ScienceDaily: Top Health News

For millions of people with epilepsy and movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, electrical stimulation of the brain already is widening treatment possibilities. In the future, electrical stimulation may help people with psychiatric illness and direct brain injuries, such as stroke.

Researchers have developed a new imaging technique capable of visualizing the dynamically changing structure of dendritic spines with unprecedented resolution. By combining two cutting-edge types of microscopies, scientists now have the tools necessary to unravel the ultrastructural complexities of spines during the process of synaptic plasticity.

Extremely premature infants are at a high risk for brain damage. Researchers have now found possible targets for the early treatment of such damage outside the brain: Bacteria in the gut of premature infants may play a key role. The research team found that the overgrowth of the gastrointestinal tract with the bacterium Klebsiella is associated with an increased presence of certain immune cells and the development of neurological damage in premature babies.

Individuals who are hospitalized during pregnancy due to sepsis have higher odds of complications surrounding childbirth, according to a new study. The study found that pregnancies complicated by sepsis were associated with an increased risk of cesarean delivery, postpartum hemorrhage and preterm delivery, highlighting the risk of any severe infection during pregnancy.

Researchers have developed a deep learning-based method that can predict the possible onset of Alzheimer's disease from brain images with an accuracy of over 99 percent. The method was developed while analyzing functional MRI images obtained from 138 subjects and performed better in terms of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity than previously developed methods.

Neuroscientists have developed a statistical framework that rigorously describes the brain state changes that patients experience under ketamine-induced anesthesia.

Subscription-based payment models (SBPM), a novel approach in which states contract exclusively with a single manufacturer to supply prescriptions at a reduced price, could increase access to these life-saving treatments, according to a new study. In a SBPM, states pay reduced per prescription prices for medications until a certain utilization threshold. After this threshold, the cost of additional prescriptions is essentially zero.

How do we make decisions about a situation we have not encountered before? New work shows that we can solve abstract problems in the same way that we can find a novel route between two known locations -- by using an internal cognitive map.

Bioengineers have repurposed a 'non-working' CRISPR system to make a smaller version of the genome engineering tool. Its diminutive size should make it easier to deliver into human cells, tissues and the body for gene therapy.

Researchers have found that drug-resistant strains of a potentially deadly fungus isolated from a tulip bulb showed evidence of genetic recombination and fungicide resistance. The team revealed that plant bulbs provide a place for strains of the human pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus, which can cause highly lethal fungal infections, to evolve drug resistance.

Therapies that target aging cells early pave the way to easing back pain.

A new paper found that women -- as compared to their male counterparts -- receive less credit for the work they put into academic publications, more frequently experience disagreements over authorship, and often end up losing out on opportunities for future collaboration as a result.

A new study shows CAR T cells expressing RN7SL1 can activate the body's natural immune cells against difficult-to-treat cancers.

Medical researchers report that melanoma formation depends on something called 'oncogenic competence,' which is the result of a collaboration between the DNA mutations in a cell and the particular set of genes that are turned on in that cell. Cells that are competent to form melanoma are able to access a set of genes that normally are closed off to mature melanocytes (the cells that make melanin and give skin its color). In order to access these locked-up genes, the cells require specific proteins that act as keys. Without them, the cells do not form melanoma, even when they have cancer-associated DNA mutations.

Researchers have developed a diagnostic system that can rapidly and sensitively measure the amount of antibodies in the blood that can protect us from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This achievement is expected to enable efficient and precise testing of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine efficacy at medical facilities.