Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 49

With applications ranging from experimental physics to quantum field exploration, these high-energy lasers are more than scientific curiosities — they’re becoming symbols of technological ambition and geopolitical strength.

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Could help determine which patients are likely to benefit from new Alzheimer’s drugs. A newly developed blood test for Alzheimer’s disease not only aids in the diagnosis of the neurodegenerative condition but also indicates how far it has progressed, according to a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Lund University in Sweden.

Several blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease are already clinically available, including two based on technology licensed from WashU. Such tests help doctors diagnose the disease in people with cognitive symptoms, but do not indicate the clinical stage of the disease symptoms — that is, the degree of impairment in thinking or memory due to Alzheimer’s dementia. Current Alzheimer’s therapies are most effective in early stages of the disease, so having a relatively easy and reliable way to gauge how far the disease has progressed could help doctors determine which patients are likely to benefit from drug treatment and to what extent. The new test can also provide insight on whether a person’s symptoms are likely due to Alzheimer’s versus some other cause.

The study is published March 31 in Nature Medicine.

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A study from MLU found that brain stimulation using tDCS can slightly influence decision speed and flexibility, though its effects are subtle and context-dependent. A new study from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, has found that

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A 70-year-old man presented to the emergency department with a painful exacerbation of right trigeminal neuralgia, managed for 5 years with carbamazepine. Clinical examination revealed binocular diplopia due to an abduction deficit in the right eye and hypoesthesia in all divisions of the right trigeminal nerve (V1, V2, V3), without clinical signs of right VII or VIII cranial nerve involvement. High-resolution 3D T2-weighted steady-state MRI (Figure) revealed vertebrobasilar dolichoectasia (VD) with deviation of the right fifth cranial nerve root, complete atrophy of the right sixth cranial nerve, and deviation of the right acoustic-facial nerve bundle.

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Although VD mainly causes ischemic stroke or brainstem compression, cranial nerve involvement is rare. Abducens nerve compression is exceptional, with 11 cases reported up to 2020,1 and combined fifth and sixth nerve involvement even rarer (2 cases).2.

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