New research led by the University of Portsmouth has revealed how Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), best known for causing severe muscle degeneration, also profoundly affects the brain, leading to cognitive and behavioral challenges that are very diverse and some could be reversible.
A discovery published in Nature Immunology has shed light on why the immune system is less aggressive toward self-antigens, offering new opportunities to enhance cancer immunotherapy.
Zhanette Coffee, Ph.D., MSN, APRN, spent years working as an advanced practice nurse with certifications in family practice and addictions nursing and saw firsthand the challenges faced not only by patients with opioid use disorder, but also by the health care professionals providing treatment to those patients.
Most humans have long-lived infections in various tissues—including in the nervous system—that typically do not result in disease. The microbes associated with these infections enter a latent stage during which they quietly hide in cells, playing the long game to evade capture and ensure their own survival. But a lack of natural models to study these quiescent stages has led to gaps in scientists’ understanding of how latency contributes to pathogen persistence and whether these stages can be targeted by the immune system.
Surgery may not be the best next course of treatment for patients with early-stage breast cancer who had a complete response to neoadjuvant (pre-surgical) chemotherapy and standard radiation treatment, according to new data from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
For the first time, scientists have confirmed a neurobiochemical link between dopamine and cognitive flexibility, according to new research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. PET imaging shows that the brain increases dopamine production when completing cognitively demanding tasks, and that the more dopamine released, the more efficiently the tasks are completed. Armed with this information, physicians may soon be able to develop more precise treatment strategies for neurological and psychiatric disorders.
A new study published in the journal Immunity reveals a mechanism that allows triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) to develop resistance to therapy.
Accumulation of a protein called TDP-43 is a key feature of ALS and frontotemporal dementia. In a study published in Neuron, researchers report ‘seeding’ this accumulation through fragments of the culprit protein created in the lab.
Long-term fasting in 24-hour cycles increases the sex drive of male mice by lowering the concentration of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. This effect is linked to a diet-induced deficiency of the precursor substance tryptophan—an amino acid that must be obtained through food.
A growing body of research has drawn connections between everyday discrimination—the routine and often subtle forms of mistreatment that people experience on a day-to-day basis—and poor mental health.