It was already known that in Parkinson’s disease the cells in the brain that produce dopamine slowly disappear. This is why patients are given extra dopamine as medication. But only a limited link has been found between the loss of those cells, and the severity of symptoms in Parkinson’s. Even if all the cells have […]
Short-term exposure to air pollution may be linked to an increased risk of stroke, according to a meta-analysis published in the September 27, 2023, online issue of Neurology®. “Previous research has established a connection between long-term exposure to air pollution and an increased risk of stroke,” said study author Ahmad Toubasi, MD. “However, the correlation […]
A new study examined the critical connection between the brain and pain for treating chronic pain. Specifically, they looked at the importance of pain attributions, which are people’s beliefs about the underlying causes of their pain, to reduce chronic back pain severity. Ashar and his team tested whether the reattribution of pain to mind or […]
Premature birth, when a baby is born 3 or more weeks early, affects 10.5% of births in the United States; these rates are higher in some other parts of the world. Premature newborns can suffer many medical complications, including diseases of the eyes, lungs, brain and digestive system. Prematurity is the leading cause of death […]
Researchers found that the particles in our nervous system, molecular cousins of the well-known HDL, or “good cholesterol” particles in our bloodstream, are much more diverse than previously thought. Researchers detected more than 300 different proteins associated with the particles, far more than the 16 known previously, that fall into at least 10 different families. […]
Immunity — the body’s ability to defend itself against pathogens, here SARS-CoV2 — can be conferred by vaccination, infection or a combination of the two. The vaccine acts in two ways on the spread of the virus. It prevents people from contracting the virus, but also, in the event of infection, from spreading to those […]
In 2022, more than one in five children around the world did not get enough calories to grow normally, and more than 45 million showed signs of wasting, or weighing too little for their height. More than a million children die each year as a consequence of wasting and more than 250,000 die from stunting. […]
Researchers at Utah State University have successfully demonstrated that hagfish slime proteins can accurately replicate membranes in the human eye. Professor Elizabeth Vargis and her team study a condition called age-related macular degeneration that causes damage to the retina, making it difficult to see. They study in vitro models, or a model developed in a […]
According to the American Heart Association’s 2023 Statistical Update, nearly half of adults in the U.S. have high blood pressure. Previous research found that blood pressure varies with the seasons of the year. Most of this variation is in systolic blood pressure — the top number in a blood pressure reading that gauges the pressure […]
Doctors often have patients perform simple motor tasks to assess movement disorders and rate the severity using guidelines such as the Movement Disorder Society Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS). The AI model provides a rapid assessment using the MDS-UPDRS guidelines, automatically generating computational metrics such as speed, amplitude, frequency, and period that are interpretable, […]