Culture
How does the brain process rewards? Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are investigating how the brain responds differently to two commonly ingested rewards - food and alcohol - to understand how they alter neural activity and behavior. Their findings were presented this week in Utrecht, Netherlands at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), one of the leading venues for research on eating and drinking.
Researchers at the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center and Department of Pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine are investigating whether insulin delivered directly to the brain by nasal inhalation can enhance communication between brain regions and improve cognition in adolescents with obesity and prediabetes. Led by Dr. Dana Small, preliminary findings from a two-year study suggest that intranasal insulin improves brain and cognitive function in adolescents with obesity.
Every-other-day fasting substantially reduces the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes in mice eating a fat-rich diet, according to new research out of the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke. These findings, presented this week at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior in Utrecht, Netherlands, suggest that periodic fasting can reduce fat accumulation in the pancreas and, in turn, prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes.
Not only are they effective against Gram-positive and negative multi-resistant bacteria, they also appear not to trigger resistance when used to treat infection in mice. Such are the promises of the two new antibiotics created by Prof. Brice Felden and his team at the Inserm and Université de Rennes 1 'Bacterial Regulatory RNAs and Medicine' joint laboratory (U1230), in conjunction with a team from the Rennes Institute of Chemical Sciences (ISCR). This French advance could bring both fresh impetus and new possibilities for fighting antibiotic resistance worldwide.
An aphrodisiac pheromone discovered in the semen of sea lampreys attracts ready-to-mate females, according to a study publishing July 9 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Anne M. Scott of Michigan State University, Zhe Zhang of Shanghai Ocean University, and colleagues.
While pilots rely on radio signals, advanced computations and tools to keep them on course during strong crosswinds, birds can naturally navigate these demanding conditions - and do so in environments with little visibility. To understand how they accomplish this feat, researchers in the lab of David Lentink, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, studied lovebirds flying in a crosswind tunnel which features customizable wind and light settings.
Even in the strange world of open quantum systems, the arrow of time points steadily forward -- most of the time. New experiments conducted at Washington University in St. Louis compare the forward and reverse trajectories of superconducting circuits called qubits, and find that they follow the second law of thermodynamics. The research is published July 9 in the journal Physical Review Letters.
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Some people are drawn to cologne; others are attracted to perfume. When it comes to sea lampreys, however, spermine smells like love.
In new research led by Michigan State University and published in the current issue of PLoS Biology, spermine, an odorous compound found in male semen, proved to be a powerful aphrodisiac.
BOSTON - A study led by researchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) found that symptom-triggered medication dosing for neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome instead of infants receiving a fixed schedule of medication with a long taper reduced the length of their hospital stay. The findings, published in Hospital Pediatrics, indicate that following the novel symptom-triggered approach - developed at BMC - for administering medication could be a more effective intervention for these infants and could help reduce unnecessary medication exposure.
Extremely premature infants who fail to grow as expected have delayed development of their microbiome, or communities of bacteria and other micro-organisms living in the gut, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports. Analysis of these infants' metabolism revealed that their bodies are responding as if they were fasting, despite caloric intake similar to extremely premature infants with appropriate growth.
PITTSBURGH (July 9, 2019) … A bioengineering group from the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering is bringing the worlds of computational modeling and experimentation closer together by developing a methodology to help analyze the wealth
of imaging data provided by advancements in imaging tools and automated microscopes.
A chaotic household - one where things just don't seem to run smoothly, there's lots of noise, little gets taken care of in a timely manner, and where relaxation is difficult - as well as child and parent depression, are risk factors for worse asthma outcomes in urban minority children, according to a new paper published in the journal Pediatrics.
The role of Hox genes in changing the layout of different body parts during evolution has been challenged by a study led by researchers out of the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Biological Sciences.
Hox genes are vital to developing differences in repeated body parts such as vertebrae, limbs, or digits in most animal species, including human beings. Ever since their discovery, scientists have thought that modifications to Hox genes could be the primary way that the animal body plan has been altered during evolution.
HERSHEY, Pa. -- Atypical eating behaviors may be a sign a child should be screened for autism, according to a new study from Penn State College of Medicine.
Research by Susan Mayes, professor of psychiatry, found that atypical eating behaviors were present in 70% of children with autism, which is 15 times more common than in neurotypical children.
Atypical eating behaviors may include severely limited food preferences, hypersensitivity to food textures or temperatures, and pocketing food without swallowing.
Research results on drug-gene interactions are much less likely to be replicated if they are performed by hierarchical communities or close-knit groups of frequent collaborators who use similar methods, instead of independent groups of scientists using different methods, suggests a paper published last week in eLife.
The findings may help improve the reliability of scientific results by helping to identify possible factors that contribute to the publication of unreliable, misleading or false results about potential drug-gene interactions.