Culture
Differences in the microstructure of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), a region in the brain that plays an important role in processing food and other reward stimuli, predict increases in indicators of obesity in children, according to a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and nine other institutes, all part of the National Institutes of Health.
NASA's Terra satellite obtained visible imagery as Tropical Storm Delta made landfall in Louisiana and moved northeastward soaking the U.S. southeast and Mid-Atlantic states.
NASA Satellite View: Delta's Organization
Ankush Gosain, MD, PhD, of Le Bonheur Children's Hospital and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center has focused his research on determining the mechanisms underlying abnormal development of the enteric nervous system in Hirschsprung disease. Gosain recently published a new study in The FASEB Journal delineating interactions between migrating neural crest cells and the extracellular matrix in a model of Hirschsprung disease using a variety of in vitro and in vivo approaches.
The experience of police violence is associated with mental and emotional trauma distinct from that caused by other kinds of violence, creating a public health crisis for communities most affected.
Simply put, the experience of police violence puts Black, Latino, Indigenous, and sexual minority communities at higher risk of distinct mental health problems, in addition to greater risk of death at the hands of police, according to the paper.
A team of researchers from the Florida State University College of Medicine has found that an amino acid produced by the brain could play a crucial role in preventing a type of epileptic seizure.
Temporal lobe epileptic seizures are debilitating and can cause lasting damage in patients, including neuronal death and loss of neuron function.
Sanjay Kumar, an associate professor in the College of Medicine's Department of Biomedical Sciences, and his team are paving the way toward finding effective therapies for this disease.
URBANA, Ill. - For vegetable growers, weeds can mean lost income from reduced yield and foreign plant matter contaminating the harvest. But for many crops, particularly vegetable legumes, weed management options are very limited.
The closer people are physically to one another, the higher the chance for exchange, of things like ideas, information, and even infection. Now researchers at MIT and Boston Children's Hospital have found that, even in the microscopic environment within a single cell, physical crowding increases the chance for interactions, in a way that can significantly alter a cell's health and development.
In cities, humans replace the natural ground cover with roofs, pavement and other artificial materials that are impervious to water. These surfaces significantly change how the land absorbs and releases energy and cause the urban heat island effect, a phenomenon where developed areas get hotter than nearby rural areas. As climate change pushes many cities towards dangerous temperatures, planners are scrambling to mitigate excessive heat.
Watching high quality nature programmes on TV can uplift people's moods, reduce negative emotions, and help alleviate the kind of boredom associated with being isolated indoors, according to a new study published today in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.
The research has also shown that experiencing nature in virtual reality could have even larger benefits, boosting positive feelings and increasing people's connection to the natural world.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD, affects nearly one in four adults in Europe and the U.S. Earlier research has demonstrated an increased risk of death in patients with NAFLD and advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. show that mortality increases with disease severity, but even mild fatty liver disease is linked to higher mortality. The findings have been published in the scientific journal Gut.
The human blood meal is a favorite recipe for female mosquitoes. So drawn to its taste, they can't help but bite--and in the process they spread diseases that claim 500,000 lives each year.
A hormone that influences when and how frequently animals eat also appears to affect memory, USC scientists have found.
The study was published in the journal Current Biology on Sept. 17.
Animals and humans have the hormone ghrelin in their stomachs. Ghrelin tells animals, as well as humans, when they are hungry and helps regulate their metabolism, but scientists have never been certain how exactly it works.
Dendritic spines are small protrusions from a neuron's dendrite membrane, where contact with neighboring axons is formed to receive synaptic input. These spines have different sizes, shapes, and density. Changes in the characteristics of the dendritic spines are associated with learning and memory and could be a feature of neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease. Due to the prominent importance of synaptic contacts, researchers put efforts into reliable visualization and analysis of the dendritic spines.
Natural killer T (NKT) cells, a type of immune cells known for their potent anti-cancer properties in murine tumor models, have been developed into a novel form of immunotherapy to treat patients with cancer.
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have genetically modified human NKT cells with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that enables them to specifically recognize and attack neuroblastoma, a form of childhood cancer. Expressed with the CAR is interleukin-15 (IL-15), a natural protein that supports NKT cell survival.
A new study looking at data from tens of thousands of children with asthma finds that several widely available interventions are associated with both reduced medical costs and a reduced likelihood that the children will need to visit an emergency room or stay in the hospital.