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Category: life extension – Page 142

Human brain organoid: trends, evolution, and remaining… : Neural Regeneration Research

Analyzed the global trends in this area of neuroscience. To identify and further facilitate the development of cerebral organoids, we utilized bibliometrics and visualization methods to analyze the global trends and evolution of brain organoids in the last 10 years. First, annual publications, countries/regions, organizations, journals, authors, co-citations, and keywords relating to brain organoids were identified. The hotspots in this field were also systematically identified. Subsequently, current applications for brain organoids in neuroscience, including human neural development, neural disorders, infectious diseases, regenerative medicine, drug discovery, and toxicity assessment studies, are comprehensively discussed.

Seeing the consciousness forest for the trees

The American public intellectual and creator of the television series Closer to Truth, Robert Lawrence Kuhn has written perhaps the most comprehensive article on the landscape of theories of consciousness in recent memory. In this review of the consciousness landscape, Àlex Gómez-MarÃn celebrates Robert Kuhn €™s rejection of the monopoly of materialism and uncovers the radical implications of these new accounts of consciousness for meaning, artificial intelligence, and human immortality.

The scientific study of consciousness was not sanctioned by the mainstream until the nineties. Let us not forget that science stands on the shoulders of giants but also on the three-legged stool of data, theory, and socio-political wants. Thirty years later, the field has grown into a vibrant milieu of approaches blessed and burdened by covert assumptions, contradictory results, and conflicting implications. If the study of behaviour and cognition has become the Urban East, consciousness studies are the current Wild West of science and philosophy.

Longevity: How extreme exercise may prolong life span

In this episode of In Conversation, we turn the focus to all things extreme exercise and longevity. Based on the findings of a recent study, which found that a select group of elite runners could live around five years longer on average than the general population, Medical News Today editors Maria Cohut and Yasemin Nicola Sakay discuss the probable biological mechanisms behind how more extreme forms of exercise, such as 4-minute mile running, affect longevity with an expert in cardiology.

Joining the conversation is Michael Papadakis, president of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology (EAPC), professor of cardiology at St George’s, University of London, honorary consultant cardiologist at St George’s University Hospitals National Health Service Foundation Trust, and consultant cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic London in the United Kingdom.

Papadakis shares easy-to-follow advice on how to incorporate more physical activity into our daily lives while discussing the potential health risks and benefits of running and similar forms of professional athletic performance.

Near-infrared photobiomodulation technique targets brain inflammation

As the world grapples with an aging population, the rise in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s is becoming a significant challenge. These conditions place a heavy burden not only on those afflicted but also on their families and society at large. Traditional treatments, including drug therapy and surgery, often come with side effects and high costs, and more critically, they fail to halt the progression of neuronal degeneration or prevent the death of neurons in patients.

Cognitive rejuvenation in old rats by hippocampal OSKM gene therapy

Several studies have indicated that interrupted epigenetic reprogramming using Yamanaka transcription factors (OSKM) can rejuvenate cells from old laboratory animals and humans. However, the potential of OSKM-induced rejuvenation in brain tissue has been less explored. Here, we aimed to restore cognitive performance in 25.3-month-old female Sprague–Dawley rats using OSKM gene therapy for 39 days. Their progress was then compared with the cognitive performance of untreated 3.5-month-old rats as well as old control rats treated with a placebo adenovector. The Barnes maze test, used to assess cognitive performance, demonstrated enhanced cognitive abilities in old rats treated with OSKM compared to old control animals. In the treated old rats, there was a noticeable trend towards improved spatial memory relative to the old controls.

Blood protein assessment of leading incident diseases and mortality in the UK Biobank

Identifying individuals who are at a high risk of age-related morbidities may aid in personalized medicine. Circulating proteins can discriminate disease cases from controls and delineate the risk of incident diagnoses1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. While singular protein markers offer insight into the mediators of disease5,9,10,11, simultaneously harnessing multiple proteins may improve clinical utility12. Clinically available non-omics scores such as QRISK typically profile the 10-year onset risk of a disease13. Proteomic scores have recently been trained on diabetes, cardiovascular and lifestyle traits as outcomes in 16,894 individuals14. Proteomic and metabolomic scores have also been developed for time-to-event outcomes, including all-cause mortality6,15,16,17,18,19,20,21.

Here, we demonstrate how large-scale proteomic sampling can identify candidate protein targets and facilitate the prediction of leading age-related incident outcomes in mid to later life (see the study design summary in Extended Data Fig. 1). We used 1,468 Olink plasma protein measurements in 47,600 individuals (aged 40–70 years) available as part of the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project (UKB-PPP)22. Cox proportional hazards (PH) models were used to characterize associations between each protein and 24 incident outcomes, ascertained through electronic health data linkage. Next, the dataset was randomly split into training and testing subsets to train proteomic scores (ProteinScores) and assess their utility for modeling either the 5-or 10-year onset of the 19 incident outcomes that had a minimum of 150 cases available. We modeled ProteinScores alongside clinical biomarkers, polygenic risk scores (PRS) and metabolomics measures to investigate how these markers may be used to augment risk stratification.

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