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Category: neuroscience – Page 32

Astrocytes clear amyloid plaques and preserve cognitive function in Alzheimer’s mouse models

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have discovered a natural mechanism that clears existing amyloid plaques in the brains of mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease and preserves cognitive function. The mechanism involves recruiting brain cells known as astrocytes, star-shaped cells in the brain, to remove the toxic amyloid plaques that build up in many Alzheimer’s disease brains.

Increasing the production of Sox9, a key protein that regulates functions during aging, triggered the astrocytes’ ability to remove . The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggests a potential astrocyte-based therapeutic approach to ameliorate cognitive decline in neurodegenerative disease.

“Astrocytes perform diverse tasks that are essential for normal brain function, including facilitating brain communications and memory storage. As the brain ages, astrocytes show profound functional alterations; however, the role these alterations play in aging and neurodegeneration is not yet understood,” said first author Dr. Dong-Joo Choi, who was at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy and the Department of Neurosurgery at Baylor while he was working on this project. Choi currently is an assistant professor at the Center for Neuroimmunology and Glial Biology, Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

The Batman effect: The mere sight of the ‘superhero’ can make us more altruistic

If “Batman” appears on the scene, we immediately become more altruistic: in fact, research conducted by psychologists from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, shows that the sudden appearance of something unexpected—Batman—disrupts the predictability of everyday life and forces people to be present, breaking free from autopilot.

The study was published in the journal npj Mental Health Research, and was led by Francesco Pagnini, Full Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology, Università Cattolica.

Prosocial behavior, or the act of helping others, is essential to social life, yet the spontaneous environmental factors that trigger such behavior remain little explored. This study tested the ability of an unexpected event, such as the presence of a person dressed as Batman, to increase prosocial behavior by interrupting routines and increasing people’s attention to the present moment.

Arginine supplementation curbs Alzheimer’s disease pathology in animal models

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, is one of the leading causes of dementia worldwide, and currently has no definitive cure. Although antibody-based therapies that target amyloid β (Aβ) have recently been developed, their clinical effectiveness remains limited. These treatments can be costly and cause immune-related side effects, highlighting the need for safer, affordable, and widely accessible approaches that can slow the progression of AD.

In a study, published online on October 30, 2025, in Neurochemistry International, researchers from Kindai University and collaborating institutions discovered that oral administration of arginine, a naturally occurring amino acid and safe chemical chaperone, effectively suppresses Aβ aggregation and its toxic effects in animal models of AD.

The researchers emphasized that although arginine is available as an over-the-counter dietary supplement, the dosage and administration protocol employed in this study was optimized for research purposes and does not correspond to commercially available formulations.

Some children’s tantrums can be seen in the brain, new study reveals

In the search for a way to measure different forms of a condition called sensory processing disorder, neuroscientists are using imaging to see how young brains process sensory stimulation.

Now, investigators at UC San Francisco have found a distinctive pattern for overwhelm in some children who are overly sensitive to sound, touch, and visual information. The finding could one day help clinicians refine treatments for kids who have strong emotional and behavioral reactions, such as tantrums, to their sensory environment.

Sensory processing disorder affects how the brain understands and responds to sensory information but still lacks an official medical diagnosis. The study appeared in the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders on Nov. 21, 2025.

New implant captures gut-brain signals in awake, moving animals

Scientists have been able to measure the electrical signals in the “second brain in our guts” for the first-ever time, giving renewed understanding to its interconnection with the brain.

Researchers from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CEB) and Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth have created a miniature device, thinner than the width of a hair, that can be placed between the layers of the colon to record these signals.

The device, a soft, flexible electronic implant, has been tested in rodents and pigs so far and works even in freely moving animals, detecting responses to various stimulants and physical pressure.

Cortical GABAergic projection neurons are implicated in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia stems from abnormal brain development, which can begin even before birth. Yet symptoms typically don’t appear until later in life.

“For a long time, the brain is able to compensate for developmental errors and maintain relatively normal function. But at some point, it’s like a chain snapping — the brain can no longer compensate, and that’s when symptoms emerge. Until that point, however, prevention should be possible,” says one of the study’s first authors.

They investigated when this turning point occurs. By tracking brain development from the fetal stage to adulthood, they found that dramatic changes happen late in the brain’s development. Up until the transition from childhood to adolescence, molecular and functional changes in the brain were rather minor, likely explaining lack of symptoms before adolescence.

The researchers have worked with mice carrying a specific genetic mutation known as “15q13.3 microdeletion syndrome.” In humans, this syndrome is associated with epilepsy, schizophrenia, autism, and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

“We know that sleep is often disrupted in people with psychiatric disorders, so we chose to use sleep as a behavioral marker—something we could observe. We examined both the mice’s behavior and the activity of a specific type of brain cell. Our findings show that one particular cell type (γ-aminobutyric acid (GABAergic) projecting neurons) is significantly affected in the test animals compared to healthy mice,” explains the author.

These GABAergic rare brain cells are often overlooked because they make up only a tiny fraction of the brain’s total cell population. Nevertheless, they play a crucial role in regulating many brain functions.

The new study not only demonstrates a link between this specific type of brain cell and sleep — it also shows that the mice’s sleep patterns began to resemble those of healthy mice when researchers reduced the activity of the cell type in question.

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Ambient Air Pollution and the Severity of Alzheimer Disease Neuropathology

Higher levels of fine particulate matter air pollution was associated with increased dementia severity and increased Alzheimer disease neuropathologic change.

Importance Exposure to fine particulate matter air pollution (PM2.5) may increase risk for dementia. It is unknown whether this association is mediated by dementia-related neuropathologic change found at autopsy.

Objective To examine associations between PM2.5 exposure, dementia severity, and dementia-associated neuropathologic change.

Design, Setting, and Participants This cohort study used data associated with autopsy cases collected from 1999 to 2022 at the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research Brain Bank at the University of Pennsylvania. Data were analyzed from January to June 2025. Participants included 602 cases with common forms of dementia and/or movement disorders and older controls after excluding 429 cases with missing data on neuropathologic measures, demographic factors, APOE genotype, or residential address.

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