Lifeboat Foundation

Children whose mothers had a higher exposure to certain phthalates during pregnancy tend to show smaller total gray matter in their brains at age 10. This is one of the main conclusions of a study led by the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), and published in Molecular Psychiatry.

The study also found that maternal exposure to plasticizers during pregnancy is associated with lower child IQ at age 14, which confirmed the results of two previous study on the topic. Moreover, the research team observed that this relationship between exposure to certain phthalates and lower child IQ is partially influenced by total gray matter volumes. In other words: exposure to plasticizers before birth could lead to smaller total gray matter in childhood, which in turn could be related to a lower IQ.

Finally, the results showed an association between gestational exposure to plasticizers and smaller white matter volumes in girls.

Engineering researchers at Lehigh University have discovered that sand can actually flow uphill.

The team’s findings were published today in the journal Nature Communications. A corresponding video shows what happens when torque and an attractive force is applied to each grain—the grains flow uphill, up walls, and up and down stairs.

Continue reading “Researchers make sand that flows uphill” »

Planet Earth is about to receive a special delivery—the biggest sample yet from an asteroid.

A NASA spacecraft will fly by Earth on Sunday and drop off what is expected to be at least a cupful of rubble it grabbed from the asteroid Bennu, closing out a seven-year quest.

Continue reading “NASA spacecraft delivering biggest sample yet from an asteroid” »

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of long-term disability and premature death, especially among military personnel and those playing contact sports. Substantial research has examined acute and chronic neurological consequences of TBI; however, non-neurological conditions associated with TBI are understudied.

A new review paper by investigators from Mass General Brigham presents key findings on long-term associations between TBI and cardiovascular disease, highlighting that nervous system dysfunction, neuroinflammation, changes in the brain-gut connection, and post-injury comorbidities may elevate risk of both cardiovascular and cognitive dysfunction in TBI survivors compared to the general population.

The review, published in The Lancet Neurology, emphasizes the need for future cardiovascular research, surveillance and intervention in TBI survivors.

Psychoses like schizophrenia cost billions of dollars annually and derail the lives of people struggling with the disease. Now Monash University researchers have modeled how the effects of psychosis spread through the brain, allowing them to isolate areas where these changes may originate from and which could be targeted by therapies designed to reduce the disease’s progression.

Scientists have revealed the molecular structure of a type of receptor that’s crucial to brain development and function.

Known as Type A GABA receptors, these receptors are already targeted by pharmaceutical anesthetics, sedatives and antidepressants because of their important role in brain function. The discovery, published today in the journal Nature, reveals the dominant assemblies and states of the GABA receptor, a finding that could enable the development of new compounds that more specifically target a range of medical disorders.

“It is the main player that balances excitation and inhibition in the brain,” said lead author Chang Sun, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the Vollum Institute at Oregon Health & Science University. “It affects all aspects of brain function, from motor function, to memory and learning, and also emotion and anxiety.”

New research from the University of Missouri School of Medicine suggests there may be another way to treat cigarette cravings. Researchers found that theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (TBS)—strong, rapidly fluctuating magnetic field pulses that can affect brain activity—can lead to improved self-control, reduced cravings and as a result, less smoking.

People with nicotine dependence tend to have significant structural and functional differences in the brain, compared to healthy non-smokers. Smoking cigarettes has been shown to be associated with less gray matter, which means they have less neurons and other cells in the brain.

Research suggests these differences may affect inhibitory control (IC), which is our control over automatic urges and response to stimuli—what enables humans to stop an impulsive reaction to something.

The opioid epidemic in the United States has exacted an incalculable toll on individuals and communities, creating an urgent need for alternative painkillers. The search for non-opioid treatments is crucial, not only to mitigate the risks of addiction and overdose, but also to develop pain management tools that remain effective without inducing tolerance and other challenging side effects in patients.

New research from the University of Chicago identified an alternative signaling pathway in the brain of mice that relieves pain, even in animals that have developed tolerance to opioids.

The study, titled “A Cholinergic Circuit That Relieves Pain, Despite Opioid Tolerance” and published in Neuron, also showed that pain relief through this route did not induce tolerance, did not create withdrawals symptoms after treatment was stopped, and did not activate reward systems, limiting risk for addiction and making it a viable path to developing effective, non-opioid pain relief.

You’re looking at a truck. You’re with a young child and he follows your gaze. He’s interested in the object you’re looking at without you pointing at it. This is called joint attention and it is one of the primary ways children learn to connect words with objects and acquire language.

Lack of joint attention is a core feature of autism. Until now, it was thought that stimulating joint attention in people with autism would help them express themselves verbally. But a meta-analysis of 71 studies on autism challenges this assumption and suggests that people with autism spectrum disorders may acquire language differently.

The study—by Laurent Mottron, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Addiction at Université de Montréal and a psychiatrist at the Hôpital en santé mentale Rivière-des-Prairies of the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal; Mikhail Kissine, a professor of linguistics at Université Libre de Bruxelles; and Ariane St-Denis, a medical student at McGill University—is published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.