Listening for early signs of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease affects more than 50 million people worldwide, often devastating both the individuals who have it and their families and loved ones. It has no known cure, and the slow, progressive nature of the disease makes early diagnosis difficult.

Researchers from École de Technologie Supérieure and Dartmouth University are investigating the use of earpiece microphones to spot early signs of Alzheimer's. Miriam Boutros will present their work on Tuesday, Nov. 

19  as part of the virtual 187th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, running Nov.

18-22, 2024.

People with Alzheimer's exhibit a loss of motor control along with cognitive decline.

One of the earliest signs of this decay can be spotted in involuntary eye movements known as saccades.

These quick twitches of the eyes in Alzheimer's patients are often slower, less accurate, or delayed compared to those in healthy individuals.

"Eye movements are fascinating since they are some of the most rapid and precise movements in the human body, thus they rely on both excellent motor skills and cognitive functioning," said researcher Arian Shamei.

Detecting and analyzing saccades directly requires a patient to be monitored by eye-tracking equipment, which is not easily accessible for most people.

Boutros and her colleagues are exploring an alternative method using a more ubiquitous and less intrusive technology: earpiece microphones.

This research is led by Rachel Bouserhal at the Research in Hearing Health and Assistive Devices (RHAD) Laboratory at École de Technologie Supérieure and Chris Niemczak at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth University.

"We are using a device called a hearable," said Boutros. "It is an earpiece with in-ear microphones that captures physiological signals from the body. Our goal is to develop health-monitoring algorithms for hearables, capable of continuous, long-term monitoring and early disease detection."

Eye movements, including saccades, cause eardrum vibrations that can be picked up by sensitive microphones located within the ear.

The researchers are conducting experiments with volunteers, giving them both hearables and conventional eye trackers.

Their goal is to identify signals corresponding to saccades, and to differentiate between healthy signals and others that are indicative of neurological disorders like Alzheimer's.

They hope one day their research will lead to devices that can perform noninvasive continuous monitoring for Alzheimer's along with other neurological diseases.

"While the current project is focused on long-term monitoring of Alzheimer's disease, eventually, we would like to tackle other diseases and be able to differentiate between them based on symptoms that can be tracked through in-ear signals," said Shamei.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Acoustical Society of America. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

 

Courtesy:

Acoustical Society of America. "Listening for early signs of Alzheimer's disease." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 November 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241120122700.htm>. 

 

 

 

Pandrug-resistant bacteria from the war in Ukraine are extremely pathogenic

Lund University in Sweden has previously reported on Kristian Riesbeck, professor of clinical bacteriology at Lund University and senior consultant, who was contacted by the Ukrainian microbiologist Oleksandr Nazarchuk for assistance in examining the degree of antibiotic resistance in bacteria from severely war-wounded and infected patients being treated in hospital.

Using samples from 141 war-wounded (133 adults wounded in the war and eight new-born babies with pneumonia) it could be shown that several bacteria types were resistant to broad-spectrum antibiotics and that six per cent of all samples were resistant to all the antibiotics that the researchers tested on them.

Now, the researchers have published an article in Journal of Infection, in which the researchers have gone on to examine whether Klebsiella pneumoniae* has the ability to cause disease in a wider context. Klebsiella can cause urinary tract infections, pneumonia, skin infections in wounds, and sepsis. The researchers used samples from 37 of the patients who had been previously shown to have resistant bacteria. The entire genome of the bacteria was sequenced to examine whether there were genes that can cause resistance.

"All the bacteria were shown to carry the genes that we know are associated with resistance. We saw that one quarter of them were resistant to all the available antimicrobial drugs on the market, these bacteria are said to have total resistance (pandrug-resistant). Infections caused by these bacteria become very difficult, or in some cases impossible, to treat with the medicines we have today," says professor Riesbeck.

Pandrug-resistant bacteria are an extreme form of antibiotic resistance and a growing concern within healthcare.

The researchers were interested in finding out whether infection could be spread further via the bacteria taken from patients in Ukraine. To examine this, experiments were carried out in mice and insect larvae.

"It was shown that the bacteria types most resistant to antibiotics were also the ones that survived best in mice in connection with pneumonia. Similarly, these bacteria types were so aggressive that they killed the insect larvae considerably faster than the bacteria that were less resistant to antibiotics."

Genetic sequencing showed that all Klebsiella bacteria with total resistance examined by the researchers carried the genes that make them more virulent.

"In many cases, bacteria lose their ability to infect and cause disease because all their energy is spent on being resistant to antibiotics. But we have perhaps underestimated bacteria: we saw that many of these bacteria types from Ukraine are equipped with genes that make them both resistant and virulent," says Kristian Riesbeck.

According to professor Riesbeck, this means the bacteria that spread among the wounded in Ukraine will most likely continue to survive and cause problems.

"This is something that will not disappear over time. As long as the patients cannot be isolated and treated properly, the spread of infection will continue."

Kristian Riesbeck considers the results are frightening, but not unexpected. This is what happens when the infrastructure of a healthcare system collapses. And it applies to Ukraine and other war-torn areas around the world.

"Even though these pandrug-resistant bacteria are fighting to survive our antibiotic treatments, they still have a complete set of genes that make them capable of causing disease. This is surprising for us all and unfortunately a worrying sign for the future."

*Klebsiella pneumoniae is one of the leading bacterial causes of mortality globally. It is estimated that Klebsiella pneumoniae is responsible for about 20 per cent of all deaths attributable to antimicrobial resistance.

The research has been conducted with support from, among others, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Swedish Research Council, Swedish Heart Lung Foundation and ALF funding from Region Skåne.

Journal Reference:

1. Oskar Ljungquist, Michal Magda, Christian G. Giske, Chaitanya Tellapragada, Oleksandr Nazarchuk, Dmytro Dmytriiev, Oskar Thofte, Valdemar Öhnström, Erika Matuschek, Anna M. Blom, Kristian Riesbeck. Pandrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae isolated from Ukrainian war victims are hypervirulent. Journal of Infection, 2024; 89 (6): 106312 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinf.2024.106312 

Courtesy:

Lund University. "Pandrug-resistant bacteria from the war in Ukraine are extremely pathogenic." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 November 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241125124920.htm>.

 

 

 

 

Simple secret to living a longer life

 

If everyone in the United States population was as active as the top 25 per cent, individuals over the age of 40 could add five years to their life, according to a new study led by Griffith University researchers.

Physical activity has long been known to be good for health, however estimates have varied regarding how much benefit could be gained from a defined amount of activity, both for individuals and for populations.

This latest study used accelerometry to gain an accurate view of the population's physical activity levels instead of relying on survey responses as per other studies, and found the benefits were around twice as strong as previous estimates.

It found the most active quarter of people in the community had a 73 per cent lower risk of death than their least active counterparts.

For that least active quartile, a single one-hour walk could potentially return a benefit of around six additional hours of life.

Lead researcher Professor Lennert Veerman said this least-active cohort had the greatest potential for health gains.

"If you're already very active or in that top quartile, an extra hour's walk may not make much difference as you've, in a sense, already 'maxxed out' your benefit," he said.

"If the least active quartile of the population over age 40 were to increase their activity level to that of the most active quartile however, they might live, on average, about 11 years longer.

"This is not an unreasonable prospect, as 25 per cent of the population is already doing it.

"It can be any type of exercise but would roughly be the equivalent of just under three hours of walking per day."

The research team suggested low levels of physical activity could even rival the negative effects of smoking, with other research finding each cigarette could take 11 minutes from a smoker's life.

By extension, a more active lifestyle could also offer protective effects against heart disease, stroke, certain cancers and other chronic illnesses, with the study's findings highlighting a need for national physical activity guidelines to be revisited using these methods.

Dr Veerman said physical activity had been vastly underestimated in its capacity to improve health outcomes, suggesting even modest increases in movement could lead to significant life-extension benefits.

"If there's something you could do to more than halve your risk of death, physical activity is enormously powerful," he said.

"If we could increase investment in promoting physical activity and creating living environments that promote it such as walkable or cyclable neighbourhoods and convenient, affordable public transport systems, we could not only increase longevity but also reduce pressure on our health systems and the environment."

Journal Reference:

1. Lennert Veerman, Jakob Tarp, Ruth Wijaya, Mary Njeri Wanjau, Holger Möller, Fiona Haigh, Peta Lucas, Andrew Milat. Physical activity and life expectancy: a life-table analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2024; bjsports-2024-108125 DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2024-108125

Courtesy:

Griffith University. "Simple secret to living a longer life." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 26 November 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com

/releases/2024/11/241126215133.htm>.

 

 

 

 

 

Sitting too long can harm heart health, even for active people

More time spent sitting, reclining or lying down during the day may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death, according to a study in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology, and presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2024. More than roughly 10-and-a-half hours of sedentary behavior per day was significantly linked with future heart failure (HF) and cardiovascular (CV) death, even among people meeting recommended levels of exercise.

"Our findings support cutting back on sedentary time to reduce cardiovascular risk, with 10.6 hours a day marking a potentially key threshold tied to higher heart failure and cardiovascular mortality," said Shaan Khurshid, MD, MPH, a cardiologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and co-senior author of the study. "Too much sitting or lying down can be harmful for heart health, even for those who are active."

Insufficient exercise is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Over 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week is recommended by current guidelines to promote heart health. However, study experts say exercise is only a small fraction of overall daily activity, and the current guidelines don't provide specific guidance on sedentary behavior which accounts for a much larger portion of daily activity, despite evidence that it's directly linked with CVD risk.

This study examined the amount of sedentary time at which CVD risk is greatest and explored how sedentary behavior and physical activity together impact the chances of atrial fibrillation (AF), heart failure (HF), myocardial infarction (MI) and CV mortality.

Among the 89,530 study participants of the UK biobank, the average age was 62 years and 56.4% were women. Participants submitted data from a wrist-worn triaxial accelerometer that captured movement over seven days. The average sedentary time per day was 9.4 hours.

After an average follow-up of eight years, 3,638 individuals (4.9%) developed incident AF, 1,854 (2.1%) developed incident HF, 1,610 (1.84%) developed indecent MI and 846 (0.94%) died of CV causes, respectively.

The effects of sedentary time varied by outcome. For AF and MI, the risk increased steadily over time without major shifts. For HF and CV mortality, increase in risk was minimal until sedentary time exceeded about 10.6 hours a day, at which point risk rose significantly, showing a "threshold" effect for the behavior.

For study participants who met the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity or more, the effects of sedentary behavior on AF and MI risks were substantially reduced, but effects on higher risk of HF and CV mortality remained prominent.

"Future guidelines and public health efforts should stress the importance of cutting down on sedentary time," Khurshid said. "Avoiding more than 10.6 hours per day may be a realistic minimal target for better heart health."

In an accompanying editorial comment, Charles Eaton, MD, MS, Director of the Brown University Department of Family Medicine, said the use of wearable accelerometers has shown that exercise is significantly over-estimated by self-report and sedentary behavior is under-estimated.

Eaton said that replacing just 30 minutes of excessive sitting time each day with any type of physical activity can lower heart health risks. Adding moderate-to-vigorous activity cut the risk of HF by 15% and CV mortality by 10%, and even light activity made a difference by reducing HF risk by 6% and CV mortality by 9%.

"This study adds to the growing evidence of a strong link between sedentary behavior and cardiovascular health," said Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM, Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor at Yale School of Medicine and Editor-in-Chief of JACC. "The findings strongly suggest that we need to get people moving to promote better health."

There are several limitations of the study, including the inability to know details on where or why people are sitting or lying down for extended periods, such as at the workplace, which could have different impacts on CV risks. Accelerometers worn on the wrist are imperfect at detecting posture and therefore may misclassify standing time as sedentary time. A longer monitoring period may provide more accurate data on activity habits and patterns.

Other limitations include the potential for confounders in study results, selection bias, the inability to measure the actual effects of reallocating sedentary time to other activities, and differences between data from wrist-worn accelerometers versus thigh-worn accelerometers.

Journal Reference:

1. Ezimamaka Ajufo, Shinwan Kany, Joel T. Rämö, Timothy W. Churchill, J. Sawalla Guseh, Krishna G. Aragam, Patrick T. Ellinor, Shaan Khurshid. Accelerometer-Measured Sedentary Behavior and Risk of Future Cardiovascular Disease. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2024; DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.10.065 

Courtesy:

American College of Cardiology. "Sitting too long can harm heart health, even for active people." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 November 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241115124729.htm>.

 

 

 

Living microbes discovered in Earth's driest desert

 The Atacama Desert, which runs along the Pacific Coast in Chile, is the driest place on the planet and, largely because of that aridity, hostile to most living things. Not everything, though -- studies of the sandy soil have turned up diverse microbial communities. Studying the function of microorganisms in such habitats is challenging, however, because it's difficult to separate genetic material from the living part of the community from genetic material of the dead.

A new separation technique can help researchers focus on the living part of the community. This week in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, an international team of researchers describes a new way to separate extracellular (eDNA) from intracellular (iDNA) genetic material. The method provides better insights into microbial life in low-biomass environments, which was previously not possible with conventional DNA extraction methods, said Dirk Wagner, Ph.D., a geomicrobiologist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, who led the study.

The microbiologists used the novel approach on Atacama soil samples collected from the desert along a west-to-east swath from the ocean's edge to the foothills of the Andes mountains. Their analyses revealed a variety of living and possibly active microbes in the most arid areas. A better understanding of eDNA and iDNA, Wagner said, can help researchers probe all microbial processes.

"Microbes are the pioneers colonizing this kind of environment and preparing the ground for the next succession of life," Wagner said. These processes, he said, aren't limited to the desert. "This could also apply to new terrain that forms after earthquakes or landslides where you have more or less the same situation, a mineral or rock-based substrate."

Most commercially available tools for extracting DNA from soils leave a mixture of living, dormant and dead cells from microorganisms, Wagner said. "If you extract all the DNA, you have DNA from living organisms and also DNA that can represent organisms that just died or that died a long time ago." Metagenomic sequencing of that DNA can reveal specific microbes and microbial processes. However, it requires sufficient good-quality DNA, Wagner added, "which is often the bottleneck in low-biomass environments."

To remedy that problem, he and his collaborators developed a process for filtering intact cells out of a mixture, leaving behind eDNA genetic fragments left from dead cells in the sediment. It involves multiple cycles of gentle rinsing, he said. In lab tests they found that after 4 repetitions, nearly all the DNA in a sample had been divided into the 2 groups.

When they tested soil from the Atacama Desert, they found Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria in all samples in both eDNA and iDNA groups. That's not surprising, Wagner said, because the living cells constantly replenish the store of iDNA as they die and degrade. "If a community is really active, then a constant turnover is taking place, and that means the 2 pools should be more similar to each other," he said. In samples collected from depths of less than 5 centimeters, they found that Chloroflexota bacteria dominated in the iDNA group.

In future work, Wagner said he plans to conduct metagenomic sequencing on the iDNA samples to better understand the microbes at work, and to apply the same approach to samples from other hostile environments. By studying iDNA, he said, "you can get deeper insights into the real active part of the community."

Journal Reference:

1. Alexander Bartholomäus, Steffi Genderjahn, Kai Mangelsdorf, Beate Schneider, Pedro Zamorano, Samuel P. Kounaves, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, Dirk Wagner. Inside the Atacama Desert: uncovering the living microbiome of an extreme environment. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2024; DOI: 10.1128/aem.01443-24 

Courtesy:

American Society for Microbiology. "Living microbes discovered in Earth's driest desert." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 November 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241114125607.htm>.

 

 

 

AI headphones create a 'sound bubble,' quieting all sounds more than a few feet away

Imagine this: You're at an office job, wearing noise-canceling headphones to dampen the ambient chatter. A co-worker arrives at your desk and asks a question, but rather than needing to remove the headphones and say, "What?," you hear the question clearly. Meanwhile the water-cooler chat across the room remains muted. Or imagine being in a busy restaurant and hearing everyone at your table, but reducing the other speakers and noise in the restaurant.

A team led by researchers at the University of Washington has created a headphone prototype that allows listeners to create just such a "sound bubble." The team's artificial intelligence algorithms combined with a headphone prototype allow the wearer to hear people speaking within a bubble with a programmable radius of 3 to 6 feet. Voices and sounds outside the bubble are quieted an average of 49 decibels (approximately the difference between a vacuum and rustling leaves), even if the distant sounds are louder than those inside the bubble.

The team published its findings Nov. 14 in Nature Electronics. The code for the proof-of-concept device is available for others to build on. The researchers are creating a startup to commercialize this technology.

"Humans aren't great at perceiving distances through sound, particularly when there are multiple sound sources around them," said senior author Shyam Gollakota, a UW professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. "Our abilities to focus on the people in our vicinity can be limited in places like loud restaurants, so creating sound bubbles on a hearable has not been possible so far. Our AI system can actually learn the distance for each sound source in a room, and process this in real time, within 8 milliseconds, on the hearing device itself."

Researchers created the prototype with commercially available noise-canceling headphones. They affixed six small microphones across the headband. The team's neural network -- running on a small onboard embedded computer attached to the headphones -- tracks when different sounds reach each microphone. The system then suppresses the sounds coming from outside the bubble, while playing back and slightly amplifying the sounds inside the bubble (because noise-canceling headphones physically let some sound through).

"We'd worked on a previous smart-speaker system where we spread the microphones across a table because we thought we needed significant distances between microphones to extract distance information about sounds," Gollakota said. "But then we started questioning our assumption. Do we need a big separation to create this 'sound bubble'? What we showed here is that we don't. We were able to do it with just the microphones on the headphones, and in real-time, which was quite surprising."

To train the system to create sound bubbles in different environments, researchers needed a distance-based sound dataset collected in the real-world, which was not available. To gather such a dataset, they put the headphones on a mannequin head. A robotic platform rotated the head while a moving speaker played noises coming from different distances. The team collected data with the mannequin system as well as with human users in 22 different indoor environments, including offices and living spaces.

Researchers have determined that the system works for a couple of reasons. First, the wearer's head reflects sounds, which helps the neural net distinguish sounds from various distances. Second, sounds (like human speech) have multiple frequencies, each of which goes through different phases as it travels from its source. The team's AI algorithm, the researchers believe, is comparing the phases of each of these frequencies to determine the distance of any sound source (a person talking, for instance).

Headphones like Apple's AirPods Pro 2 can amplify the voice of the person in front of the wearer while reducing some background noise. But these features work by tracking head position and amplifying the sound coming from a specific direction, rather than gauging distance. This means the headphones can't amplify multiple speakers at once, lose functionality if the wearer turns their head away from the target speaker, and aren't as effective at reducing loud sounds from the speaker's direction.

The system has been trained to work only indoors, because getting clean training audio is more difficult outdoors. Next, the team is working to make the technology function on hearing aids and noise-canceling earbuds, which requires a new strategy for positioning the microphones.

Additional co-authors are Malek Itani and Tuochao Chen, UW doctoral students in the Allen School; Sefik Emre Eskimez, a senior researcher at Microsoft; and Takuya Yoshioka, director of research at AssemblyAI. This research was funded by a Moore Inventor Fellow award, a UW CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund and the National Science Foundation.

Journal Reference:

1. Tuochao Chen, Malek Itani, Sefik Emre Eskimez, Takuya Yoshioka, Shyamnath Gollakota. Hearable devices with sound bubbles. Nature Electronics, 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41928-024-01276-z 

Courtesy:

University of Washington. "AI headphones create a 'sound bubble,' quieting all sounds more than a few feet away." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 November 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241114161302.htm>.

 

 

 

 

Memories are not only in the brain, new research finds

It's common knowledge that our brains -- and, specifically, our brain cells -- store memories. But a team of scientists has discovered that cells from other parts of the body also perform a memory function, opening new pathways for understanding how memory works and creating the potential to enhance learning and to treat memory-related afflictions.

"Learning and memory are generally associated with brains and brain cells alone, but our study shows that other cells in the body can learn and form memories, too," explains New York University's Nikolay V. Kukushkin, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Nature Communications.

The work was jointly supervised by Kukushkin and Thomas Carew, a professor in NYU's Center for Neural Science. The study's authors also included Tasnim Tabassum, an NYU researcher, and Robert Carney, an NYU undergraduate researcher at the time of the study.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (R01-MH120300-01A1).

The research sought to better understand if non-brain cells help with memory by borrowing from a long-established neurological property -- the massed-spaced effect -- which shows that we tend to retain information better when studied in spaced intervals rather than in a single, intensive session -- better known as cramming for a test.

In the Nature Communications research, the scientists replicated learning over time by studying two types of non-brain human cells in a laboratory (one from nerve tissue and one from kidney tissue) and exposing them to different patterns of chemical signals -- just like brain cells are exposed to patterns of neurotransmitters when we learn new information. In response, the non-brain cells turned on a "memory gene" -- the same gene that brain cells turn on when they detect a pattern in the information and restructure their connections in order to form memories.

To monitor the memory and learning process, the scientists engineered these non-brain cells to make a glowing protein, which indicated when the memory gene was on and when it was off.

The results showed that these cells could determine when the chemical pulses, which imitated bursts of neurotransmitter in the brain, were repeated rather than simply prolonged -- just as neurons in our brain can register when we learn with breaks rather than cramming all the material in one sitting. Specifically, when the pulses were delivered in spaced-out intervals, they turned on the "memory gene" more strongly, and for a longer time, than when the same treatment was delivered all at once.

"This reflects the massed-space effect in action," says Kukushkin, a clinical associate professor of life science at NYU Liberal Studies and a research fellow at NYU's Center for Neural Science. "It shows that the ability to learn from spaced repetition isn't unique to brain cells, but, in fact, might be a fundamental property of all cells."

The researchers add that the findings not only offer new ways to study memory, but also point to potential health-related gains.

"This discovery opens new doors for understanding how memory works and could lead to better ways to enhance learning and treat memory problems," observes Kukushkin. "At the same time, it suggests that in the future, we will need to treat our body more like the brain -- for example, consider what our pancreas remembers about the pattern of our past meals to maintain healthy levels of blood glucose or consider what a cancer cell remembers about the pattern of chemotherapy."

Journal Reference:

1. N. V. Kukushkin, R. E. Carney, T. Tabassum, T. J. Carew. The massed-spaced learning effect in non-neural human cells. Nature Communications, 2024; 15 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53922-x 

Courtesy:

New York University. "Memories are not only in the brain, new research finds." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 November 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241107193111.htm>.

 

 

 

Restricting sugar consumption in utero and in early childhood significantly reduces risk of midlife chronic disease, study finds

A low-sugar diet in utero and in the first two years of life can meaningfully reduce the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood, a new study has found, providing compelling new evidence of the lifelong health effects of early-life sugar consumption.

Published in Science, the study finds that children who experienced sugar restrictions during their first 1,000 days after conception had up to 35% lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and as much as 20% less risk of hypertension as adults. Low sugar intake by the mother prior to birth was enough to lower risks, but continued sugar restriction after birth increased the benefits.

Taking advantage of an unintended "natural experiment" from World War II, researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, McGill University in Montreal, and the University of California, Berkeley, examined how sugar rationing during the war influenced long-term health outcomes.

The United Kingdom introduced limits on sugar distribution in 1942 as part of its wartime food rationing program. Rationing ended in September 1953.

The researchers used contemporary data from the U.K. Biobank, a database of medical histories and genetic, lifestyle and other disease risk factors, to study the effect of those early-life sugar restrictions on health outcomes of adults conceived in the U.K. just before and after the end of wartime sugar rationing.

"Studying the long-term effects of added sugar on health is challenging," says study corresponding author Tadeja Gracner, senior economist at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research. "It is hard to find situations where people are randomly exposed to different nutritional environments early in life and follow them for 50 to 60 years. The end of rationing provided us with a novel natural experiment to overcome these problems."

Sugar intake during rationing was about 8 teaspoons (40 grams) per day on average. When rationing ended, sugar and sweets consumption skyrocketed to about 16 teaspoons (80 grams) per day.

Notably, rationing did not involve extreme food deprivation overall. Diets generally appeared to have been, in fact, within today's guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the World Health Organization, which recommend no added sugars for children under two and not more than 12 teaspoons (50g) of added sugar daily for adults.

The immediate and large increase in sugar consumption but no other foods after rationing ended created an interesting natural experiment: Individuals were exposed to varying levels of sugar intake early in life, depending on whether they were conceived or born before or after September 1953. Those conceived or born just before the end of rationing experienced sugar-scarce conditions compared to those born just after who were born into a more sugar-rich environment.

The researchers then identified those born around this time in the U.K. Biobank data collected over 50 years later. Using a very tight birth window around the end of sugar rationing allowed the authors to compare midlife health outcomes of otherwise similar birth cohorts.

While living through the period of sugar restriction during the first 1,000 days of life substantially lowered the risk of developing diabetes and hypertension, for those who were later diagnosed with either of those conditions, onset of disease was delayed by four years and two years, respectively.

Notably, exposure to sugar restrictions in utero alone was enough to lower risks, but disease protection increased postnatally once solids were likely introduced.

The magnitude of this effect is meaningful as it can save costs, extend life expectancy and, perhaps more importantly, quality of life, say the researchers.

In the United States, people with diabetes incur annual medical expenditures of about $12,000 on average. Further, earlier diagnosis of diabetes means significantly shorter life expectancy, with every decade earlier that a diagnosis of diabetes is made cutting three to four years off of life expectancy.

These numbers underscore the value of early interventions that could delay or prevent this disease, the researchers note.

Experts' concerns about children's long-term health as they consume excessive amounts of added sugars during their early life, a critical period of development, continue to mount. Adjusting child sugar consumption, however, is not easy -- added sugar is everywhere, even in baby and toddler foods, and children are bombarded with TV ads for sugary snacks, say the researchers.

"Parents need information about what works, and this study provides some of the first causal evidence that reducing added sugar early in life is a powerful step towards improving children's health over their lifetimes," says study co-author Claire Boone of McGill University and the University of Chicago.

Co-author Paul Gertler of UC Berkeley and the National Bureau of Economics Research adds: "Sugar early in life is the new tobacco, and we should treat it as such by holding food companies accountable to reformulate baby foods with healthier options and regulate the marketing and tax sugary foods targeted at kids."

This study is the first of a larger research effort exploring how early-life sugar restrictions affected a broader set of economic and health outcomes in later adulthood, including education, wealth, and chronic inflammation, cognitive function and dementia.

Journal Reference:

1. Tadeja Gracner, Claire Boone, Paul J. Gertler. Exposure to sugar rationing in the first 1000 days of life protected against chronic disease. Science, 2024; DOI: 10.1126/science.adn5421 

Courtesy:

University of Southern California. "Restricting sugar consumption in utero and in early childhood significantly reduces risk of midlife chronic disease, study finds." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 31 October 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241031185320.htm>.

 

 

 

 

 

Five minutes of extra exercise a day could lower blood pressure

New research suggests that adding a small amount of physical activity -- such as uphill walking or stair-climbing -- into your day may help to lower blood pressure.

The study, published in Circulation, was carried out by experts from the ProPASS (Prospective Physical Activity, Sitting and Sleep) Consortium, an international academic collaboration led by the University of Sydney and University College London (UCL).

Just five minutes of activity a day was estimated to potentially reduce blood pressure, while replacing sedentary behaviours with 20-27 minutes of exercise per day, including uphill walking, stair-climbing, running and cycling, was also estimated to lead to a clinically meaningful reduction in blood pressure.

Joint senior author Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis, Director of the ProPASS Consortium from the Charles Perkins Centre said: "High blood pressure is one of the biggest health issues globally, but unlike some major causes of cardiovascular mortality there may be relatively accessible ways to tackle the problem in addition to medication."

"The finding that doing as little as five extra minutes of exercise per day could be associated with measurably lower blood pressure readings emphasises how powerful short bouts of higher intensity movement could be for blood pressure management."

Hypertension, or a consistent elevated blood pressure level, is one of the biggest causes of premature death globally. Affecting 1.28 billion adults around the world, it can lead to stroke, heart attack, heart failure, kidney damage and many other health problems, and is often described as the 'silent killer' due to its lack of symptoms.

The research team analysed health data from 14,761 volunteers in five countries to see how replacing one type of movement behaviour with another across the day is associated with blood pressure.

Each participant used a wearable accelerometer device on their thigh to measure their activity and blood pressure throughout the day and night.

Daily activity was split into six categories: sleep, sedentary behaviour (such as sitting), slow walking, fast walking, standing, and more vigorous exercise such as running, cycling or stair climbing.

The team modelled statistically what would happen if an individual changed various amounts of one behaviour for another in order to estimate the effect on blood pressure for each scenario and found that replacing sedentary behaviour with 20-27 minutes of exercise per day could potentially reduce cardiovascular disease by up to 28 percent at a population level.

First author Dr Jo Blodgett from the Division of Surgery and Interventional Science at UCL and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health said: "Our findings suggest that, for most people, exercise is key to reducing blood pressure, rather than less strenuous forms of movement such as walking.

"The good news is that whatever your physical ability, it doesn't take long to have a positive effect on blood pressure. What's unique about our exercise variable is that it includes all exercise-like activities, from running for a bus or a short cycling errand, many of which can be integrated into daily routines.

"For those who don't do a lot of exercise, walking did still have some positive benefits for blood pressure. But if you want to change your blood pressure, putting more demand on the cardiovascular system through exercise will have the greatest effect."

Professor Mark Hamer, joint senior author of the study and ProPASS Deputy Director from UCL, said: "Our findings show how powerful research platforms like the ProPASS consortium are for identifying relatively subtle patterns of exercise, sleep, and sedentary behaviour, that have significant clinical and public health importance."

 

Journal Reference:

1. Joanna M. Blodgett, Matthew N. Ahmadi, Andrew J. Atkin, Richard M. Pulsford, Vegar Rangul, Sebastien Chastin, Hsiu-Wen Chan, Kristin Suorsa, Esmée A. Bakker, Nidhi Gupta, Pasan Hettiarachchi, Peter J. Johansson, Lauren B. Sherar, Borja del Pozo Cruz, Nicholas Koemel, Gita D. Mishra, Thijs M.H. Eijsvogels, Sari Stenholm, Alun D. Hughes, Armando Teixeira-Pinto, Ulf Ekelund, I-Min Lee, Andreas Holtermann, Annemarie Koster, Emmanuel Stamatakis, Mark Hamer, Hans Savelberg, Bastiaan de Galan, Carla van de Kallen, Dick H.J. Thijssen. Device-Measured 24-Hour Movement Behaviors and Blood Pressure: A 6-Part Compositional Individual Participant Data Analysis in the ProPASS Consortium. Circulation, 2024; DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.124.069820

Courtesy:

University of Sydney. "Five minutes of extra exercise a day could lower blood pressure." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 6 November 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241106190302.htm>.

 

 

New parasite discovered amid decline of California's unique Channel Island fox

 

California's Channel Islands are home to the Channel Island fox (Urocyon littoralis), one of the smallest and most cherished species of island fox in the United States. Although no longer on the Endangered Species List, they remain a species of special concern due to their ecological importance.

In the 1990s, the San Miguel Island fox nearly went extinct, dropping to just 15 individuals. A recovery program restored their numbers by 2010. However, from 2014 to 2018, the population fell to 30% of its peak right after a new acanthocephalan parasite, commonly known as thorny-headed worms, was identified on the island. This also occurred while a multi-year draught heated San Miguel Island, making it harder to identify the impact of the new parasite on San Miguel foxes.

To identify this parasite and determine the pathologic consequences of its infection on the health of foxes, a highly collaborative scientific effort, including a Florida Atlantic University researcher, used morphological and molecular methods to identify acanthocephalan parasites. They also used an extensive record of island fox necropsies and associated parasite collections to investigate the impact of the acanthocephalan parasite on the health of foxes at an individual and population level.

Results of the study, published in the International Journal for Parasitology, identify the parasite as Pachysentis canicola, a common acanthocephalan in multiple carnivore species in mainland North America. The parasite was detected in 69% of the necropsied foxes from San Miguel Island and was not found in any of the other five Channel Island fox subspecies.

Health issues linked to the acanthocephalan parasite, such as severe intestinal damage and inflammation, were seen in 47% of infected foxes. Other parasites did not significantly impact the health or survival rates of San Miguel Island foxes until the acanthocephalan arrived. After 2018, improved rainfall may have helped body condition recover, but it remained 27% lower than before the acanthocephalan outbreak, indicating that both environmental factors and parasites affect fox populations.

"We suspect that this parasite likely arrived on the island through infected arthropods such as insects inadvertently transported by humans," said Ale Aleuy, DVM, MPVM, Ph.D., senior author and an assistant professor in the FAU Department of Biological Sciences within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. "This discovery raises concerns about the impact of human activity on isolated ecosystems and underscores the importance of monitoring parasitic infections in vulnerable wildlife populations."

Researchers used detailed fox capture-recapture data from 4,269 captures of 846 foxes to investigate population health and demographic trends of foxes before and after the parasite was detected. They analyzed and monitored changes in body condition and weight from 2006 to 2022. Before the acanthocephalan arrived, the foxes had good health and low mortality despite other parasites.

"This parasite attaches to the intestinal wall of its host, which is particularly problematic for heavily infected foxes that exhibited more significant health issues such as emaciation, enteritis, and in some cases, death," said Aleuy. "After the parasite's arrival, foxes showed poorer body condition and lower weight, which worsened during drought conditions. This highlights the importance of understanding this parasite's life cycle and its impact on fox health, as well as preventing its spread to other Channel Islands."

Environmental stress may influence disease dynamics, and while foxes can survive with P. canicola in good conditions, they may need extra support during droughts.

"The acanthocephalan parasite did pose serious health challenges for the foxes, leading to issues like weight loss and intestinal complications. However, after the drought, we've seen a positive shift. While their condition is still not back to pre-parasite levels, the overall health of the foxes is stabilizing, and they are showing signs of improvement," said Aleuy. "This resilience gives us hope for their continued recovery."

The researchers suggest that it's also possible that P. canicola was present before 2012 but went undetected, potentially due to changes in fox diets increasing their exposure to intermediate hosts.

"Implementing appropriate management strategies is crucial to ensuring the health and longevity of this important species of fox," said Aleuy. "Controlling the invertebrates that spread the parasites might help, especially if they aren't native to the island."

The main goal is to prevent the parasite from spreading to other Channel Islands. Findings of this study highlight the importance of biosecurity in the Channel Islands National Park and more research on P. canicola and its impact on fox populations.

Journal Reference:

1. O. Alejandro Aleuy, Leslie W. Woods, Benjamin J. Padilla, Dennis Richardson, Juliann T. Schamel, Stacy Baker, Martín García-Varela, Charlotte Hammond, Sarah P. Lawson, Jasmine N. Childress, Jason Rohr, Kevin D. Lafferty. The invasive acanthocephalan parasite Pachysentis canicola is associated with a declining endemic island fox population on San Miguel Island. International Journal for Parasitology, 2024; DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpara.2024.09.003 

Courtesy:

Florida Atlantic University. "New parasite discovered amid decline of California's unique Channel Island fox." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 October 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241023131048.htm>.

 

 

 

 

H5N1 virus isolated from infected dairy worker is 100% lethal in ferrets, but does not appear to be circulating in nature anymore

 

A strain of H5N1 avian influenza virus found in a Texas dairy worker who was infected this spring was able to spread among ferrets through the air, although inefficiently, and killed 100% of infected animals in studies University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers performed with the strain earlier this year.

The good news: the dairy worker experienced mild symptoms and fully recovered, and the H5N1 strain that infected the worker does not appear to have continued spreading in the wild.

Still, the findings highlight the risks posed by a virus that continues to spread among dairy cattle and occasionally to farm workers, and the study's lead scientist says he was surprised by the ease with which this particular strain was able to kill ferrets.

"This is one of the most pathogenic viruses I've ever seen in ferrets," says Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a UW-Madison professor of pathobiological sciences who spearheaded the work, described Oct. 28, 2024, in the journal Nature.

Ferrets are a common model for studying how influenza viruses that primarily affect birds are able to adapt to mammals, a topic that Kawaoka and his colleagues at UW-Madison's Influenza Research Institute investigate since such a jump could trigger an influenza pandemic.

Like other influenza viruses, H5N1 viruses mutate at a relatively rapid clip as they infect new hosts. Sometimes these mutations allow the viruses to more easily infect and spread among new species. That's how the current viruses, which have been infecting birds around the world in recent years, began to spread among mammals, most notably North American dairy cattle in 2024.

Kawaoka and his collaborators found that the H5N1 virus that infected the Texas dairy worker included a mutation that the team first identified in 2001 as important for causing severe disease. Luckily, Kawaoka says, the strain with that mutation seems to have died out.

"This isolate is unique among the H5N1 viruses circulating in cows," he says.

Kawaoka hypothesizes that H5N1 viruses took two paths when they made the jump from birds to cows, both facilitated by mutations that made the virus better adapted to mammals.

Kawaoka and his colleagues suggest that one path resulted in the more concerning mutation found in the Texas dairy worker, while the other led to a less dangerous mutation in the same protein.

"Both mutations give the virus the ability to adapt to mammals, but the good thing is the one containing this more pathogenic mutation has not been detected again," Kawaoka says. "So there are no extremely pathogenic H5N1 viruses currently circulating in cows. However, if a currently circulating cow H5N1 virus acquires that mutation, then that would be an issue."

Whether a virus with such a mutation would be dangerous for humans remains to be seen.

"The puzzling thing is why the human who got this virus did not have a severe infection," says Kawaoka, noting a few possibilities.

Perhaps exposure to seasonal influenza viruses provides some level of protection via antibodies, or maybe the route of infection is important; the Texas dairy worker's main symptom was conjunctivitis, suggesting the virus entered through the eye rather than the more typical respiratory route.

Alternatively, more robust surveillance of influenza cases among American dairy workers since the virus began spreading on farms might mean more cases -- including mild ones -- are being identified. Another possibility is this particular strain might simply be less severe in humans than mammals like ferrets.

"Those are all possibilities, but we don't know," says Kawaoka. "So, we're now trying to understand why this virus is so pathogenic in ferrets and what that could mean for human infections."

Journal Reference:

1. Chunyang Gu, Tadashi Maemura, Lizheng Guan, Amie J. Eisfeld, Asim Biswas, Maki Kiso, Ryuta Uraki, Mutsumi Ito, Sanja Trifkovic, Tong Wang, Lavanya Babujee, Robert Presler, Randall Dahn, Yasuo Suzuki, Peter J. Halfmann, Seiya Yamayoshi, Gabriele Neumann, Yoshihiro Kawaoka. A human isolate of bovine H5N1 is transmissible and lethal in animal models. Nature, 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08254-7 

Courtesy:

University of Wisconsin-Madison. "H5N1 virus isolated from infected dairy worker is 100% lethal in ferrets, but does not appear to be circulating in nature anymore." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 October 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241028131451.htm>.

 

 

 

 

Age-old mystery solved: No more chicken or egg debate; scientists reveal who came first

 The age-old question of whether the chicken or the egg came first has puzzled minds for centuries. It’s a curious riddle that has sparked debate, humour, and even scientific investigation. To uncover the answer, we must delve into the fascinating history of eggs and the evolutionary journey of chickens, tracing back millions of years.

Eggs are widespread throughout the animal kingdom. Technically, an egg is a membrane-bound container where an embryo develops into an independent life. Eggs have been around since the evolution of the first amniotes, many millions of years ago. Early animals laid eggs in water, ensuring they didn’t dry out.

A crucial evolutionary step saw the emergence of amniotic eggs. These eggs developed three extra membranes: the chorion, amnion, and allantois. Together, they formed a complete life support system for embryos. This breakthrough enabled animals to lay eggs on land, offering embryos protection and nourishment without needing water.

According to the Australian Academy of Science, the first chicken emerged through genetic mutation. Two proto-chickens mated, passing on their DNA to create the first chicken. Genetic mutations occurred during this process, leading to the development of the very first chicken. This mutation was replicated in every cell as the chicken embryo grew.

Research suggests that amniotic eggs appeared roughly 340 million years ago, while chickens only evolved around 58,000 years ago. It’s reasonable to conclude that eggs predate chickens, as these eggs allowed various animal embryos to develop long before chickens existed.

However, chickens have a protein that plays a critical role in forming their eggs. This protein, called ovocleidin-17 (OC-17), is only found in chicken ovaries. Scientists argue that chickens must have come first because OC-17 is essential for forming eggshells, which are built within 24 hours.

The age-old debate

So, where does this leave the question? While eggs predate chickens, the specific formation of chicken eggs requires chickens for OC-17 production. Ultimately, chickens and their eggs are mutually dependent, making the answer far from simple.

Today’s eggs differ greatly from those produced by early birds. Industrialised farming methods focus on efficiency, with hens in controlled environments. Modern eggs meet strict safety standards, with options like free-range or organic eggs. In contrast, proto-eggs came from hens living freely, resulting in smaller production and different nutritional values.

Is eating chicken or eggs healthier?

Both chicken and eggs offer rich nutritional benefits. Chicken provides lean protein, vital vitamins like B3, and essential minerals, ideal for muscle growth and low-calorie diets. Eggs, meanwhile, deliver balanced protein, vitamins D and B12, and healthy fats. Eggs also contain antioxidants, supporting eye health. The choice between chicken and eggs ultimately depends on dietary preferences and needs.

 

Story by Neeshita Beura

Moneycontrol  

 

  

 

AI in healthcare: New research shows promise and limitations of physicians working with GPT-4 for decision making

 

Published in JAMA Network Open, a collaborative team of researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School, Stanford University, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the University of Virginia studied how well doctors used GPT-4 -- an artificial intelligence (AI) large language model system -- for diagnosing patients.

The study was conducted with 50 U.S.-licensed physicians in family medicine, internal medicine and emergency medicine.

The research team found that the availability of GPT-4 to physicians as a diagnostic aid did not significantly improve clinical reasoning compared to conventional resources.

Other key findings include:

• GPT-4 alone demonstrated significantly better scores in diagnostic performance, surpassing the performance of clinicians using conventional diagnostic online resources and clinicians assisted by GPT-4.
• There was no significant enhancement in diagnostic performance with the addition of GPT-4 when assessing clinicians using GPT-4 against clinicians using conventional diagnostic resources.

"The field of AI is expanding rapidly and impacting our lives inside and outside of medicine. It is important that we study these tools and understand how we best use them to improve the care we provide as well as the experience of providing it," said Andrew Olson, MD, a professor at the U of M Medical School and hospitalist with M Health Fairview.

"This study suggests that there are opportunities for further improvement in physician-AI collaboration in clinical practice."

These results underline the complexity of integrating AI into clinical practice.

While GPT-4 alone showed promising results, the integration of GPT-4 as a diagnostic aid alongside clinicians did not significantly outperform the use of conventional diagnostic resources.

This suggests a nuanced potential for AI in healthcare, emphasizing the importance of further exploration into how AI can best support clinical practice.

Further, more studies are needed to understand how clinicians should be trained to use these tools.

The four collaborating institutions have launched a bi-coastal AI evaluation network -- known as ARiSE -- to further evaluate GenAI outputs in healthcare.

Funding for this research was provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

 

Journal Reference:

1. Ethan Goh, Robert Gallo, Jason Hom, Eric Strong, Yingjie Weng, Hannah Kerman, Joséphine A. Cool, Zahir Kanjee, Andrew S. Parsons, Neera Ahuja, Eric Horvitz, Daniel Yang, Arnold Milstein, Andrew P. J. Olson, Adam Rodman, Jonathan H. Chen. Large Language Model Influence on Diagnostic Reasoning. JAMA Network Open, 2024; 7 (10): e2440969 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.40969 

Courtesy:

University of Minnesota Medical School. "AI in healthcare: New research shows promise and limitations of physicians working with GPT-4 for decision making." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 October 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241028164534.htm>.

 

 

Researchers develop 3D atlas of the developing mammalian brain

 

A 3D atlas of developing mice brains using advanced imaging and microscopy techniques has been created by a team of researchers at Penn State College of Medicine and collaborators from five different institutes. This new atlas provides a more dynamic, 360-degree picture of the whole mammalian brain as it develops during the embryonic and immediate post-natal stages and serves as a common reference and anatomical framework that will help researchers understand brain development and study neurodevelopmental disorders.

They published their work today (Oct 21) in Nature Communications.

"Maps are a fundamental infrastructure to build knowledge upon but we don't have a high-resolution 3D atlas of the developing brain," said Yongsoo Kim, associate professor of neural and behavioral sciences at Penn State College of Medicine and senior author on the paper. "We are generating high-resolution maps that we can use to understand how the brain grows under normal circumstances and what happens when a brain disorder emerges."

Geographical atlases are a collection of maps that provide a comprehensive view of the Earth's geography including boundaries between regions and countries, features like mountains and rivers, and thoroughfares like roads and highways. Importantly, they provide a common understanding that allows users pinpoint specific locations and understand the spatial relationship between regions.

Similarly, brain atlases are foundational for understanding the architecture of the brain. They help researchers visualize how the brain is organized spatially and understand brain structure, function, and how different regions and neurons are connected. Previously, scientists have been limited to 2D histology-based snapshots, which makes it challenging to interpret anatomical regions in three dimensions and any changes that may occur, Kim said.

In recent years, there has been tremendous progress in whole brain imaging techniques that let researchers look at the whole brain at high resolution and produce large-scale 3D datasets. To analyze this data, Kim explained, scientists have developed 3D reference atlases of the adult mouse brain, which is a model for the mammalian brain. The atlases provide a universal anatomical framework that allow researchers to overlay diverse datasets and conduct comparative analyses. However, there's no equivalent for the developing mouse brain, which undergoes rapid changes in shape and volume during the embryonic and post-natal stages.

"Without this 3D map of the developing brain, we cannot integrate data from emerging 3D studies into a standard spatial framework or analyze the data in a consistent manner," Kim said. In other words, the lack of a 3D map hinders the advancement of neuroscience research.

The research team created a multimodal 3D common coordinate framework of the mouse brain across seven developmental timepoints -- four points of time during the embryonic period and three periods during the immediate postnatal phase. Using MRI, they captured images of the brain's overall form and structure. They then employed light sheet fluorescence microscopy, an imaging technique that enables visualization of the whole brain at a single-cell resolution. These high-resolution images were then matched to the shape of the MRI templates of the brain to create the 3D map. The team pooled samples from both male and female mice.

To demonstrate how the atlas can be used to analyze different datasets and track how individual cell types emerge in the developing brain, the team focused on GABAergic neurons, which are nerve cells that play a key communication role in the brain. This cell type has been implicated in schizophrenia, autism and other neurological disorders.

While scientists have studied GABAergic neurons in the outermost region of the brain called the cortex, not much is known about how these cells arise in the whole brain during development, according to the researchers. Understanding how these clusters of cells develop under normal conditions may be key to assessing what happens when something goes awry.

To facilitate collaboration and further advancement in neuroscience research, the team created an interactive web-based version that is publicly available and free. The aim is to significantly lower technical barriers for researchers around the world to access this resource.

"This provides a roadmap that can integrate a lot of different data -- genomic, neuroimaging, microscopy and more -- into the same data infrastructure. It will drive the next evolution of brain research driven by machine learning and artificial intelligence," Kim said.

Journal Reference:

1. Fae N. Kronman, Josephine K. Liwang, Rebecca Betty, Daniel J. Vanselow, Yuan-Ting Wu, Nicholas J. Tustison, Ashwin Bhandiwad, Steffy B. Manjila, Jennifer A. Minteer, Donghui Shin, Choong Heon Lee, Rohan Patil, Jeffrey T. Duda, Jian Xue, Yingxi Lin, Keith C. Cheng, Luis Puelles, James C. Gee, Jiangyang Zhang, Lydia Ng, Yongsoo Kim. Developmental mouse brain common coordinate framework. Nature Communications, 2024; 15 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53254-w 

Courtesy:

Penn State. "Researchers develop 3D atlas of the developing mammalian brain." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 October 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241021123011.htm>.

 

 

 

 

Creating a simplified form of life

 

It is one of the most fundamental questions in science: how can lifeless molecules come together to form a living cell? Bert Poolman, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Groningen, has been working on this problem for over twenty years. He aims to understand life by trying to reconstruct it; he is building simplified artificial versions of biological systems that can be used as components for a synthetic cell. Poolman recently published two papers in Nature Nanotechnology and Nature Communications. In the first paper, he describes a system for energy conversion and cross-feeding of products of this reaction between synthetic cells, while he describes a system for concentrating and converting nutrients in cells in the second paper.

Six Dutch research institutes are collaborating in the consortium BaSyc (Building a Synthetic Cell) to build the elements needed for a synthetic cell. Poolman's group has been working on energy conversion. The real-life equivalents he aims to replicate are mitochondria, the 'energy factories' of the cell. These use the molecule ADP to produce ATP, which is the standard 'fuel' that cells require to function. When ATP is converted back into ADP, the energy is released and used to drive other processes.

Artificial energy factories

'Instead of the hundreds of components of mitochondria, our system for energy conversion uses just five,' says Poolman. 'We set out to simplify it as much as possible.' This may sound odd, as evolution has done a great job of producing functional systems. 'However, evolution is a one-way street, it builds on existing components and this often makes the outcome very complex,' explains Poolman. An artificial replica, on the other hand, can be designed with a specific outcome in mind.

The five components were placed inside vesicles, tiny cell-like sacs, that can absorb ADP as well as the amino acid arginine from the surrounding fluid. The arginine is 'burned' (deaminated) and thus provides the energy to produce ATP, which is secreted from the vesicle. 'Of course, the simplification comes at a price: we can only use arginine as the energy source, while cells use all kinds of different molecules, such as amino acids, fats, and sugars.'

Next, the Poolman group designed a second vesicle that is able to absorb the secreted ATP and use it to drive an energy-consuming reaction. The energy is provided by turning ATP back into ADP, which is then secreted and can be absorbed by the first vesicle, closing the loop. Such a cycle of ATP production and use is the foundation of metabolism in every living cell and drives the 'machinery' for energy-consuming reactions such as growth, cell division, protein synthesis, DNA replication, and more.

An artificial pumping system

The second module that Poolman created was a bit different: a vesicle in which a chemical process causes the interior to build up a negative charge and, in doing so, form an electrical potential, similar to that of an electronic circuit. The electrical potential is used to couple charge movement to the accumulation of nutrients inside the vesicle, which is carried out by transporters. These proteins in the membrane of the vesicle work a bit like a water wheel: positively charged protons 'flow' through it from outside the vesicle to the negatively charged interior. This flow drives the transporter, which in this case imports a sugar molecule, lactose. Again, this is a very common process in living cells, requiring many components that Poolman and his team mimicked with just two components.

When he submitted a paper describing this system, a reviewer asked if he couldn't do something with the lactose that is being transported, as cells use nutrients like this to produce useful building blocks. Poolman took up the challenge and added three more enzymes to the system, which oxidized the sugar and enabled production of the coenzyme NADH. 'This helper molecule plays an essential role in the proper functioning of all cells,' explains Poolman. 'And by adding NADH production, we have shown that it is feasible to expand the system.'

But what about the synthetic cell?

Having a simplified synthetic equivalent of two key features of life is fascinating, but many more steps need to be integrated to form an autonomously growing and dividing synthetic cell. 'The next step we want to take is adding our metabolic energy producing systems to a synthetic cell division system created by colleagues,' says Poolman.

The BaSyc programme is entering its final years; funding for a new programme has recently been secured. A large consortium of Dutch groups, in which Poolman is one of the leading scientists, received 40 million euros to create life from non-living modules. This EVOLF project is set to run for another ten years and aims to find out how many more lifeless modules can come together and create living cells. 'Ultimately, this would give us a blueprint for life, something that is currently lacking in biology,' concludes Poolman. 'This may eventually have all kinds of applications, but will also help us to better understand what life is.'

Journal References:

1. Laura Heinen, Marco van den Noort, Martin S. King, Edmund R. S. Kunji, Bert Poolman. Synthetic syntrophy for adenine nucleotide cross-feeding between metabolically active nanoreactors. Nature Nanotechnology, 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41565-024-01811-1
2. Miyer F. Patiño-Ruiz, Zaid Ramdhan Anshari, Bauke Gaastra, Dirk J. Slotboom, Bert Poolman. Chemiosmotic nutrient transport in synthetic cells powered by electrogenic antiport coupled to decarboxylation. Nature Communications, 2024; 15 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52085-z 

Courtesy:

University of Groningen. "Creating a simplified form of life." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 October 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241021123151.htm>.

 

 

 

Men and women process pain differently, study finds

 

In a new study evaluating meditation for chronic lower back pain, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that men and women utilize different biological systems to relieve pain. While men relieve pain by releasing endogenous opioids, the body's natural painkillers, women rely instead on other, non-opioid based pathways.

Synthetic opioid drugs, such as morphine and fentanyl, are the most powerful class of painkilling drugs available. Women are known to respond poorly to opioid therapies, which use synthetic opioid molecules to bind to the same receptors as naturally-occurring endogenous opioids. This aspect of opioid drugs helps explain why they are so powerful as painkillers, but also why they carry a significant risk of dependence and addiction.

"Dependence develops because people start taking more opioids when their original dosage stops working," said Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., professor of anesthesiology and Endowed Professor in Empathy and Compassion Research at UC San Diego Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion. "Although speculative, our findings suggest that maybe one reason that females are more likely to become addicted to opioids is that they're biologically less responsive to them and need to take more to experience any pain relief."

The study combined data from two clinical trials involving a total of 98 participants, including both healthy individuals and those diagnosed with chronic lower back pain. Participants underwent a meditation training program, then practiced meditation while receiving either placebo or a high-dose of naloxone, a drug that stops both synthetic and endogenous opioids from working. At the same time, they experienced a very painful but harmless heat stimulus to the back of the leg. The researchers measured and compared how much pain relief was experienced from meditation when the opioid system was blocked versus when it was intact.

The study found:

• Blocking the opioid system with naloxone inhibited meditation-based pain relief in men, suggesting that men rely on endogenous opioids to reduce pain.
• Naloxone increased meditation-based pain relief in women, suggesting that women rely on non-opioid mechanisms to reduce pain.
• In both men and women, people with chronic pain experienced more pain relief from meditation than healthy participants.

"These results underscore the need for more sex-specific pain therapies, because many of the treatments we use don't work nearly as well for women as they do for men," said Zeidan.

The researchers conclude that by tailoring pain treatment to an individual's sex, it may be possible to improve patient outcomes and reduce the reliance on and misuse of opioids.

"There are clear disparities in how pain is managed between men and women, but we haven't seen a clear biological difference in the use of their endogenous systems before now," said Zeidan. "This study provides the first clear evidence that sex-based differences in pain processing are real and need to be taken more seriously when developing and prescribing treatment for pain."

Co-authors on the study include Jon Dean, Mikaila Reyes, Lora Khatib, Gabriel Riegner, Nailea Gonzalez, Julia Birenbaum and Krishan Chakravarthy at UC San Diego, Valeria Oliva at Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Grace Posey at Tulane University School of Medicine, Jason Collier and Rebecca Wells at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Burel Goodin at Washington University in St Louis and Roger Fillingim at University of Florida.

This study was funded, in part, by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (grants R21-AT010352, R01-AT009693, R01AT011502) and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (UL1TR001442).

Journal Reference:

1. Jon G Dean, Mikaila Reyes, Valeria Oliva, Lora Khatib, Gabriel Riegner, Nailea Gonzalez, Grace Posey, Jason Collier, Julia Birenbaum, Krishnan Chakravarthy, Rebecca E Wells, Burel Goodin, Roger Fillingim, Fadel Zeidan. Self-regulated analgesia in males but not females is mediated by endogenous opioids. PNAS Nexus, 2024; DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae453 

Courtesy:

University of California - San Diego. "Men and women process pain differently, study finds." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 October 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241016120023.htm>.