This comprehensive review of the relationship between uncontrolled inflammation in upper respiratory tract viral infections and the development of neurodegenerative diseases reveals the importance and possibility of the JAK-STAT-ROCK2 signaling pathway in the treatment of both.
Category: neuroscience – Page 9
Discovery reveals aging human brains receive immune cell reinforcements from blood
The brain’s immune system has long been thought to exist independently from the rest of the body, complete with its own specialized immune cells and a blood-brain barrier that limits what can travel into the brain.
Now, Stanford researchers have found that aging brings with it a large influx of immune cells into the brain, a discovery that not only upends current thinking but could also open new avenues for treating neurological disease. The researchers describe their results in the journal Nature.
“We usually think of the brain as a closed system,” said Julia Belk, a postdoctoral scholar in pathology at Stanford Medicine and first author on the new study. “What we found is that actually a lot of immune cells enter the human brain during aging.”
Engineered human neurons rebuild damaged spinal cord circuits
Spinal cord injuries affect an estimated 15 to 20 million people worldwide, often causing lasting impairments in movement, sensation and independence. Such injuries can be especially devastating when they occur at the level of the neck, where damaged spinal circuits disrupt signals that control the diaphragm, the main muscle used for breathing.
Despite advances in emergency care and rehabilitation, no approved therapies exist to rebuild the neurons and connections lost after a spinal cord injury. But new research from scientists at Gladstone Institutes offers hope for a regenerative treatment in the future.
The study, published in Science Translational Medicine, shows that human stem cell-derived spinal interneurons—cells that are critical for breathing and movement— can survive after being transplanted in injured rats, connect with the animals’ own neural circuits and improve breathing-related motor function.
Restoring Saliva Flow May Improve Oral Health in Down Syndrome
However, Carpenter was not entirely convinced that hyposalivation drives periodontitis. “I don’t think there’s much evidence for that in…literature about human studies,” he said. Instead, he said that inflammation—which is present in Dp16 salivary glands—could cause hyposalivation. “There’s lots of literature that shows that inflammatory cells can affect salivary secretion,” he noted.
According to Yule, next steps could include looking at whether dysregulated calcium signaling—which is linked with several other diseases—also underlies other Down syndrome-related complications like Alzheimer’s disease. While drugs targeting calcium signaling could potentially help, there is a complexity to it, he noted. “Knowing what the target is [is] good, but the fact that the target is almost universal in cells, then that makes you think about whether it’s something that could be targeted,” explained Yule.
Lacruz agreed that disrupted calcium signaling occurs in other tissues as well. “Understanding why calcium is dysregulated is an important part of what we need to do [next],” he said. More work needs to be done to translate the findings to the clinic, “but we see that as a way forward to potentially impacting the lives of individuals with Down syndrome,” said Lacruz.
Chronic Stress and Headaches: The Role of the HPA Axis and Autonomic Nervous System
Chronic stress significantly influences the pathogenesis of headache disorders, affecting millions worldwide. This review explores the intricate relationship between stress and headaches, focusing on the dysregulation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and autonomic nervous system (ANS). Persistent stress could lead to neuroinflammation, increased pain sensitivity, and vascular changes that could contribute to headache development and progression. The bidirectional nature of this relationship creates a vicious cycle, with recurrent headaches becoming a source of additional stress. Dysregulation of the HPA axis and ANS imbalance could amplify susceptibility to headaches, intensifying their frequency and severity. While pharmacological interventions remain common, non-pharmacological approaches targeting stress reduction, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, biofeedback, and relaxation techniques, offer promising avenues for comprehensive headache management. By addressing the underlying stress-related mechanisms, these approaches provide a sustainable strategy to reduce headache frequency and improve patients’ quality of life.
A crossvertebrate brain protein interaction map identifies conserved neural and nonneural complexes
Dang et al. use co-fractionation and immunoprecipitation mass spectrometry to map protein interactions conserved across vertebrate brains. This resource, dubbed VerteBrain, offers insights into brain protein function and new links between proteins and disease, identifying candidate genes and pathways involved in epilepsy, deafness, and developmental disorders.
Women with narcissistic tendencies may struggle with forgiveness
Narcissism is associated with selfishness and other negative traits like a grandiose sense of self-importance, a constant need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. So it may not be surprising that narcissists tend to have a hard time with behaviors associated with better mental health and healthy relationships, like forgiveness. But a new study, published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, explores how people with a particular type of narcissism automatically respond to interpersonal offenses by measuring their tendencies to seek revenge, avoid the person who offended them or act in a benevolent manner.
Past findings on narcissism and forgiveness have been mixed, partly because they treated narcissism as a single trait. However, most researchers agree that narcissism is not a single trait. The authors of the new study say that it is commonly divided into two higher-order domains: grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.
These domains are further refined into antagonistic narcissism, defined by hostility and reactive self-defensiveness; agentic extraversion, defined by self-promoting and self-enhancement tendencies; and narcissistic neuroticism, defined by insecurity and social withdrawal. The new study focuses on antagonistic narcissism, which involves traits such as entitlement, hostility and exploiting others.
