Monthly Archives: May 2023

Depression due to psychological stress affects millions of people worldwide. However, most of the existing antidepressant drugs are slow, prone to development of resistance, and have severe side effects, demanding the need for more effective treatment options. Delta opioid receptors (DOPs) are known to play a key role in the development of depression and similar […]

A new Nature Immunologystudy led by University of Pittsburgh and National Institutes of Health researchers sheds light on how a rare type of helper T cell, called Th9, can drive allergic disease, suggesting new precision medicine approaches to treating allergies in patients with high levels of Th9. “Th9 cells are kind of like the black […]

Scientists from Singapore have demonstrated the critical role played by a special transporter protein in regulating the brain cells that ensure nerves are protected by coverings called myelin sheaths.  The findings, reported by researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School and the National University of Singapore in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could help to reduce the […]

Approximately one in six people worldwide is affected by infertility, according to the World Health Organization. With a 78% failure rate, each IVF cycle can be an emotional rollercoaster that often ends in heartbreak. “While much work has been done around selecting eggs and embryos to boost the success rates of IVF, sperm selection, an […]

Inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, describes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, two chronic diseases that cause inflammation in the intestines. IBD is an autoimmune disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks healthy tissues. The intestinal epithelium, made up of a layer of cells that lines the intestine, plays an important role in IBD because […]

It’s generally accepted that we will lose muscle strength and slow down as we age, making it more difficult to perform simple tasks such as getting up, walking and sitting down. But new Edith Cowan University  research indicates this could also be a signal for another sinister health concern of aging: late-life dementia. To investigate […]

A deep slumber might help buffer against memory loss for older adults facing a heightened burden of Alzheimer’s disease, new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests. Deep sleep, also known as non-REM slow-wave sleep, can act as a “cognitive reserve factor” that may increase resilience against a protein in the brain called beta-amyloid […]

A major impediment to treating the deadly brain cancer glioblastoma has been that the most potent chemotherapy can’t permeate the blood-brain barrier to reach the aggressive brain tumor. But now Northwestern Medicine scientists report results of the first in-human clinical trial in which they used a novel, skull-implantable ultrasound device to open the blood-brain barrier […]