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Category: neuroscience – Page 239

Having healthy mitochondria, the organelles that produce energy in all our cells, usually portends a long healthy life whether in humans or in C. elegans, a tiny, short-lived nematode worm often used to study the aging process.

Researchers at the Buck Institute have identified a new drug-like molecule that keeps mitochondria healthy via mitophagy, a process that removes and recycles damaged mitochondria in multicellular organisms. The compound, dubbed MIC, is a that extended lifespan in C. elegans, ameliorated pathology in neurodegenerative disease models of C. elegans, and improved mitochondrial function in mouse muscle cells. Results are published in the November 13, 2023, edition of Nature Aging.

Defective mitophagy is implicated in many age-related diseases. It’s tied to neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s; it plays a role in cardiovascular diseases including heart failure; it influences metabolic disorders including obesity and type 2 diabetes; it is implicated in muscle wasting and sarcopenia and has a complex relationship with cancer progression.

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Scientists from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) within the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), along with their partners, have designed a targeted gene therapy approach to mitigate the primary motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in both rodents and nonhuman primates.

The study was recently published in the journal Cell.

Parkinson’s disease, characterized by the loss of midbrain dopaminergic neurons, is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases in the elderly population, affecting more than 6 million people worldwide.

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The new research, part of the NIH BRAIN Initiative, paves the way toward treating, preventing, and curing brain disorders.

Salk Institute researchers, as part of a larger collaboration with research teams around the world, analyzed more than half a million brain cells from three human brains to assemble an atlas of hundreds of cell types that make up a human brain in unprecedented detail.

The research, published in a special issue of the journal Science on October 13, 2023, is the first time that techniques to identify brain cell subtypes originally developed and applied in mice have been applied to human brains.

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Researchers at Auburn University have achieved a groundbreaking discovery, illuminating the process by which brain cells efficiently replace older proteins. This process is essential for maintaining effective neural communication and optimal cognitive function.

The findings were published on November 6 in the prestigious journal, Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology. The study, entitled “Recently Recycled Synaptic Vesicles Use Multi-Cytoskeletal Transport and Differential Presynaptic Capture Probability to Establish a Retrograde Net Flux During ISVE in Central Neurons,” explains the transportation and recycling of older proteins in brain cells.

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Psychiatric patients almost twice as likely to have multiple physical ailments – new study.

A new study, conducted by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in collaboration with the University of Cambridge’s Biomedical Research Centre, has revealed significant findings about the physical health of psychiatric patients. This extensive analysis incorporated data from 19 different studies, involving 194,123 psychiatric patients globally, and compared them to 7,660,590 individuals in control groups.

Findings on Multimorbidity.

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Study investigates how maternal metabolic conditions like pregestational diabetes, gestational diabetes, and obesity mediate the risk of neurodevelopmental conditions in children. It highlights the significant role of obstetric and neonatal complications in this relationship, emphasizing the need for managing these complications to mitigate children’s risk of developing conditions like ADHD and autism.

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Mosasaurs were a diverse group of marine lizards which, much like whales and other cetaceans, adapted to life in the oceans. And though we’ve been digging them up for 200 years now, new species are still being discovered. Recently a team of paleontologists discovered not just a new species but an entirely new genus in the Pembina Member of the Pierre Shale Formation in North Dakota, United States.

RELATED: Giant mosasaur digested large prey then spit up the bones

Researchers found a mostly complete skull and jaws as well as 7 cervical vertebrae, 5 anterior dorsal vertebrae, 11 ribs, and 3 structural bones supporting the brain called hypapophyseal peduncles. The bones belonged to an animal which lived approximately 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period. Scientists dubbed the creature Jormungandr walhallaensis for Walhalla, North Dakota where it was found and for Jörmungandr, the world serpent from Norse mythology.

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