2021

In this open access commentary, the authors discuss efforts to uncover the mechanisms by which microglia in the aging brain are primed to undertake inflammatory responses, more so than those in the young brain. This may be due in part towards increased numbers of senescent microglia, secreting pro-inflammatory signals. This […]

In vitro fertilization fulfils the wishes of half a million parents each year, yet fertility treatment leaves plenty of room for improvement. A majority of potential embryos are ruled out for implantation, flagged by a genetic test designed to root out abnormalities early on.  This selection process limits the success […]

To improve the development of new saliva-based diagnostic tests and personalized medicine, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) has supported the development of the Human Salivary Proteome Wiki, the first public platform that catalogues and curates data on each of the thousands of proteins within our saliva. Detailed […]

Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have developed important new resources that will aid the battle against cancer and advance cutting-edge genomics research. UVA’s Chongzhi Zang and his colleagues and students have developed a new computational method to map the folding patterns of our chromosomes in three […]

For the past few years, Annabelle Singer and her collaborators have been using flickering lights and sound to treat mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease, and they’ve seen some dramatic results. Now they have resulted from the first human feasibility study of the flicker treatment, and they’re promising. “We looked at safety, tolerance, and adherence, […]

Parkinson’s disease is an incurable neurodegenerative condition, affecting millions of people in the world. It is one of the leading causes of age-related dementia as well as a very common cause of disability or death. Now scientists at the University of York are pushing to make a nasal spray treatment […]

If you come from a family where people routinely live well into old age, you will likely have better cognitive function (the ability to clearly think, learn and remember) than peers from families where people die younger. Researchers affiliated with the Long Life Family Study (LLFS) recently broadened that finding […]

When a single gene in a cell is turned on or off, its resulting presence or absence can affect the function and survival of the cell. In a new study appearing in Nature Neuroscience, UCSF researchers have successfully catalogued this effect in the human neuron by separately toggling each of […]

Ultrahigh-resolution, high-speed imaging of fruit fly brains has allowed University of Oregon scientists to capture mechanical motions that stem cells use to make neurons, the cells that make up the brain. The motions coordinate cell division during differentiation, when some newly born cells become neurons. Differentiation is essential for building […]

Personalized nutrition has emerged in recent years as a key potential solution to a variety of diseases that originate in the gut, and Nebraska scientists are mining microbiome data to determine how individuals’ digestive systems might respond to different nutritional approaches. Ultimately, these findings could help scientists and doctors recommend […]

One trait shared by all humans is that they don’t remember specific life episodes that occurred before the age of 3 or 4.  Many scientists have attributed this so-called “infantile amnesia” to a lack of development in the hippocampus, an area of the brain located in the temporal lobe that is […]

Researchers here report on DNA sequencing carried out in a (necessarily small) number of supercentenarians (age 110 and over) and semi-supercentenarians (age 105 to 109), and identification of genetic variants associated with DNA repair and clonal hematopoiesis that are more common in these survivors to late old age. We should […]