Progesterone could protect against Parkinson's

Lennart Stegemann (left) and Paula Neufeld are working on their doctoral theses and were able to celebrate an early success with the top-class publication.
Photo Credit: © RUB, Marquard

In one study, progesterone showed a protective effect on the nerve cells of the intestine. This gives hope for the hormone to be used against Parkinson's.

There is mutual communication between the nerve cells of the gastrointestinal tract and those in the brain and spinal cord. It suggests that the digestive nervous system could affect brain processes that lead to Parkinson's. Paula Neufeld and Lennart Stegemann, who are doing their doctorate in the cytology department of the Medical Faculty of the Ruhr University Bochum, have demonstrated progesterone receptors for the first time in the nerve cells of the gastrointestinal tract and have shown that progesterone protects the cells. Their discovery opens up perspectives for the development of novel neuroprotective therapeutic approaches to counteract diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. The study is in the journal Cells.

Research reveals ants inflict pain with neurotoxins

Bullet ants, along with Australian green ants, inflict pain by targeting nerve cells.
Photo Credit: Hadrien Lalagüe.

University of Queensland researchers have shown for the first time that some of the world’s most painful ant stings target nerves, like snake and scorpion venom.

Dr Sam Robinson and colleagues at UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience discovered the ant neurotoxins while studying the Australian green ant and South American bullet ant which have stings that cause long-lasting pain.

“We have shown that these ant venoms target our nerve cells that send pain signals,” Dr Robinson said.

“Normally, the sodium channels in these sensory neurons open only briefly in response to a stimulus.

“We discovered that the ant toxins bind to the sodium channels and cause them to open more easily and stay open and active, which translates to a long-lasting pain signal.

Physicists discover an exotic material made of bosons

 Two stacked lattices with one slightly offset create a new pattern called a moiré
Photo Credit Matt Perko

Take a lattice — a flat section of a grid of uniform cells, like a window screen or a honeycomb — and lay another, similar lattice above it. But instead of trying to line up the edges or the cells of both lattices, give the top grid a twist so that you can see portions of the lower one through it. This new, third pattern is a moiré, and it’s between this type of overlapping arrangement of lattices of tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide where UC Santa Barbara physicists found some interesting material behaviors.

“We discovered a new state of matter — a bosonic correlated insulator,” said Richen Xiong, a graduate student researcher in the group of UCSB condensed matter physicist Chenhao Jin, and the lead author of a paper in the journal Science. According to Xiong, Jin and collaborators from UCSB, Arizona State University and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, this is the first time such a material      has been created in a “real” (as opposed to synthetic) matter system. The unique material is a highly ordered crystal of bosonic particles called excitons.

“Conventionally, people have spent most of their efforts to understand what happens when you put many fermions together,” Jin said. “The main thrust of our work is that we basically made a new material out of interacting bosons.”

Imaging agents light up two cancer biomarkers at once to give more complete picture of tumor

Researcher Indrajit Srivastava holds solutions of nanoparticles that can target two cancer biomarkers, giving off two distinct signals when lit by one fluorescent wavelength.  This could give surgeons a more complete picture of a tumor and guide operating-room decisions. In the background is a microscopic scan of a tissue sample. 
Photo Credit: Fred Zwicky

Cancer surgeons may soon have a more complete view of tumors during surgery thanks to new imaging agents that can illuminate multiple biomarkers at once, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers report. The fluorescent nanoparticles, wrapped in the membranes of red blood cells, target tumors better than current clinically approved dyes and can emit two distinct signals in response to just one beam of surgical light, a feature that could help doctors distinguish tumor borders and identify metastatic cancers. 

The imaging agents can be combined with bioinspired cameras, which the researchers previously developed for real-time diagnosis during surgery, said research group leader Viktor Gruev, an Illinois professor of electrical and computer engineering. In a new study in the journal ACS Nano, the researchers demonstrated their new dual-signal nanoparticles in tumor phantoms – 3D models that mimic the features of tumors and their surroundings – and in live mice. 

“If you want to find all the cancer, imaging one biomarker is not enough. It could miss some tumors. If you introduce a second or a third biomarker, the likelihood of removing all cancer cells increases, and the likelihood of a better outcome for the patients increases.” said Gruev, who also is a professor in the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. “Multiple-targeted drugs and imaging agents are a recent trend, and our group is driving the trend hard because we have the camera technology that can image multiple signals at once.”

Electrical synapses in the neural network of insects found to have unexpected role in controlling flight power

The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster flaps its wings two hundred times per second to fly forwards.
 Photo Credit: Silvan Hürke

Researchers of Mainz University and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin revealed previously unknown function of electrical synapses, thus deciphering the neural circuit used to regulate insect wingbeat frequency

A team of experimental neurobiologists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and theoretical biologists at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has managed to solve a mystery that has been baffling scientists for decades. They have been able to determine the nature of the electrical activity in the nervous system of insects that controls their flight. In a paper recently published in Nature, they report on a previously unknown function of electrical synapses employed by fruit flies during flight.

The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster beats its wings around 200 times per second in order to move forward. Other small insects manage even 1,000 wingbeats per second. It is this high frequency of wingbeats that generates the annoying high-pitched buzzing sound we commonly associate with mosquitoes. Every insect has to beat its wings at a certain frequency to not get “stuck” in the air, which acts as a viscous medium due to their small body size. For this purpose, they employ a clever strategy that is widely used in the insect world. This involves reciprocal stretch activation of the antagonistic muscles that raise and depress the wings. The system can oscillate at high frequencies, thus producing the high rate of wingbeats required for propulsion. The motor neurons are unable to keep pace with the speed of the wings so that each neuron generates an electrical pulse that controls the wing muscles only about every 20th wingbeat. These pulses are precisely coordinated with the activity of other neurons. Special activity patterns are generated in the motor neurons that regulate the wingbeat frequency. Each neuron fires at a regular rate but not at the same time as the other neurons. There are fixed intervals between which each of them fires. While it has been known since the 1970s that neural activity patterns of this kind occur in the fruit fly, there was no explanation of the underlying controlling mechanism.

Testing for 'zombie cells' could boost number of hearts for transplant

Image Credit: PublicDomainPictures

Testing older potential organ donors for dangerous ‘zombie’ cells could help to increase the number of hearts available for transplant, according to research we've part-funded and presented at the British Cardiovascular Society conference in Manchester. 

Currently, hearts from donors aged over 65 are not accepted for donation due to the likelihood of a poor clinical outcome. However, our hearts age at different rates and age isn’t necessarily the best indicator of heart health.  

Researchers from Newcastle University are working to develop a test which may help clinicians determine quickly whether a donor heart may still be suitable for transplant. With around 320 people in the UK currently waiting for a lifesaving heart transplant, it is hoped this new test would help to increase the number of hearts available and allow more people to get the transplant they desperately need. 

The research has shown that people with heart disease have more senescent – or ‘zombie’ – cells than those without, after they found higher levels of ‘zombie’ cell markers in their blood. 

Fungi stores a third of carbon from fossil fuel emissions and could be essential to reaching net zero

The fungi make up a vast underground network all over the planet underneath grasslands and forests, as well as roads, gardens, and houses on every continent on Earth
Photo Credit: Florian van Duyn

Researchers are now calling for fungi to be considered more heavily in conservation and biodiversity policies, and are investigating whether we can increase how much carbon the soil underneath us can hold

The vast underground network of fungi beneath our feet stores over 13 gigatons of carbon around the world, roughly equivalent to 36 per cent of yearly global fossil fuel emissions, according to new research.

It is widely believed that mycorrhizal fungi could store carbon, as the fungi forms symbiotic relationships with almost all land plants and transports carbon, converted into sugars and fats by the plant, into soil, but until now the true extent of just how much carbon the fungi were storing wasn’t known.

The discovery by a team of scientists, including researchers from the University of Sheffield, that fungi is storing over a third of the carbon created from fossil fuel emissions each year indicates that it could be crucial as nations seek to tackle climate change and reach net zero. Work is now being undertaken to see whether we could increase how much carbon the soil underneath us can store.

New findings about human metabolic processes

Using genome-wide analysis, the researchers identified 1,299 genetic alterations that impact on metabolites in blood plasma and urine. Shown here are the 282 gene locations where enzymes and transporter proteins that influence metabolism are located.
Full Size Image
Image Credit: Anna Köttgen/Universität Freiburg

Researchers at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Freiburg have gained significant new insights into metabolic processes in the kidney. The scientists from the Institute of Genetic Epidemiology at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg measured tiny molecules, so-called metabolites, which occur in blood and urine and reflect our metabolism, in samples from more than 5,000 study participants. They compared these with the genome of the test persons and were able to identify 1,299 genetic changes that are associated with metabolites and contribute to their production, degradation or transport. The findings provide a better understanding of processes throughout the body and particularly in the kidney, which produces urine from blood plasma. These discoveries, which appeared June 5, 2023, in the journal Nature Genetics, could lead to a better understanding of diseases and new approaches to their treatment. For example, a new class of therapies for treating diabetes, called SGLT2 inhibitors, work by inhibiting a metabolite transporter in the kidney.

Delirium risk in the Emergency Department for older adults

Katren Tyler led team of researchers that discovered detrimental effects of prolonged ED stays on older patients' health.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of University of California, Davis Health

New UC Davis Health research reveals a significant association between the length of stay in the emergency department (ED) and the development of incident delirium in older adults.

The study, published this month in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, was conducted by a team of emergency medicine physicians. It sheds light on the detrimental effects of prolonged ED stays on older patients' health.

Katren Tyler, vice chair for geriatric emergency medicine and wellness and senior author of the study, commented, "Prolonged ED length of stay can have detrimental effects on older patients, especially those with a history of dementia and multiple comorbidities. Swift assignment and transfer to inpatient beds for admitted older patients will not only reduce the risk of delirium but also benefit both patients and health systems."

Delirium is a sudden change in mental function that can include confusion, rapid mood changes and is often reversible.  It is a common and costly condition among older adults, often goes unrecognized and can have severe consequences. The estimated costs associated with delirium to the health care system fall between $38 billion and $152 billion annually.   

Computational model mimics humans’ ability to predict emotions

While a great deal of research has gone into training computer models to infer someone’s emotional state based on their facial expression, that is not the most important aspect of human emotional intelligence, says MIT Professor Rebecca Saxe. Much more important is the ability to predict someone’s emotional response to events before they occur.
Image Credit: Christine Daniloff, MIT
(CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

When interacting with another person, you likely spend part of your time trying to anticipate how they will feel about what you’re saying or doing. This task requires a cognitive skill called theory of mind, which helps us to infer other people’s beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions.

MIT neuroscientists have now designed a computational model that can predict other people’s emotions — including joy, gratitude, confusion, regret, and embarrassment — approximating human observers’ social intelligence. The model was designed to predict the emotions of people involved in a situation based on the prisoner’s dilemma, a classic game theory scenario in which two people must decide whether to cooperate with their partner or betray them. 

To build the model, the researchers incorporated several factors that have been hypothesized to influence people’s emotional reactions, including that person’s desires, their expectations in a particular situation, and whether anyone was watching their actions.

“These are very common, basic intuitions, and what we said is, we can take that very basic grammar and make a model that will learn to predict emotions from those features,” says Rebecca Saxe, the John W. Jarve Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the senior author of the study.