Investigators found salivary molecules hold promise as reliable diagnostic biomarkers. The study exemplifies the quest by scientists to combat Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative brain disorder with no cure and few reliable diagnostic tests. In the United States, Alzheimer’s is a health epidemic affecting more than 5 million Americans. Investigators seek to develop valid and reliable biomarkers, diagnosing the disease in its earliest stages before brain damage occurs and dementia begins. R...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a simple, disposable sensor for detecting hazardous uranium ions, with sensitivity that rivals the performance of much more sophisticated laboratory instruments.   The sensor provides a fast, on-site test for assessing uranium contamination in the environment, and the effectiveness of remediation strategies, said Yi Lu, a chemistry professor at Illinois and senior author of a paper accepted for publication in...

Multi-spectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) is an imaging technology that generates high-resolution optical images in scattering media, including biological tissues. MSOT illuminates tissue with light of transient energy, typically light pulses lasting 1-100 nanoseconds. The tissue absorbs the light pulses, and as a result undergoes thermo-elastic expansion, a phenomenon known as the optoacoustic or photoacoustic effect. This expansion gives rise to ultrasound waves (photoechoes) that are d...

We’ve always known that sleep is good for your brain, but new research from the University of Rochester provides the first direct evidence for why your brain cells need you to sleep (and sleep the right way—more on that later). The study found that when you sleep your brain removes toxic proteins from its neurons that are by-products of neural activity when you’re awake. Unfortunately, your brain can remove them adequately only while you’re asleep. So when you don’t get enough sleep, the toxic p...

Skin scarring after deep dermal injuries is a major clinical problem due to the current therapies limited to established scars with poor understanding of healing mechanisms. From investigation of aberrations within the extracellular matrix involved in pathophysiologic scarring, it was revealed that one of the main factors responsible for impaired healing is abnormal collagen reorganization. Here, inspired by the fundamental roles of decorin, a collagen-targeting proteoglycan, in collagen remodel...

A research group at the University of Tokyo has identified in a study with mice a protein directly linked to the M cells' function to capture antigens around intestinal and other mucous membrane surfaces. Manipulating the protein, allograft inflammatory factor 1 (Aif1), holds promise of contributing to the development of more effective mucosal vaccines—immunizing agents, administered orally or through the nose, that enter the body via the mucous membrane—as an alternative to the conventional inj...

Homo sapiens is a very moody species. Even though sadness and bad moods have always been part of the human experience, we now live in an age that ignores or devalues these feelings. The Conversation In our culture, normal human emotions like temporary sadness are often treated as disorders. Manipulative advertising, marketing and self-help industries claim happiness should be ours for the asking. Yet bad moods remain an essential part of the normal range of moods we regularly experience. D...

A gene for brain size – only found in humans   This picture shows a cerebral cortex of an embryonic mouse. The cell nuclei are marked in blue and the deep-layer neurons in red. The human-specific gene ARHGAP11B was selectively expressed in the right half of the brain, which is visible by the folding of the neocortical surface. © MPI f. Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics Following the traces of evolution: Max Planck Researchers find a key to the reproduction of brain stem cells Abo...

It was already known that people affected by Parkinson’s disease, when subjected to deep brain stimulation, gained weight, but it was less clear why that was so. Thanks to new research by Trieste’s SISSA, it has been realized that the weight gain after implant has a multifactorial origin. The study, published on the scientific journal Cortex, monitored for the first time a group of patients before and after the intervention, assessing cognitive, psychological and behavioural aspects. The results...

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is characterized by abdominal pain and altered bowel habits. Visceral hypersensitivity is believed to be a key underlying mechanism that causes pain. There is evidence that interactions within the brain and gut axis (BGA) that involves both, the afferent-ascending and the efferent-descending pathways as well as the somatosensory cortex, insula, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus are deranged in IBS showing both the activation and inactivation. ...