam, who is an assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a co-author on the study. “Understanding the biochemistry of the brain, how it organizes spatiotemporally, and how those chemical reactions support computing is critical to having a better idea of how the brain functions in health as well as during disease.”

For the study, the researchers used a type of technology called spatial omics and combined this with deep learning to produce 3D datasets to unveil the brain’s myriad of characteristics down to the molecular level. Through this, the team has developed a novel method in monitoring brain activity when a patient is both healthy and sick, including the ability to identify complex neurological diseases.

Vaping, Irregular Meals, and Headaches: Insights from a University of Calgary-Led Study

Is there a connection between vaping cigarettes or cannabis, irregular mealtimes, and frequent headaches in individuals under 18 years of age? This is what a recent study published in the journal Neurology hopes to address as a team of researchers from the University of Calgary investigated how lifestyle choices combined with vaping could result in frequent headaches among youth. This study holds the potential to help researchers, medical professionals, and the public better understand the short-and long-term health risks associated with vaping cigarettes or cannabis.

For the study, the researchers enlisted 4,978,370 participants aged between 5 and 17 years for a health survey with the goal of ascertaining a connection between lifestyle choices—vaping, irregular mealtimes, and extended periods of screen time—and the frequency of headaches they reported as part of the survey. In the end, the researchers found that 6.1 percent of the participants experienced frequent headaches who also exhibited the aforementioned lifestyle choices, specifically including e-cigarettes and smoking in the house.

“These results are important because there is surprisingly little research looking at lifestyle and headaches in kids and teens,” said Dr. Serena Orr, MD, who is an assistant professor of pediatrics, community health sciences, and clinical neurosciences at the University of Calgary and a co-author on the study. “As a headache neurologist, I think that it’s critical to understand the role that lifestyle factors play, because prescribing medication alone is not the ideal way of treating headaches at any age.”

Transforming the cardiometabolic disease landscape: Multimodal AI-powered approaches in prevention and management

Multimodal #AI for better prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic diseases.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized various scientific fields, particularly in medicine, where it has enabled the modeling of complex relationships from massive datasets. Initially, AI algorithms focused on improved interpretation of diagnostic studies such as chest X-rays and electrocardiograms in addition to predicting patient outcomes and future disease onset. However, AI has evolved with the introduction of transformer models, allowing analysis of the diverse, multimodal data sources existing in medicine today.

Leprosy may now be endemic in Florida, report suggests

Cases of leprosy have increased in Florida and the southeastern United States over the last decade, according to a new report.

Leprosy, officially called Hansen’s disease, is a rare type of bacterial infection that attacks the nerves and can cause swelling under the skin. The new research paper, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, found that reported cases doubled in the Southeast over the last 10 years.

Central Florida in particular has seen a disproportionate share of cases, which indicates it might be an endemic location for the disease, meaning leprosy has a consistent presence in the region’s population rather than popping up in the form of one-off outbreaks.

AI and predictive medicine: Recent advances

In a recent review published in the Journal of Human Genetics, a group of authors explored the potential of deep learning (DL), particularly convolutional neural networks (CNNs), in enhancing predictive modeling for omics data analysis, addressing challenges and future research directions.

Study: Advances in AI and machine learning for predictive medicine. Image Credit: NicoElNino/Shutterstock.com.

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