Lifeboat Foundation

An exciting new study from the University of Cambridge is demonstrating how a novel virtual reality navigation test can better predict which patients are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease compared to other currently used “gold standard” cognitive tests.

Researchers from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg present a new method which can double the energy of a proton beam produced by laser-based particle accelerators. The breakthrough could lead to more compact, cheaper equipment that could be useful for many applications, including proton therapy.

Proton therapy involves firing a beam of accelerated protons at cancerous tumours, killing them through irradiation. But the equipment needed is so large and expensive that it only exists in a few locations worldwide.

Modern high-powered lasers offer the potential to reduce the equipment’s size and cost, since they can accelerate particles over a much shorter distance than traditional accelerators — reducing the distance required from kilometres to metres. The problem is, despite efforts from researchers around the world, laser generated proton beams are currently not energetic enough. But now, the Swedish researchers present a new method which yields a doubling of the energy — a major leap forward.

Continue reading “Colliding lasers double the energy of proton beams” »

A new study has affirmed the anesthetic drug xenon can help prevent long-term damage associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI). The researchers, from Imperial College London and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, have effectively demonstrated in mice that if xenon is administered within a few hours of a TBI it can prevent brain tissue damage that would result in long-term cognitive problems.

Mayo Clinic researchers have demonstrated the safety and feasibility of stem cell therapy for lung transplant recipients with moderate obstructive chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD). A larger clinical study is planned, which might eventually yield regenerative-medicine options for managing acute or chronic CLAD.

“The primary purpose is to improve lung function, or at least arrest the rate of decline in lung function, in transplant patients with progressive obstructive disease that is refractory to medical therapy,” says Cesar A. Keller, M.D., emeritus professor at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.

Although lung transplantation is a life-saving treatment option, chronic rejection is considerably more common than in other solid organ transplants, due to the lungs’ continuous exposure to environmental factors. Within five years of lung transplant, 45 percent of recipients develop obstructive CLAD, also known as bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) — which has an associated mortality rate ranging from 25 percent to 56 percent. There is no standardized therapeutic protocol for BOS, and the existing therapies have had variable success.

Continue reading “Stem cell therapy for graft dysfunction in lung transplant” »

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US approves the one-time treatment for deadly spinal muscular atrophy in infants.

Researchers have developed a brain-computer interface the size of a baby aspirin that can restore mobility to people with paralysis or amputated limbs.

How does it work? It rewires neural messages from the brain’s motor cortex to a robotic arm, or reroutes it to the person’s own muscles. In this video, Big Think contributor Susan Hockfield, president emerita of MIT, explains further.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQVfLYm3VEs&feature=share

Liz intends to take another gene therapy before the end of the year.

In a new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago, researchers examining post-mortem brain tissue from people ages 79 to 99 found that new neurons continue to form well into old age. The study provides evidence that this occurs even in people with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, although neurogenesis is significantly reduced in these people compared to older adults with normal cognitive functioning.

They publish their results in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

The idea that new neurons continue to form into middle age, let alone past adolescence, is controversial, as previous studies have shown conflicting results. The UIC study is the first to find evidence of significant numbers of neural stem cells and newly developing neurons present in the hippocampal tissue of older adults, including those with disorders that affect the hippocampus, which is involved in the formation of memories and in learning.

Continue reading “New neurons form in the brain into the tenth decade of life, even in people with Alzheimer’s” »