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A soft exoskeleton could restore hand function in people with motor impairments

Recent technological advances have opened valuable possibilities for supporting people with motor impairments or who are recovering from injuries to the brain, spinal cord or nerves. Millions of people worldwide currently experience difficulty moving their hands or other parts of their body. Some of these motor impairments are associated with progressive neurodegenerative diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), while others are the result of neurological damage caused by an injury or a stroke.

Researchers at Technical University of Munich and the Center for Rehabilitation Passauer Wolf recently developed a new lightweight, soft exoskeleton that could allow people with severe motor impairments to move their hands again and grasp objects. The new robotic system, introduced in a paper published in Nature Machine Intelligence, combines an advanced mechanical design with muscle-sensing technology and artificial intelligence (AI).

“This recent paper discusses restoring hand function for individuals with severe hand impairment,” Gordon Cheng, who led the study, told Tech Xplore. “Hand functions are critical to every aspect of life. The patient we were working with has near-complete hand function loss, and our work aims to help people with such needs.”

UCSF and Samsung launch remote study on aging brain health

An innovative new study from the Neuroscape research center at UCSF, and consumer electronics giant Samsung seeks to understand decade-by-decade changes in brain health.

The Neuroscape Technology for Aging Health — Digital Approaches (TAH-DA) longitudinal study, seeks to identify biometric predictors of cognitive decline over the course of a year, using Samsung wearable technology.

Samsung fosters innovation and transformational health research in collaboration with leading institutions to explore new health technologies and a novel prescriptive on wellness. The TAH-DA study is another example of Samsung’s work to understand the unique connection between the brain and wellness.

FCC approves first Reflect Orbital satellite

TOKYO — The Federal Communications Commission has given its approval for a satellite that will test the ability to reflect sunlight into nighttime regions, a project sharply criticized by astronomers and environmentalists.

The FCC on July 9 formally authorized the launch of Eärendil-1, a satellite developed by Reflect Orbital that will deploy a thin-film reflector 18 meters on a side in low Earth orbit, reflecting sunlight to the ground.

The 142-kilogram spacecraft is scheduled to launch later this year into an orbit 600 to 650 kilometers in altitude, where it will deploy the reflector. The company plans to use the spacecraft to test its ability to direct reflected sunlight to specific areas on Earth for several minutes at a time.

New soft wearable device could support at-home sleep monitoring

Good sleep is essential for brain health. During sleep and rest, the glymphatic system, the brain’s waste-clearing process, helps remove metabolic waste that accumulates during waking hours. This activity is linked to memory processing, cognitive function and neural recovery. When sleep quality is poor, metabolic waste may accumulate, potentially disrupting cognitive function and memory formation.

Traditional approaches to brain monitoring are often invasive, costly and limited to clinical settings. New research from Georgia Tech points to a more accessible approach. A study published in Science Advances shows that a soft, wireless wearable device could help enable home-based monitoring of physiological changes associated with sleep and brain health.

The research team, led by W. Hong Yeo, Peterson Endowed Professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Wearable Intelligent Systems and Healthcare Center and the Korea KIAT-Georgia Tech Semiconductor Electronics Center, developed a wearable device that uses light-based sensing and wireless communication to support natural sleep monitoring at home.

Discoveries: Short Takes on Cutting-Edge Research

Scientists Reveal a Hidden “Smell Map” Connecting the Nose and Brain.

Harvard Medical School researchers have created the first detailed spatial map of how more than 1,100 types of olfactory receptors are organized in the mouse nose. Contrary to the long-standing idea that smell receptors are scattered somewhat randomly within broad regions, the team found that receptor-expressing neurons occupy precise, overlapping bands across the olfactory epithelium.

Using single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, and advanced microscopy, researchers analyzed millions of olfactory sensory neurons from hundreds of mice. Each sensory neuron expresses one receptor type, and its position within the developing nasal tissue helps influence which receptor it selects. The signaling molecule retinoic acid appears to help establish this spatial organization.

Remarkably, this map in the nose aligns with the organization of corresponding neurons in the olfactory bulb—the brain’s first major processing center for smell. This suggests that olfaction, like vision, hearing, and touch, relies on an orderly topographic system linking sensory receptors to specific neural destinations.

The findings provide a new framework for studying how odors are encoded, how olfactory circuits develop, and why the sense of smell may be disrupted by infections, aging, injury, medications, or cancer treatments. The research could eventually inform strategies for treating anosmia and other smell disorders, although the work was conducted in mice and researchers have not yet established whether the same detailed organization exists in humans.

Study: Brann et al., Cell DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.03.

#Neuroscience #Olfaction #SenseOfSmell #BrainResearch #SensoryNeuroscience #HarvardMedicalSchool #Neurobiology #SpatialTranscriptomics

Continue reading “Discoveries: Short Takes on Cutting-Edge Research” | >

Genetic mapping identifies new hope for bone diseases

In a global breakthrough published in Nature Genetics, researchers have successfully mapped the cells and genes that regulate bone formation and loss at an unprecedented scale and discovered the critical role that blood vessel cells play in bone health.

By combining genomic sequencing with data from half a million individuals, the research team identified hundreds of previously unknown genes that govern bone health and revealed cells surrounding blood vessels as one of the drivers of bone repair—a role that has been underappreciated until now.

Led by Professor Peter Croucher and Dr. Ryan Chai from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Associate Professor John Kemp from Mater Research, and Professor Graham Williams and Professor Duncan Bassett from Imperial College London, the team’s findings fundamentally enhance our understanding of skeletal disease.

Do your dreams have smells? New study on ‘blind minds’ reveals vast differences in imagination

It’s common to think we all have similar experiences of life. But the more we learn about other people’s hidden thoughts, the more evidence there is that this is untrue. For instance, not everyone has the same ability to have imagined sensations. Most people can visualize—they can have imagined experiences of seeing people and scenes that aren’t there. But not everyone can.

We are both visual aphantasics, which means we can’t voluntarily imagine seeing things in our minds’ eyes. When we read a book, neither of us can imagine seeing the characters.

Yet other types of our waking imagined experiences are quite different. Derek can imagine hearing snippets of music at will, but Loren has a silent mind. She can’t even imagine hearing herself talk. Loren can have vivid imagined feelings of touch, taste and smell, but Derek doesn’t have any of these.

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