All posts by : Felistas

Fear memories can form in the brain following exposure to threatening situations such as natural disasters, accidents, or violence. When these memories become excessive or distorted, they can lead to severe mental health disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, and depression. However, the mechanisms underlying fear memory formation triggered by affective pain rather than direct physical pain have remained largely unexplored—until now.

For the first time, an international study has deciphered the genome of the population of Brazil. Published in the journal Science, the research includes the African, Native American, and European ancestries making up this population, which has the world’s highest level of recent genetic admixture.

Exposure to higher rates of violence in the larger social context may spill over to family violence, including caregivers’ use of physical child abuse, according to a new University of Michigan study published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.

A decades-long scientific challenge in HIV vaccine development has been finding a way to train the immune system to produce antibodies that can target many variants of the virus. Traditional approaches haven’t worked—largely because HIV mutates rapidly and hides key parts of itself from the immune system.

A new USC-led study has uncovered a significant link between type 2 diabetes mellitus and cortical thickness in older adults from various populations.

Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have developed a blood test that can identify early signs of Alzheimer’s disease by measuring proteins linked to the condition. The new test, known as Penta-Plex Alzheimer’s Disease Capture Sandwich Immunoassay (5ADCSI), detects five biomarkers simultaneously, which is more than existing blood tests and runs on equipment commonly used in many laboratories.

Inflammation in the female reproductive tract may make it difficult to conceive a child, but replenishing a key hormone could keep inflammation in check, according to researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine.

Staffing challenges related to patient safety, physician well-being and workforce sustainability are a growing concern in the subspecialty of neonatology that call for reform.

An often-ignored type of cell in the brain plays a dynamic and surprisingly complex role in our ability to process information, according to new research from Oregon Health & Science University.

More than 75% of new infectious diseases affecting humans originally come from animals. Bats, in particular, are natural hosts to some of the world’s most dangerous viruses, including those responsible for COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), MERS-CoV, influenza A, and hantavirus outbreaks. Yet, despite their importance, scientists have long struggled to study how these viruses behave inside bats, simply because the right biological tools didn’t exist.