Culture
While autistic individuals are less likely to use substances, those who do so are more likely to self-medicate for their mental health symptoms, according to new research from the University of Cambridge and published today in The Lancet Psychiatry.
New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London, in collaboration with the University of Liverpool and the Karolinska Institute, has shown that many of the symptoms in fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) are caused by antibodies that increase the activity of pain-sensing nerves throughout the body.
The results show that fibromyalgia is a disease of the immune system, rather than the currently held view that it originates in the brain.
Scientists have long searched in vain for a class of brain cells that could explain the visceral flash of recognition that we feel when we see a very familiar face, like that of our grandmothers. But the proposed "grandmother neuron"—a single cell at the crossroads of sensory perception and memory, capable of prioritizing an important face over the rabble—remained elusive.
The COVID-19 catastrophe in India has resulted in more than 30 million people infected with the virus and nearly 400,000 deaths, though experts are concerned that the figures most likely are much higher. Meanwhile, another public health crisis has emerged along with COVID-19: the widespread misuse of antibiotics.
Computer models have been standard tools in basic biomedical research for many years. However, around 70 years after the first publication of an ion current model of a nerve cell by Hodgkin & Huxley in 1952, researchers at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), in collaboration with the Medical University of Graz and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, have finally succeeded in developing the world's first cancer cell model, thus launching "an essential tool for modern cancer research and drug development," reports a delighted Christian Baumgartner.
Chronic fatigue syndrome / myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is a disabling disease, in which people have great difficulties in carrying out their daily activities. Despite its high prevalence, there are still no effective tools for its diagnosis, monitoring and treatment.
When researchers at Lund University in Sweden performed advanced analyses of sputum from the airways of severely ill Covid-19 patients, they found high levels of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). It is already a known fact that NETs can contribute to sputum thickness, severe sepsis-like inflammation and thrombosis. After being treated with an already existing drug, the NETs were dissolved and patients improved. The study has now been published in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics.
Hundreds of genetic drivers affect sexual and reproductive behaviour
Combined with social factors, these can affect longevity and health
An Oxford-led team, working with Cambridge and international scholars, has discovered hundreds of genetic markers driving two of life's most momentous milestones - the age at which people first have sex and become parents.
Researchers have developed a more efficient platform for studying proteins that play a key role in regulating gene expression. The approach uses engineered yeast cells to produce enzyme and histone proteins, conduct biochemical assays internally, and then display the results.
Near-death experiences are known from all parts of the world, various times and numerous cultural backgrounds. This universality suggests they may have a biological origin and purpose, but exactly what this could be has been largely unexplored.
A new study conducted jointly by the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) and the University of Liege (Belgium) and published in Brain Communications shows how near-death experiences in humans may have arisen from evolutionary mechanisms.
A team of scientists has devised a more accurate way to predict the effects of climate change on plants and animals -- and whether some will survive at all.
Frequently, ecologists assess an organism's fitness relative to the climate by quantifying its functional traits.
"These are physical properties you can measure -- height, diameter, the thickness of a tree," said UC Riverside biologist Tim Higham. "We believe more information is needed to understand how living things will respond to a changing world."
NEW YORK, NY (July 1, 2021)--Lowering levels of a hormone called PTHrP can prevent metastases and improve survival in mice with pancreatic cancer and could lead to a new way to treat patients, according to a study from cancer researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center and with collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--June 28, 2021--While vaccines are doing a remarkable job of slowing the COVID-19 pandemic, infected people can still die from severe illness and new medications to treat them have been slow to arise. What kills these patients in the end doesn't seem to be the virus itself, but an over-reaction of their immune system that leads to massive inflammation and tissue damage.
The adult brain is more malleable than previously thought, according to researchers from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. They trained a 50-year-old man, blind from birth, to "see" by ear, and found that neural circuits in his brain formed so-called topographic maps - a type of brain organization previously thought to emerge only in infancy.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- In the late 1800s, scientists were stumped by the "yellow cells" they were observing within the tissues of certain temperate marine animals, including sea anemones, corals and jellyfish. Were these cells part of the animal or separate organisms? If separate, were they parasites or did they confer a benefit to the host?