Credit: Center for BrainHealth
DALLAS (March 9, 2021) - Better brain health and performance for humankind is one step closer to reality with the successful trial of the groundbreaking BrainHealth Project. A cross-disciplinary team with the Center for BrainHealth® at The University of Texas at Dallas unveiled an easy-to-use online platform that delivers a novel, science-backed approach to measuring, improving and tracking one s own brain fitness.
A key innovation of the Project centers on the BrainHealth Index™ (BHI), which is based on a multidimensional definition of brain health and its upward potential. The BHI is a composite derived from a series of best-in-class assessments that explore multiple aspects of an individual s cognitive capacity, as well as their sense of well-being, quality of social interactions and complexity of daily routines. The result is a personalized score that becomes an individual s baseline, and that in theory has no upper limit.
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IMAGE: Images show myelinated axons in biomaterial scaffolds eight weeks after injection into the injured cord of a mouse. Scaffolds were fabricated from hyaluronic acid (HA) with a regular network of. view more
Credit: Seidlits et al.
WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 Spinal cord injuries can be life-changing and alter many important neurological functions. Unfortunately, clinicians have relatively few tools to help patients regain lost functions.
In
APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, researchers from UCLA have developed materials that can interface with an injured spinal cord and provide a scaffolding to facilitate healing. To do this, scaffolding materials need to mimic the natural spinal cord tissue, so they can be readily populated by native cells in the spinal cord, essentially filling in gaps left by injury.
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Charcot-Marie Tooth disease is the most common hereditary neurological disease in the world. It affects the peripheral nerves and causes progressive paralysis of the legs and hands. No treatment is currently available to fight this disease, which is due to the overexpression of a specific protein. Scientists from the CNRS, INSERM, the AP-HP and the Paris-Saclay and Paris universities have developed a therapy based on degrading the coding RNA for this protein in mice. Their work is patented and was published on 9 March 2021 in
Communications Biology.
In molecular biology, transcription is when a DNA molecule is copied to make an RNA molecule. This RNA molecule is then translated into a protein, which can perform different functions within the body s cells. When a specific protein called PMP22 is made twice as much as normal, it causes type 1A of genetic Charcot-Marie Tooth disease to develop. This overproduction leads to gradual paralysis of the legs and hands.
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Every three seconds, a new case of dementia is diagnosed somewhere in the world. The term encompasses a group of neurodegenerative diseases that have no cure and which affect memory, cognitive abilities and behaviour, and includes Alzheimer s disease. According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, it is estimated that dementia affects about 50 million people around the world. With increasing life expectancy and an ageing population, this figure is expected to increase to 75 million by 2030 and 132 million by 2050.
Dementias cause disability and dependence, they have an enormous impact on those who suffer them and their caregivers, and raise considerable challenges for the sustainability of social protection systems. Although a number of drug therapies are available for treating the symptoms, psychosocial interventions help slow down the rate of progression and counteract the aspects that impair the quality of life of the sufferers and their caregivers. Through the eHea