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Smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day can damage your vision, a study co-authored by a Rutgers researcher finds.

The research appears in the journal Psychiatry Research.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 34.3 million adults in the United States currently smoke cigarettes and that more than 16 million live with a smoking-related disease, many of which affect the cardiovascular system.

The study included 71 healthy people who smoked fewer than 15 cigarettes in their lives and 63 who smoked more than 20 cigarettes a day, were diagnosed with tobacco addiction and reported no attempts to stop smoking. The participants were between the ages of 25 and 45 and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision as measured by standard visual acuity charts.

The researchers looked at how participants discriminated contrast levels (subtle differences in shading) and colors while seated 59 inches from a 19-inch cathode-ray tube monitor that displayed stimuli while researchers monitored both eyes simultaneously.

The findings indicated significant changes in the smokers' red-green and blue-yellow color vision, which suggests that consuming substances with neurotoxic chemicals, such as those in cigarettes, may cause overall color vision loss. They also found that the heavy smokers had a reduced ability to discriminate contrasts and colors when compared to the non-smokers.

"Cigarette smoke consists of numerous compounds that are harmful to health, and it has been linked to a reduction in the thickness of layers in the brain, and to brain lesions, involving areas such as the frontal lobe, which plays a role in voluntary movement and control of thinking, and a decrease in activity in the area of the brain that processes vision," said co-author Steven Silverstein, director of research at Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care.

"Previous studies have pointed to long-term smoking as doubling the risk for age-related macular degeneration and as a factor causing lens yellowing and inflammation. Our results indicate that excessive use of cigarettes, or chronic exposure to their compounds, affects visual discrimination, supporting the existence of overall deficits in visual processing with tobacco addiction."

Although the research did not give a physiological explanation for the results, Silverstein said that since nicotine and smoking harm the vascular system, the study suggests they also damage blood vessels and neurons in the retina.

Silverstein said the findings also suggest that research into visual processing impairments in other groups of people, such as those with schizophrenia who often smoke heavily, should take into account their smoking rate or independently examine smokers versus non-smokers.

Researchers have shown that a type of magnetic resonance imaging -- called neuromelanin-sensitive MRI (NM-MRI) -- is a potential biomarker for psychosis. NM-MRI signal was found to be a marker of dopamine function in people with schizophrenia and an indicator of the severity of psychotic symptoms in people with this mental illness. The study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

"Disturbances affecting the neurotransmitter dopamine are associated with a host of mental and neurological disorders, such as schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease," said Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., director of NIMH. "Because of the role dopamine plays in these disorders, the ability to measure dopamine activity is critical for furthering our understanding of these disorders, including how to best diagnose and treat them."

Neuromelanin is a dark pigment created within dopamine neurons of the midbrain -- particularly in the substantia nigra, a brain area that plays a role in reward and movement. Neuromelanin accumulates over the lifespan and is only cleared away from cells following cell death, as occurs in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease. Researchers have found that NM-MRI signal is lower in the substantia nigra of people with Parkinson's disease, reflecting the cell death that occurs in these patients.

Despite the utility of this tool for detecting neuron loss in neurodegenerative illnesses, NM-MRI had not yet been shown to provide a marker of dopamine function, nor had its utility been demonstrated in individuals without neurodegenerative illnesses. In this study, Guillermo Horga, M.D., Ph.D., of Columbia University, New York, and colleagues conducted a series of validation studies to show that NM-MRI can serve as a marker of dopamine function in individuals without neurodegenerative disorders.

"The main advantages of this technique are that, compared to other established and more direct measures of dopamine function, neuromelanin-sensitive MRI does not involve radiation or invasive procedures," said Dr. Horga. "This advantage makes it more suitable for pediatric populations and for repeated scanning, which could be useful to monitor the progression of illness or response to treatment -- and it only takes a short scan that could be implemented in most clinical scanners. It also affords a very high anatomical resolution compared with PET measures, which is important to examine functions or dysfunctions of specific parts of the substantia nigra."

The researchers first set out to determine whether NM-MRI could accurately detect regional variations in the concentration of neuromelanin in those without neurodegeneration of the substantia nigra. To examine the detection ability of NM-MRI, the researchers compared NM-MRI measurements of neuromelanin to chemical measurements of neuromelanin in post-mortem brain tissue. The researchers found, across all sections of tissue, that higher NM-MRI signal was associated with higher concentrations of neuromelanin. The results confirm, for the first time, the ability of NM-MRI to measure regional concentrations of neuromelanin. Furthermore, the results show that NM-MRI signal reflects concentrations of neuromelanin in tissue, rather than just the number of neuromelanin-containing neurons.

The researchers next sought to determine whether NM-MRI could capture variations in neuromelanin in smaller anatomical subregions within the substantia nigra. Since dopamine function is thought to differ significantly in different parts of the substantia nigra, researchers needed to determine the ability of this tool to capture these anatomical differences. So, the researchers examined NM-MRI data from patients diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and individuals without Parkinson's disease. The researchers found decreases in NM-MRI signal in those with Parkinson's disease in the lateral, posterior, and ventral areas of the substantia nigra -- findings that correspond to the known anatomical distribution of cell loss in this brain area in Parkinson's disease. These results confirm that NM-MRI can capture known topographical variability within this brain structure.

A next critical step was to show a connection between NM-MRI and dopamine function. The researchers collected measurements of dopamine release capacity (as measured using positron emission tomography (PET)) and NM-MRI data from people without neurodegenerative illnesses. Individuals with a higher NM-MRI signal had greater dopamine release capacity in the striatum (a core component of reward, motor, and cognitive systems). The researchers also found that NM-MRI signal in the substantia nigra was associated with functional MRI measures of regional cerebral blood flow.

Lastly, the researchers examined the link between NM-MRI signal and psychosis severity, finding that more severe symptoms of psychosis were associated with higher NM-MRI signals in the nigrostriatal pathway of individuals with schizophrenia and in those at-risk for schizophrenia. Psychosis is associated with dopamine system dysfunction, characterized by greater dopamine release and synthesis capacity in the striatum. The findings suggest that NM-MRI is capturing this dopamine dysfunction, supporting the role of NM-MRI as a potential biomarker for psychosis.

The findings reported in this study, taken together, validate the use of NM-MRI in populations beyond those with neurodegenerative disorders, showing it can serve as a measure of neuromelanin concentration and dopamine function in the substantia nigra.

In describing the future directions of their research, Dr. Horga said, "We are now extending this work to see if we can detect abnormalities in neuromelanin signal that help us predict which individuals are more likely to develop a psychotic disorder among those who already show early symptoms of psychosis. We are also interested in exploring whether neuromelanin-sensitive MRI could be used in the future to determine who might best benefit from dopaminergic treatments."

Rutgers and other physicists have discovered an exotic form of electrons that spin like planets and could lead to advances in lighting, solar cells, lasers and electronic displays.

It's called a "chiral surface exciton," and it consists of particles and anti-particles bound together and swirling around each other on the surface of solids, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Chiral refers to entities, like your right and left hands, that match but are asymmetrical and can't be superimposed on their mirror image.

Excitons form when intense light shines on solids, kicking negatively charged electrons out of their spots and leaving behind positively charged "holes," according to lead author Hsiang-Hsi (Sean) Kung, a graduate student in Physics Professor Girsh Blumberg's Rutgers Laser Spectroscopy Lab at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

The electrons and holes resemble rapidly spinning tops. The electrons eventually "spiral" towards the holes, annihilating each other in less than a trillionth of a second while emitting a kind of light called "photoluminescence." This finding has applications for devices such as solar cells, lasers and TV and other displays.

The scientists discovered chiral excitons on the surface of a crystal known as bismuth selenide, which could be mass-produced and used in coatings and other materials in electronics at room temperature.

"Bismuth selenide is a fascinating compound that belongs to a family of quantum materials called 'topological insulators,'" said senior author Blumberg, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences. "They have several channels on the surface that are highly efficient in conducting electricity."

The dynamics of chiral excitons are not yet clear and the scientists want to use ultra-fast imaging to further study them. Chiral surface excitons may be found on other materials as well.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Children living in homes with all vinyl flooring or flame-retardant chemicals in the sofa have significantly higher concentrations of potentially harmful semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) in their blood or urine than children from homes where these materials are not present, according to a new Duke University-led study.

The researchers presented their findings Sunday, Feb. 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.

They found that children living in homes where the sofa in the main living area contained flame-retardant polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in its foam had a six-fold higher concentration of PBDEs in their blood serum.

Exposure to PBDEs has been linked in laboratory tests to neurodevelopmental delays, obesity, endocrine and thyroid disruption, cancer and other diseases.

Children from homes that had vinyl flooring in all areas were found to have concentrations of benzyl butyl phthalate metabolite in their urine that were 15 times higher than those in children living with no vinyl flooring.

Benzyl butyl phthalate has been linked to respiratory disorders, skin irritations, multiple myeolma and reproductive disorders.

"SVOCs are widely used in electronics, furniture and building materials and can be detected in nearly all indoor environments," said Heather Stapleton, an environmental chemist at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, who led the research. "Human exposure to them is widespread, particularly for young children who spend most of their time indoors and have greater exposure to chemicals found in household dust."

"Nonetheless, there has been little research on the relative contribution of specific products and materials to children's overall exposure to SVOCs," she noted.

To address that gap, in 2014 Stapleton and colleagues from Duke, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and Boston University began a three-year study of in-home exposures to SVOCs among 203 children from 190 families.

"Our primary goal was to investigate links between specific products and children's exposures, and to determine how the exposure happened -- was it through breathing, skin contact or inadvertent dust inhalation," Stapleton said.

To that end, the team analyzed samples of indoor air, indoor dust and foam collected from furniture in each of the children's homes, along with a handwipe sample, urine and blood from each child.

"We quantified 44 biomarkers of exposure to phthalates, organophosphate esters, brominated flame retardants, parabens, phenols, antibacterial agents and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)," Stapleton said.

Stapleton presented her team's findings at AAAS as part of the scientific session, "Homes at the Center of Chemical Exposure: Uniting Chemists, Engineers and Health Scientists."

She conducted the study with Kate Hoffman, assistant research professor in environmental sciences and policy; research assistant Emina Hodzic; and PhD students Jessica Levasseur, Stephanie Hammel and Allison Phillips, all of Duke.

Thomas Crowther identifies long-disappeared forests available for restoration across the world. He will describe how there is room for an additional 1.2 trillion new trees around the world that could absorb more carbon than human emissions each year. Crowther also describes data from thousands of soil samples collected by local scientists that reveal the world’s Arctic and sub-Arctic regions store most of the world’s carbon. But the warming of these ecosystems is causing the release of this soil carbon, a process that could accelerate climate change by 17%. This research is revealing that the restoration of vegetation and soil carbon is by far our best weapon in the fight against climate change.

The living parts of the planet make it unique from all other parts of the solar system, and they drive every aspect of biogeochemical cycling. It is essential that we represent these living processes into our understanding of current and future biogeochemical cycles in order to understand and predict climate change.

In their research, the Crowther Lab uses the largest global dataset of forest inventory data (the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative), measured by people on the ground in over 1.2 million locations around the world combined with satellite observations, to get a mechanistic understanding of the global forest system. The lab also uses an equivalent database for below-ground ecology - the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative. This initiative, with tens of thousands of soil samples that describe the global patterns in the biomass and the diversity of the global soil microbiome, paired with satellite data generates a first glimpse at the billions of below-ground species that determine soil fertility, atmospheric composition and the climate.

Using this combination of above ground and below ground data the research team can identify regions of high priority for biodiversity conservation. Additionally, they can finally start to understand the feedbacks that determine atmospheric carbon concentrations over the rest of the century. They now understand that, as the soil warms, carbon emissions from the soil will increase, particularly in the high-latitude arctic and sub-arctic regions.

Under a business-as-usual climate scenario the Crowther lab model suggests that warming would drive the loss of ~55 gigatons of carbon from the upper soil horizons by 2050. This value is around 12–17 per cent of the expected anthropogenic emissions over this period. These are the 'climate change feed-backs' that Crowther discusses in his session, and understanding these processes is critical to effectively managing natural systems in order to combat climate change.

While the polyester leisure suit was a 1970s mistake, polyester and other synthetic fibers like nylon are still around and are a major contributor to the microplastics load in the environment, according to a Penn State materials scientist, who suggests switching to biosynthetic fibers to solve this problem.

"These materials, during production, processing and after use, break down into and release microfibers that can now be found in everything and everyone," said Melik Demirel, Lloyd and Dorothy Foehr Huck Endowed Chair in Biomimetic Materials.

Unlike natural fibers like wool, cotton and silk, current synthetic fibers are petroleum-based products and are mostly not biodegradable. While natural fibers can be recycled and biodegrade, mixed fibers that contain natural and synthetic fibers are difficult or costly to recycle.

Islands of floating plastic trash in the oceans are a visible problem, but the pollution produced by textiles is invisible and ubiquitous. In the oceans, these microscopic plastic pieces become incorporated into plants and animals. Harvested fish carry these particles to market and, when people eat them, they consume microplastic particles as well.

Demirel suggested four possible approaches to solving this problem, today (Feb. 16) at the 2019 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. The first is to minimize the use of synthetic fibers and switch back to natural fibers such as wool, cotton, silk and linen. However, synthetic fibers are less expensive and natural fibers have other environmental costs, such as water and land-use issues.

Because much of the microfiber load that ends up in water sources comes from laundering, he suggests aftermarket filters for washing-machine outflow hoses. Clothes dryers have filters that catch lint - also microfiber waste - but current, front-loading washing machines usually do not.

"Capturing the microplastics at the source is the best filtering option," said Demirel.

He also notes that bacteria that consume plastics do exist, but are currently at the academic research phase, which takes some time to gain industrial momentum. If bacteria were used on a large scale, they could aid in biodegradation of the fibers or break the fibers down to be reused.

While these three options are possible, they do not solve the problem of the tons of synthetic fibers currently used in clothing around the world. Biosynthetic fibers, a fourth option, are both recyclable and biodegradable and could directly substitute for the synthetic fibers. They could also be blended with natural fibers to provide the durability of synthetic fibers but allow the blends to be recycled.

Derived from natural proteins, biosynthetic fibers also can be manipulated to have desirable characteristics. Demirel, who developed a biosynthetic fiber composed of proteins similar to silk but inspired by those found in squid ring teeth, suggests that by altering the number of tandem repeats in the sequencing of the proteins, the polymers can be altered to meet a variety of properties.

For example, material manufactured from biosynthetic squid ring-teeth proteins, called Squitex, is self-healing. Broken fibers or sections will reattach with water and a little pressure and enhance the mechanical properties of recycled cotton as a blend. Also, because the fibers are organic, they are completely biodegradable as well.

In the current issue of Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications (Special Issue on Stable Ischemic Heart Disease, Volume 3, Number 3, 2019, pp. 291-296(6); DOI: https://doi.org/10.15212/CVIA.2017.0072 Juan R. Vilaro from the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA considers stable ischemic heart disease in the older adult.

Demographic trends worldwide show a progressively aging population and an increase in the overall medical complexity of elderly patients with cardiovascular disease. Elderly patients, especially those aged 75 or older, are relatively under-represented in many of the clinical trials that helped create major society guidelines for evaluation and management of ischemic heart disease. Consequently, risk benefit ratios of a guideline-based approach in these patients are not well defined, especially with regards to pharmacotherapies and percutaneous coronary interventions. In this article we offer a practical approach to defining the elderly population, and provide an evidenced based review of the diagnostic and therapeutic implications of advanced age in the evaluation and management of ischemic heart disease.

CHICAGO--On February 16, the Art Institute of Chicago announced the results of significant new research on five terracotta sculptures--so named Bankoni after a village in present-day Mali where they were found. The objects date from between the 12th and 15th centuries. This places them "among the oldest surviving sculptures from sub-Saharan Africa and among the oldest works of African art in the Art Institute's collection beyond Egypt," according to Constantine Petridis, Chair of the Arts of the Americas and Africa and Curator of African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Art Institute's Bankoni figures are exceptional, not only for their large size and fine detail, but also for the fact that they have remained as a group throughout history (whereas others have been dispersed). The group's inclusion in a major traveling exhibition, Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa, presented the Art Institute's Conservation & Science department with an unprecedented opportunity to expand on previous scientific analysis using cutting-edge technology made possible by the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

"Thanks to our long-standing relationship with Dr. Michael Vannier, a radiologist at the University of Chicago School of Medicine, we were able to use computed axial tomography or CT scanning--which is basically an X-ray but in 3D--to closely examine the ceramic," said Rachel Sabino, Objects Conservator in the Department of Conservation & Science at the Art Institute of Chicago. "As each figure went through the scanner we were able to see immediately that they had all been created with the exact same clay and with the exact same fabrication methods. This confirmed for us that our five were conceived as a group from the start and that they aren't figures from different places or different potters."

The results also verified that the sculptures were not "pastiches" made from unrelated fragments of the appropriate age, as is sometimes discovered to be the case with ancient ceramics. Additionally, 3D models generated from the CT data helped pinpoint locations for sample sites to use in thermoluminescence (TL) testing, a specialized technique for dating ceramics. The TL results revealed that the objects were fired between 500 and 800 years ago, older than previous testing had indicated.

These types of collaborations between museums and hospitals have expanded the conservator's toolkit by giving them access to the most advanced technologies and to equipment that would be otherwise unavailable. Their medical partners' specialized knowledge guarantees that conservators have the best instrumental protocol available to find answers to their questions and that the results will be interpreted accurately.

"The encyclopedic collection at the Art Institute of Chicago serves as a reference standard for both scholars and the general public, so it's crucial that the objects on display in service to a museum's educational and social mission be what they purport to be. To that end, we are absolutely thrilled at the extent to which this partnership has allowed us to see just how ancient, how unique and how exceptional our figures really are," said Sabino.

Parkinson's disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis are the newest frontiers for open science drug discovery, a global movement led by academic scientists in Toronto that puts knowledge sharing and medication affordability ahead of patents and profits.

Medicines 4 Neurodegenerative Diseases (M4ND Pharma) will pursue promising new genetic drug targets for these intractable nervous system disorders, thanks to $1.5 million from the Krembil Foundation. It will be the world's second drug discovery company committed to open science after Medicines 4 Kids (M4K Pharma), which launched in 2017 to develop a novel drug for an uncommon but fatal childhood brain cancer.

Open science is a way for researchers to share their data and knowledge quickly and publicly, unencumbered by patents and the peer review publishing process, with the aim of speeding up scientific discovery. The movement gathered force in the life sciences in the 1990s with the Human Genome Project, and spread to protein structures and then early-stage drug discovery through the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC).

The non-profit SGC has generated considerable private and public investment and several spin-out companies, but there remains a gap in late-stage drug development.

"When we started M4K, many people thought an open approach to late-stage drug development might only be applicable to rare or neglected diseases, if at all," says Aled Edwards, a professor of molecular genetics at the University of Toronto and CEO of the SGC. "But we're getting unexpected funding and scientific contributions from industry, academic and clinical sources, and slowly but surely we're advancing a medicine through the pipeline. It's time to move the goal posts again on what's possible with open science."

Like M4K, M4ND will not seek patents on its findings. It will instead rely on regulatory protections available in several countries, including data exclusivity for drug sponsors to prevent generic competition, and orphan drug exclusivity for rare diseases. These and other existing protections, says Edwards, are likely sufficient to attract commercial partners willing to manufacture, distribute and sell medications at reasonable prices.

Also like M4K, M4ND will be owned by the Agora Open Science Trust, a Canadian charity that supports open science for the public good. M4ND will donate any proceeds generated through commercial partnerships back to the charity.

The researchers will share their progress with the scientific community through regular online meetings, open to all and posted on YouTube. They will also make data available, for example through the SGC's open lab notebooks initiative.

"Every player in the system appreciates the idea of affordable medicines faster, but it's been incredibly challenging to make it happen because the system is complicated," says Edwards. "The key was to invent a different business model, and we're extraordinarily happy that industry, academia and others have been delighted to contribute."

Dr. Edwards will present on open drug discovery at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at 2:30 p.m. on February 16, 2019, Marriott Wardman Park - Maryland Suite, in Washington, D.C.

A soldier named Jerome Motto received caring letters from home in World War II. They helped boost his spirits and later led to one of the nation's first successful suicide interventions.

Today, with military personnel being more mobile, researchers tested out the effectiveness of caring texts sent to active-duty military.

The study of 658 randomized participants at three military installations was led by Kate Comtois, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The results were published Feb. 13 in JAMA Psychiatry along with a podcast with the researchers.

Comtois said the most significant finding was that the caring contacts reduced the odds of a suicide attempt. The contacts lowered the risk from 15 percent to 9 percent.

"Caring contacts is an entirely different way to engage and take care of suicidal individuals," she said. "It can both prevent suicidal behavior and provide support over periods of stress and transition."

As for the primary aims -- reducing current suicidal ideation and suicide risk incidents, such as hospitalizations or medical evacuation -- the study was inconclusive. But the study did have impactful findings and secondary outcomes as well as clinical implications.

The study recruited Army and Marine Corps personnel identified as being at risk of suicide at three bases in the United States. The control group was given 11 text messages from a clinician, who engaged with the service members, including calling them on the phone if they were feeling urgent distress.

This simple intervention builds on the work of Jerome Motto, a World War II soldier who became a psychiatrist and researcher. He used caring letters to conduct the first successful clinical trial to reduce suicide deaths.

Military personnel historically have had a lower rate of suicide than the general population, Today, however, veterans have a 50 percent higher incidence of suicide than the general population, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs Suicide Data Report, 2006-2016. In 2018, the U.S. military experienced the highest number of suicides among active-duty personnel in at least six years. A total of 321 active-duty members took their lives during the year (57 Marines, 68 sailors, 58 airmen, and 138 soldiers), according to Military.com.

In this study, just under 14 percent of text responses mentioned difficulty and adversity, but after a few exchanges with a clinician, the service member felt better, said Amanda Kerbrat, a research scientist with the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

"Most people didn't seem to need much to get the message that someone cared and was looking out for them," she said.

During the study, which took place from April 2013 to September 2016, five service members indicated they were suicidal and were called by a clinician immediately, said Kerbrat.

Two accompanying editorials in JAMA Psychiatry addressed the research by Comtois and colleagues.

"Comtois et al have confirmed that is possible to conduct high-value suicide prevention research in the active-duty military," wrote three researchers at University of California, San Diego, Harvard Medical School and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

Charles Hoge, with the Center for Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, called the study a "hallmark clinical trial from the DoD [Department of Defense] portfolio." Hoge, however, said the study joins other intervention trials in delivering primarily null or inconclusive findings in military and veteran populations. He noted that only 30 percent of veterans are engaged in Veterans Affairs care, and he laid out what needs to be understood and implemented to prevent more suicides.

For the researchers, caring texts is something that can be implemented with some guidelines.

"The intervention is ready for prime time," said Comtois, noting that healthcare systems still need to sort out issues such how as who will be delivering the messages and guidelines for what they will include. She and colleagues are working on a free toolkit for healthcare providers.

LA JOLLA--(February 12, 2019) What makes us human, and where does this mysterious property of "humanness" come from? Humans are genetically similar to chimpanzees and bonobos, yet there exist obvious behavioral and cognitive differences. Now, researchers from the Salk Institute, in collaboration with researchers from the anthropology department at UC San Diego, have developed a strategy to more easily study the early development of human neurons compared with the neurons of nonhuman primates. The study, which appeared in eLife on February 7, 2019, offers scientists a novel tool for fundamental brain research.

"This study provides insights into the developmental organization of the brain and lays the groundwork for further comparative analyses between humans and nonhuman primates," says one of the senior authors of the study, Salk President and Professor Rusty Gage, who holds the Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disease.

Two important processes in brain development include neuron maturation and migration. Maturation involves neuron growth as the neurons increase their connections between each other for better communication. Migration is the physical movement of neurons into different parts of the developing brain. The authors sought to compare neuron maturation and migration between humans and nonhuman primates.

To accomplish this task, the Gage lab devised a new method utilizing stem cell technology to take skin cells from primates and coax them, via a virus and chemical cocktails, to develop into neural progenitor cells, a cell type that has the ability to become multiple types of cells in the brain, including neurons. These new primate cell lines can then be perpetually propagated, allowing researchers new avenues to study aspects of neuronal development of live neurons without tissue samples from endangered primates such as chimpanzees and bonobos.

"This is a novel strategy to study human evolution," says Carol Marchetto, a Salk senior staff scientist in the Laboratory of Genetics, co-first author and one of the study's senior authors. "We are happy to share these primate cell lines with the scientific community, so that researchers from around the world can examine primate brain development without the use of tissue samples. We anticipate this will lead to numerous new findings over the next few years about the brain's evolution."

The researchers first explored the differences in gene expression related to neuronal movement, comparing human, chimpanzee and bonobo cells. They also investigated the migration properties of the neurons inherent to each species. They found 52 genes related to migration, and, interestingly, chimpanzee and bonobo neurons had periods of rapid migration, while human neurons were slow to move.

In order to compare neuron movement and maturation outside of a dish, the scientists transplanted the neural progenitor cells from both humans and chimpanzees into the brains of rodents, enabling the neurons to thrive and providing additional developmental cues for the neurons to develop.

The researchers then analyzed the differences in migration distance, shape and size of the neurons for up to 19 weeks after transplantation. They observed the length, density and quantity of extensions of the neurons called dendrites, as well as the size of the cell bodies, which house the nucleus and DNA.

The chimpanzee neurons migrated a greater distance and covered a 76 percent greater area than the human neurons after two weeks. Human neurons were slower to develop but reached longer lengths than the chimpanzee neurons. This slower growth pattern may allow humans to reach more developmental milestones than nonhuman primates, which could account for differences in behavior and cognitive abilities.

In the future, the authors hope to construct an evolutionary tree of multiple primate species, utilizing induced pluripotent stem cell lines, to better understand of the evolution of the human brain. In addition, the authors plan to use this platform to study gene regulation differences between primate species that underlie the differences in neuronal maturation and can potentially impact brain organization in humans.

"We have limited knowledge about the evolution of the brain, especially when it comes to differences in cellular development between species," says Marchetto. "We're excited about the tremendous possibilities this work opens up for the field of neuroscience and brain evolution."

PUNTARENAS, COSTA RICA - A three week expedition off the coast of Costa Rica has just expanded our knowledge of deep sea ecosystems in the region. Led by Dr. Erik Cordes, Temple University, the scientists aboard research vessel Falkor surveyed the continental margin for seamounts and natural gas seeps, where specialized biological communities are found. The seamounts extending from the mainland to the Cocos Islands National Park provide an important corridor for the animals occupying the area.

Investigating these systems on all biological size scales, the team focused on relationships between species, from microbes to fauna like fish and corals. At least four new species of deep-sea corals and six other animals that are new to science were found. This expedition represents the first time that seven of the seamounts in the area have been surveyed. The survey results, including description of the coral communities that they host, will support the effort to create a new marine protected area around these seamounts ensuring that they are not impacted by fishing or potential mining activities.

"This research will support Costa Rica's efforts to conserve these important habitats by providing a baseline of the incredible species and ecosystems found in the deeper areas that don't always attract the attention that they deserve," said Schmidt Ocean Institute Cofounder Wendy Schmidt. "One of the most important things we can do now is understand how these communities work, so if there are changes in the future we can measure human impact."

Even in deep waters, humans pose a threat to these fragile ecosystems. During one of the 19 remotely operated vehicle dives the accumulation of trash at 3,600 meters depth (more than 2 miles) was discovered. Threats to the deep sea already exist, including fishing and energy industries that are moving into deeper water, and the persistent risk of climate change. There are rare organisms and spectacular habitats on the seamounts; it is important to preserve them before they are impacted by these and other threats.

One unique discovery during the expedition was the consistent zonation of seamounts related to the amount of oxygen present. Decreasing oxygen in the ocean due to a warming planet may eventually affect these zones dominated by corals, sea fans, sponges, brittle stars and small oysters. "Every dive continues to amaze us," said Cordes. "We discovered species of reef-building stony corals at over 800 meters depth on two different seamounts. The closest records of this species are from the deep waters around the Galapagos Islands. The deep sea is the largest habitat on Earth. Understanding how that habitat functions will help us to understand how the planet as a whole works."

New research conducted at OHSU in Portland, Oregon, identifies a gene that could provide a new target for developing medication to prevent and treat alcoholism.

Scientists at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at OHSU discovered a gene that had lower expression in the brains of nonhuman primates that voluntarily consumed heavy amounts of alcohol compared with those that drank less.

Furthermore, the research team unraveled a link between alcohol and how it modulates the levels of activity of this particular gene. Researchers discovered that when they increased the levels of the gene encoded protein in mice, they reduced alcohol consumption by almost 50 percent without affecting the total amount of fluid consumed or their overall well-being.

The study was recently published online in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

The study modified the levels of the protein encoded by a single gene - GPR39 - which is a zinc-binding receptor previously associated with depression. The prevalence rates of co-occurring mood and alcohol use disorders are high, with individuals with alcohol use disorder being 3.7 times more likely to have major depression than those who do not abuse alcohol. Using a commercially available substance that mimics the activity of the GPR39 protein, the researchers found that targeting this gene dramatically reduced alcohol consumption in mice.

"The study highlights the importance of using cross-species approaches to identify and test relevant drugs for the treatment of alcohol use disorder," said senior author Rita Cervera-Juanes, Ph.D., a research assistant professor in the divisions of Neuroscience and Genetics at ONPRC.

To determine whether the same mechanism affects people, this team of researchers is now examining postmortem tissue samples from the brains of people who suffered from alcoholism.

Currently, there are only a handful of treatments for alcoholism approved by the Food and Drug Administration. By testing the effect of the substance in reducing ethanol consumption in mice - in addition to its previously reported link in reducing depression-like symptoms - the findings may point the way toward developing a drug that both prevents and treats chronic alcoholism and mood disorders in people.

"We are finding novel targets for which there are drugs already available, and they can be repurposed to treat other ailments," Cervera-Juanes said. "For alcoholism, this is huge because there are currently only a handful of FDA-approved drugs."

The pipeline of research supporting care as we age is about to look a bit more like the country it serves--and for good reason. Beginning this year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), America's premier institution for medical research, will for the first time in its history require NIH-funded scholars to eliminate arbitrary age limits in their work, age limits that previously allowed for excluding groups like older people without just cause. A series of articles recently published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) explores how the change came to fruition--in large part thanks to advocacy from organizations like the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) and its member experts--and why the change matters, particularly in a world where living longer is possible thanks to past breakthroughs originating at the NIH.

"Clinical research, much of it championed by NIH scientists, has made increased longevity with less morbidity a tangible reality," said William Dale, MD, PhD, one of the co-authors for an article describing the policy change. "To keep up that momentum, we need greater attention to age in current and future scholarship. We all have unique physiological changes and medical care needs as we get older, and the insights we gain working with older people today will teach us how to be healthier tomorrow."

Effective as of Jan. 25, the new NIH "Inclusion Across the Lifespan" policy supports research involving traditionally underrepresented age groups--specifically older people and children--by requiring approved justifications before any study participants can be excluded from NIH-funded work based on age alone. The policy also advocates for sensitivity in the language used to describe older adults, stressing the importance of building "respect and understanding" beginning with how we describe older participants in clinical research.

In an editorial authored by AGS representatives and published in JAGS (DOI: 10.1111/jgs.15784), geriatrics experts describe how influential stakeholders like the AGS worked closely with the NIH to ensure older adults would have more of a presence in future government-funded health scholarship.

"In workshops and comments submitted to NIH, we stressed that excluding trial participants based on arbitrary age restrictions complicates research and jeopardizes findings that could help those most likely to experience a disease or condition," noted Cathleen Colon-Emeric, MD, MHS, co-author of the editorial. "We believe this new policy represents an opportunity for geriatrics researchers to develop better care for all our needs as we age."

To support these mandates, the AGS authors advocate leading the charge by:

Making use of new and better data about older people to conduct deeper and more extensive analyses of treatments and interventions.

Helping colleagues across health care understand how to engage older adults in aging research. A related editorial in JAGS (DOI: 10.1111/jgs.15785), for example, describes a framework for supporting the inclusion of older adults in research by helping scientists pivot to specific priorities for recruiting older participants.

Advocating for older adults. The Inclusion Across the Lifespan policy advocates a paradigm shift from protecting vulnerable individuals "from research" to protecting them "through research." AGS authors emphasized the importance of doing so by acknowledging that underrepresenting older adults and other groups in research studies can result in "unsafe and inappropriate care decisions" based on incomplete data.

Developing infrastructure and resources for review boards, research centers, and even individual researchers to adopt more inclusive practices--and more inclusive terminology--for older adults.

The new policy comes at a critical juncture. Even as older adults become one of the U.S.'s largest age groups, research still lags behind shifting demographics. A study conducted by colleagues from the National Institute of Aging (a division of the NIH) (DOI: 10.1111/jgs.15786), for example, examined the adequacy of age inclusivity in NIH-funded "Phase III" trials (so named because they are among the final stages of research regarding the safety and efficacy of treatments). Looking at work published from 1965 to 2015, the team determined that more that 33% of studies had upper-age limits, and that 25% of these studies specifically excluded people 65-years-old and older. Findings are even more stark for certain conditions common with age: More than 70% of trials for abnormal heartbeat, coronary atherosclerosis (build-up of fatty deposits in the coronary artery), heart attack, COPD (an umbrella term for progressive lung diseases), and lung cancer excluded people over 75.

"Advances in health and medicine aren't just about discovering new treatments; they're also about uncovering how those treatments improve health, safety, and independence for unique individuals--including older adults," concluded Camille Vaughan, MD, MS, one of the authors on the AGS editorial. "The NIH is taking an important step toward ensuring research reflects reality. Groups like the AGS and its members are excited to be among the first to chart that new frontier."

AGS ACTION POINTS

Beginning this year, the NIH will require funded scholars to eliminate arbitrary age limits in their work, which previously allowed for excluding people like older adults without scientific justification.

In an editorial authored by AGS representatives, geriatrics experts describe how important stakeholders worked with the NIH to ensure that older adults would have more of a presence in future research.

Geriatrics experts can help lead the charge for age inclusivity by working to (1) expand the knowledge base related to health in aging, (2) educate other disciplines about the needs of older study subjects, (3) advocate for older adults based on new findings, and (4) develop infrastructure and resources to affect change.

BALTIMORE, MD., Feb. 8 - Scientists at the Institute of Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have developed a novel way with genome sequences to study and better understand transmission, treat and ultimately eradicate Plasmodium vivax, the most widespread form of malaria.
P. vivax is a single-celled transmitted by mosquitoes. It is the most widespread human malaria parasite, responsible for more than 8.5 million clinical malaria cases worldwide and threatening more than two billion people in 90 countries. Unlike Plasmodium falciparum, another species of malaria, P. vivax cannot be cultured in vitro and remains poorly understood and resilient to elimination efforts.

IGS researchers teamed with researchers at the Institut Pasteur in Cambodia to analyze the parasite gene expression profiles from P. vivax malaria patients enrolled in a study to determine the effectiveness of chloroquine as a malaria treatment. Using a combination of genomic and bioinformatic approaches, they compared the parasite transcriptomes, or set of Ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules, from different patient infections and analyzed how the parasites responded to chloroquine, a common antimalarial drug, according to the research, which was published in Nature Communications.

"By analyzing the parasite mRNAs directly from infected patient blood samples, we were able to observe that not all infections contained the same proportion of the male and female parasites that are required for infecting mosquitoes and propagating the disease. This observation suggests that parasite transmission is more complex that we previously thought and, perhaps, that the parasite is able to modify its development to ensure optimal survival," said David Serre, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and a member of IGS.

Dr. Serre, who is Principal Investigator, said researchers analyzed the gene expression changes induced by chloroquine treatment and demonstrated that this antimalarial drug, while efficiently eliminating P. vivax parasites, acts differently that it does on P. falciparum parasites. "This emphasizes the biological differences between these two human malaria parasites and the importance to specifically study this important pathogen if we hope to eventually eliminate malaria worldwide," he said.

Genome sequencing studies have provided unique insights on this neglected human parasite, but are limited to identifying biological differences encoded in the DNA sequence. However, gene expression studies, which could provide information on the regulation of the parasite life cycle and its response to drugs, have been challenging to implement for this pathogen due to the heterogeneous mixture of parasite stages present in every patient's infection.

"This important research will help us better understand how to treat, prevent and ultimately eliminate this species of malaria. This is particularly critical amid a growing concern of drug resistance to antimalarial treatments," said UMSOM Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, University Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor.