Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists have found a new drug treatment that can slow the progression of neurodegenerative disease in mice. The breakthrough research may offer fresh hope in tackling currently untreatable conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The study—led by researchers at the University of Glasgow’s new Advanced Research Center (ARC) and published today in Science Signaling —found that by using a novel drug, which selectively activates a brain protein called the M1-receptor, the lifespan of mice suffering from neurodegeneration could be extended. The M1-receptor is a key brain protein, involved in memory and learning in people, and is an important potential target for neurodegenerative disease treatment.

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Basically this is one of the cure all options for thousands of brain disorders.

Researchers in Portugal have discovered a new collaborative mechanism that unveils how neural stem cells sense injury and communicate for tissue repair, moving science closer to boosting neuron regeneration after brain damage.

Stroke and traumatic brain injury can permanently damage neurons and, depending on injury site, patients may experience long-term impairments of critical motor or cognitive functions. For this reason, the brain has a reserve of special cells—known as neural stem cells—that can partially activate after tissue damage.

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Individuals suffering from severe depression may find relief from just a single dose of a synthetic version of psilocybin, or “magic mushrooms,” according to a new study published this week.

The findings, which were published Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine, come from a double-blind trial involving 233 “randomly assigned adults with treatment-resistant depression [who received] a single dose of a proprietary, synthetic formulation of psilocybin at a dose of 25 mg, 10 mg, or 1 mg (control), along with psychological support.”

“In this phase 2 trial involving participants with treatment-resistant depression, psilocybin at a single dose of 25 mg, but not 10 mg, reduced depression scores significantly more than a 1-mg dose over a period of 3 weeks but was associated with adverse effects,” the authors wrote in their conclusions, adding that “larger and longer trials, including comparison with existing treatments, are required to determine the efficacy and safety of psilocybin for this disorder.”

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CHICAGO, Nov 29 (Reuters) — The first big breakthrough in 30 years of Alzheimer’s research is providing momentum for clinical trials of “cocktail” treatments targeting the two hallmark proteins associated with the mind-robbing disease, according to interviews with researchers and pharmaceutical executives.

Drugmakers Eisai Co Ltd (4523.T) and Biogen (BIIB.O)

Reported in September that their therapy lecanemab could slow progress of the disease by 27% over 18 months compared with a placebo [ read more.

Continue reading “Rare success for Alzheimer’s research unlocks hope for future therapies” »

‘This is the first drug that provides a real treatment option,’ says leading researcher Scientists are hailing a historic step in the fight against Alzheimer’s, after a drug was proven to slow the disease in long-awaited clinical trials. The breakthrough comes after decades of failed attempts to find a way to do so, and has prompted hope among experts that it could eventually pave the way for treatments which could ultimately lead to a cure.

Until recently, physicists widely believed that it was impossible to compress light below the so-called diffraction limit, except when utilizing metal nanoparticles, which also absorb light. As a result, it seemed to be impossible to compress light strongly in dielectric materials like silicon, which are essential for information technologies and had the significant advantage of not absorbing light. Interestingly, it was theoretically shown that the diffraction limit does not apply to dielectrics back in 2006. However, no one has been able to demonstrate this in the actual world due to the fact that it requires such complex nanotechnology that no one has yet been able to create the required dielectric nanostructures.

A research team from the Technical University of Denmark has created a device known as a “dielectric nanocavity” that successfully concentrates light in a volume 12 times smaller than the diffraction limit. The finding is groundbreaking in optical research and was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Nature Communications is a peer-reviewed, open access, multidisciplinary, scientific journal published by Nature Research. It covers the natural sciences, including physics, biology, chemistry, medicine, and earth sciences. It began publishing in 2010 and has editorial offices in London, Berlin, New York City, and Shanghai.

Continue reading “Seemingly Impossible: Nanostructure Compresses Light 10,000 Times Thinner Than a Human Hair” »

Year 2021 😁

Conducting medical research on lab-printed brains could be better than animal studies.

Colon cancer is the second deadliest cancer in the US. Early detection is important but finding and diagnosing polyps is difficult. 2 AI-powered endoscopes have been developed in Japan to tackle the problem. One can judge a lesion’s malignancy in 0.4 second with almost 100% accuracy. The other indicates lesions during an exam, even indistinct ones, like a car navigation system. We also introduce fermented Japanese foods that are beneficial for gut health and explain how they should be eaten.

OrganEx—an extracorporeal pulsatile-perfusion system with cytoprotective perfusate for porcine whole-body settings—preserved tissue integrity, decreased cell death and restored selected molecular and cellular processes across multiple vital organs after 1 h of warm ischaemia in pigs.