Lifeboat Foundation

Summary: Almost fifty percent of people who have children with partners suffering from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder also have mental health challenges, a new study reports.

Source: Aarhus University.

Almost half of the parents who have children together with a parent with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, are themselves burdened by psychological issues. This can affect family life and the children. This is shown in the research result from the major Danish psychiatry project iPSYCH.

“This work confirms that there is a link between air pollution and how well the aging brain works,” senior study author and Columbia University researcher Andrea Baccarelli told The Guardian. “These shorter-term effects are reversible: when air pollution clears, our brain reboots and starts working back to its original level. However, multiple occurrences of these higher exposures cause permanent damage.”

Thankfully, it’s reversible.

These findings may have implications for brain disease, disorders.

Scientists at the Krembil Brain Institute, part of University Health Network (UHN), in collaboration with colleagues at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), have used precious and rare access to live human cortical tissue to identify functionally important features that make human neurons unique.

This experimental work is among the first of its kind on live human neurons and one of the largest studies of the diversity of human cortical pyramidal cells to date.

Summary: A new study sheds light on how highly sensitive people process information. After experiencing something emotionally evocative, brain activity displayed a depth of processing while at rest. Depth of processing is a key feature of high emotional sensitivity.

Source: UC Santa Barbara.

You know that raw overwhelm people have been reporting after months of a pandemic, compounded by economic issues and social unrest? Does fatigue and compulsive social media scrolling strike a familiar chord?

Aging is the biggest risk factor for perturbation of the nervous system, even in the absence of distinct disease or trauma. For yet unknown reasons, the impulse conducting, myelinated projections and synaptic connections between nerve cells are especially vulnerable to aging-related degeneration. These pathological alterations often manifest as cognitive, sensory, and motor decline in older adults and represent a serious socio-economic challenge.

Malactivation leads to damage

Scientists have long assumed that inflammation plays an important role in this process. Mal-or overactivation of distinct cells belonging to the innate immune system—the microglia—appears to promote damage of nerve fibers and synapses in the aging central nervous system (CNS). In a recent project, scientists of the University Hospital Würzburg have now discovered an important role of the adaptive immune system.

A mental health startup built its business on easy-to-use technology. Patients joined in droves. Then came a catastrophic data breach.

LX1001, a gene therapy for Alzheimer’s disease being developed by Lexeo Therapeutics, has been granted fast track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The therapy is designed to deliver a version of the APOE gene, called APOE2, to cells in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) using an engineered viral vector.

Every person inherits two copies of the APOE gene, one from each biological parent. There are three versions of the APOE gene, called alleles — APOE2, APOE3, and APOE4 (often abbreviated to E2, E3, and E4). The specific combination of alleles a person has affects their Alzheimer’s risk. Broadly, the E2 allele is associated with lower Alzheimer’s risk, whereas the E4 allele is linked to increased disease risk. As such, LX1001 is designed to deliver the protective allele (APOE2).

Summary: Morning bright light therapy improved both physical and mental health symptoms, including cognitive function and sleep quality, in veterans who suffered TBI.

Source: Experimental Biology.

A new study by researchers at the VA Portland Health Care System in Oregon found that augmenting traditional treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI) with morning bright light therapy (MBLT) improved physical and mental symptoms for participants.

The study is part of an effort by entrepreneurs and scientists, dreamers and schemers, to demonstrate aging is not inevitable.