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Category: health – Page 2

Sleep patterns linked to variation in health, cognition, lifestyle and brain organization

Researchers led by Aurore Perrault at Concordia University, Canada and Valeria Kebets at McGill University, Canada, have used a complex data-driven analysis to uncover relationships among multiple aspects of sleep and individual variation in health, cognition, and lifestyle.

Published in PLOS Biology, the study reveals five –biopsychosocial profiles and their associated patterns of functional connectivity among brain regions.

Most studies of sleep focus on a single aspect, such as duration, and examine how it relates to a single outcome, like poor mental health. However, trying to understand and predict outcomes by combining the results of many different single-association studies invariably fails. The new study by Perrault and team takes a different approach. Using a sample of 770 people from the Human Connectome Project dataset, they conducted a multivariate, data-driven analysis.

AI-radar system tracks subtle health changes by assessing patient’s walk

Engineering and health researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a radar and artificial intelligence (AI) system that can monitor multiple people walking in busy hospitals and long-term care facilities to identify possible health issues.

The new technology—housed in a wall-mounted device about the size of a deck of cards—uses AI software and radar hardware to accurately measure how fast each person is walking. A paper on their work, “Non-contact, non-visual, multi-person hallway gait monitoring,” appears in Scientific Reports.

“Walking speed is often called a functional vital sign because even subtle declines can be an early warning of health problems,” said Dr. Hajar Abedi, a former postdoctoral researcher in electrical and computer engineering at Waterloo.

Geomagnetic disturbances caused by sun may influence occurrence of heart attacks, especially among women

An article published in the journal Communications Medicine points to a correlation between disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field resulting from solar storms and an increase in the frequency of heart attacks, especially among women.

The authors reached this conclusion by analyzing data from the public health network of São José dos Campos, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, recorded between 1998 and 2005, a period considered to be one of intense solar activity.

Focusing on hospital admissions for myocardial infarction, the analysis included information from 871 men and 469 women. Data from the Planetary Index (Kp-Index), an indicator of variations in Earth’s geomagnetic field, were also incorporated into the statistical analysis.

Social threat perceptions in youth linked to altered brain connectivity

Researchers at UCL Institute of Education, King’s College London, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and UCLA report that perceived social threats in early adolescence are associated with altered connectivity in default mode, dorsal attention, frontoparietal, and cingulo-opercular networks and with higher mental health symptom scores months later.

Adolescence is a difficult age, a time of rapid neurobiological and psychological change amidst shifting . In 2021, CDC reported that 40% of U.S. struggled with persistent sadness or hopelessness, and more than one in six had made a suicide plan.

Perceived threats in a child’s social environment, within the family, at school, and in the neighborhood, are known risk factors for adolescent psychopathology.

Epigenetic shifts link maternal infection during pregnancy to higher risk of offspring developing schizophrenia

The health of mothers during pregnancy has long been known to play a role in the lifelong mental and physical health of offspring. Recent studies have found that contracting an infection during pregnancy can increase the risk that offspring will develop some neurodevelopmental disorders, conditions that are associated with the atypical maturation of some parts of the brain.

An infection is an invasion of pathogens, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites, which can then multiply and colonize host tissues. Findings suggest that when an expecting mother contracts an infection, her immune system can respond to it in ways that could impact the development of the fetus.

Researchers at University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University recently carried out a study aimed at further investigating the processes through which maternal infections during pregnancy could increase the risk that offspring will develop schizophrenia later in life. Schizophrenia is a typically debilitating mental health condition characterized by hallucinations, false beliefs about oneself or the world (e.g., delusions) and cognitive impairments.

Stretchable waveguides maintain stable transmission even when bent or twisted

Researchers have designed and demonstrated stretchable waveguides that maintain efficient, stable signal transmission of surface plasmon polaritons even when bent, twisted or stretched. These plasmonic waveguides could make it possible to seamlessly embed advanced sensing, communication and health monitoring functions into everyday wearable materials.

Plasmonic waveguides are tiny structures that guide light by coupling it with electrons on a . The new flexible waveguides transmit what are known as spoof surface plasmon polaritons, which are formed with — in this case—rather than the conventional infrared or .

“Although our work is still at the research stage, it highlights the exciting possibility of merging advanced electromagnetic technologies with soft, stretchable materials,” said research team leader Zuojia Wang from Zhejiang University. “This brings us closer to a future where advanced health care and connectivity are integrated into what we wear.”

Neuroscientists can now predict dementia from the way you breathe in your sleep

Scientists have discovered that disrupted breathing during sleep, particularly conditions like sleep apnea, creates a measurable cascade of brain changes that predicts cognitive decline with startling accuracy.

Recent research analyzing over one million health records found that people with sleep-disordered breathing face between 1.3 and 5.11 times higher risk of developing various forms of dementia, depending on the specific condition.

The most dramatic finding: those with documented sleep breathing problems showed dementia risk ratios that peaked above five-fold for certain neurodegenerative diseases.

New Pill Lowers Stubborn Blood Pressure and May Slow Kidney Disease

A new drug lowered blood pressure and improved kidney health markers in high-risk patients. Phase 3 trials will test its long-term effects. Preliminary research suggests that adding the new medication baxdrostat to standard treatment may help lower blood pressure and slow the progression of kidne

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