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The University of Alberta is 3rd in the world for AI research.

Researchers meet the challenge of developing a model that uses speech traits to detect cognitive decline, paving the way for a potential screening tool.

Researchers are striving to make earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s dementia possible with a machine learning (ML) model that could one day be turned into a simple screening tool anyone with a smartphone could use.

Continue reading “Machine learning model able to detect signs of Alzheimer’s across languages” »

Hearing diminishes as we age — about 50% of adults 75 and over in the United States have disabling hearing loss.

Age-related hearing loss cannot currently be stopped.

Researchers from the University of Guelph and Tufts.

Continue reading “Omega-3 fatty acids may slow age related hearing loss” »

On a rush-hour train or a crowded flight, you might draw your limbs in close, shrinking as people fill the space. As it turns out, living cells behave similarly in confinement, adjusting their size while growing alongside other cells in sheets of tissue.

John Devany, then a graduate student in the lab of biophysicist Margaret Gardel, had been studying epithelial monolayers—sheets of cells that form barriers in skin and coat internal organs—when he noticed something interesting about how the cells were dividing.

“The way people think about division is that a cell will grow to twice its size, divide, and repeat the cycle,” says Devany, the first author of the study, published in Developmental Cell. But in the epithelial tissue he was observing, division was proceeding as usual, but the daughter cells were ending up smaller than the mother. The team, collaborating with researchers from New York University, decided to investigate the mechanisms that control cell growth and cycle duration in tissue and discovered that the two processes are not directly coupled.

Continue reading “Cells in confinement and people in crowds have similar behaviors” »

Mothers who eat apples and herbs in early pregnancy could be protecting the brain health of their children and grandchildren, a Monash University study using genetic models has found.

The discovery is part of a project that found a mother’s diet can affect not just her child’s brain but also those of her grandchildren.

Published in Nature CellBiology, the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute study found that certain foods could help protect against the deterioration of brain function.

Continue reading “A mother’s diet can protect her grandchildren’s brains: genetic model study” »

In a world first, a quadriplegic man in the United States has regained touch and movement after surgeons successfully implanted microchips into his brain.

AI is then used to read, interpret and translate his thoughts into action.

Keith Thomas, 45, broke his neck in an accident and became paralysed from his chest down.

Continue reading “AI-powered brain implants restore touch and movement to paralysed man” »

Low-grade inflammation contributes to age-related decline and impairment, but the precise pathways responsible for this inflammation and their impact on natural aging have until now remained elusive.

A study headed by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) has now shown that a molecular signaling pathway known as cGAS/STING plays a critical role in driving chronic inflammation and functional decline during aging. Andrea Ablasser, PhD, and colleagues found that blocking the STING protein suppressed inflammatory responses in human senescent cells and tissues, and reduced aging-related inflammation in multiple peripheral organs and in the brain in mice.

The researchers in addition studied the effects of blocking the STING protein in aged mice. As expected by its central role in driving inflammation, inhibiting STING alleviated markers of inflammation both in the periphery and in the brain. “Notably, various aging-related immune signature genes were significantly attenuated as a result of STING inhibition,” they stated. And importantly, animals receiving STING inhibitors displayed significant enhancements in spatial and associative memory, as well as improved muscle strength and physical endurance.

Continue reading “Signaling Pathway Implicated in Inflammation and Functional Decline during Aging” »

New research on mice has shed light on how high blood pressure causes changes to arteries in the brain, a process that leads to vascular dementia. The research, led by University of Manchester scientists, funded by the British Heart Foundation and published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ^[1] has uncovered a route to developing the first ever drug treatments for vascular dementia that directly target a cause of the condition.

High blood pressure is the main cause of vascular dementia, a condition characterised by poor blood flow to the brain. The reduced blood supply starves brain cells of nutrients and over time they become damaged and die. Symptoms of vascular dementia include loss of energy, lack of concentration and poor memory.

It’s normal for the brain’s arteries to narrow and widen in response to changes in blood pressure. However, consistently high blood pressure causes arteries to stay narrow and restrict the brain’s blood supply. Until now, it was not known why.

Researchers have identified two ion channel switches that regulate the release of dopamine in the brain, a first step that might one day lead to therapeutics for a wide range of diseases and disorders that currently have few solutions.

The switches help regulate learning and motivational state in mice. Humans also have hundreds of these channels, which govern many chemical and hormonal processes that influence behavior and mood. The University of Washington School of Medicine research team hopes to identify drugs to target these channels. Those drug candidates could then be tested in clinical trials.

“The ability to precisely manipulate how dopamine-producing neurons of the brain regulate different behaviors is a major step toward developing better therapies for a range of mental illnesses,” said Larry Zweifel, professor of psychiatry & behavioral sciences at the UW School of Medicine.

The findings were published Aug. 10 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

“It’s amazing that children with the same symptoms end up with two distinct forms of altered neural networks,” said Dr. Flora Vaccarino, the Harris Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine and co-senior author of the paper.

Two distinct neurodevelopmental abnormalities that arise just weeks after the start of brain development have been associated with the emergence of autism spectrum disorder, according to a new Yale-led study in which researchers developed brain organoids from the stem cells of boys diagnosed with the disorder.

Continue reading “Yale scientists reveal two paths to autism in the developing brain” »