(Press-News.org) SUMMARY
Treating a mouse model of multiple sclerosis with the pregnancy hormone estriol reversed the breakdown of myelin in the brain’s cortex, a key region affected in multiple sclerosis, according to a new UCLA Health study.
BACKGROUND
In multiple sclerosis, inflammation spurs the immune system to strip away the protective myelin coating around nerve fibers in the brain’s cortex, hampering electrical signals sent and received by the brain. Atrophy of the cortex in MS patients is associated with permanent worsening of disability, such as cognitive decline, visual impairment, weakness and sensory loss.
No currently available treatments for MS can repair damage to myelin. Instead, these treatments target inflammation to reduce symptom flare-ups and new nerve tissue scarring. Previous UCLA-led research found that estriol, a type of estrogen hormone produced in pregnancy, reduced brain atrophy and improved cognitive function in MS patients.
FINDINGS
In the new study, researchers treated a mouse model of MS with estriol and found that it prevented brain atrophy and induced remyelination in the cortex, indicating that the treatment can repair damage caused by MS, rather than just slow the destruction of myelin.
IMPACT
This is the first study to identify a treatment that could repair myelin in the cortex, undoing some of the damage caused by MS.
Allan MacKenzie-Graham, an associate professor of neurology, is the study’s corresponding author. Other authors include Cassandra Meyer, Andrew Smith, Aitana A. Padilla-Requerey, Vista Farkhondeh, Noriko Itoh, Yuichiro Itoh, Josephine Gao, Patrick Herbig, Quynhanh Nguyen, Katelyn Ngo, Mandavi Oberoi, Prabha Siddarth and Rhonda R. Voskuhl, all of UCLA.
END
Pregnancy hormone repairs myelin damage in MS mouse model
2023-06-15
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
$11.7M from Department of Defense to fund research on common complication to traumatic brain injury
2023-06-15
INDIANAPOLIS — Researchers at the School of Science at IUPUI will lead two grants totaling $11.7 million from the U.S. Department of Defense to fund research on discovering a drug treatment for hydrocephalus, a condition commonly associated with complications from traumatic brain injury that causes cerebrospinal fluid to accumulate in the brain.
Using funds from a $7.8 million Department of Defense Focused Program grant, Bonnie Blazer-Yost and Teri Belecky-Adams, both professors in the Department of Biology, will team up with scientists from Johns Hopkins University to test the effectiveness of treatments for three types of hydrocephalus — genetic, ...
Ochsner Health announces Tiffany Murdock as incoming system vice president and chief nursing officer
2023-06-15
NEW ORLEANS – Ochsner Health is pleased to announce Tiffany Murdock as the organization’s next system vice president and chief nursing officer (CNO), effective later this summer. In this leadership role, Murdock will set the strategy and vision for the organization’s nursing practice and lead the organization’s more than 9,000 nurses. Murdock joins Ochsner’s leadership team after eight years at Singing River Health System, where she has served since 2022 as Singing River’s first female chief executive officer (CEO).
Murdock ...
IU researcher receives NSF award to study carbon-trapping mineral systems
2023-06-15
An Indiana University researcher is investigating critical geochemical processes that trap carbon dioxide in rock to better predict the potential for atmospheric carbon removal and storage at scale.
Chen Zhu, a globally recognized geologist and professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences within the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, has been awarded $736,000 from the National Science Foundation to solve long-standing gaps in scientists’ understanding of CO2-water-rock interactions that naturally remove carbon dioxide from the ...
To boost supply chains, scientists are looking at ways to recover valuable materials from water
2023-06-15
For many materials critical to supply chains that will help enable America’s decarbonization transition, resources are limited. Traditional mining is fraught with challenges, so advancing clean energy depends on finding new ways to reliably access critical materials.
Promoting national security and economic competitiveness will require America’s researchers to find new ways to obtain the materials that we need for many technologies. These include batteries, magnets in electric motors, catalysts, nuclear reactors ...
Tiny nanopores can contribute to faster identification of diseases
2023-06-15
In a collaboration with Groningen University, Professor Jørgen Kjems and his research group at Aarhus University have achieved a remarkable breakthrough in developing tiny nano-sized pores that can contribute to better possibilities for, among other things, detecting diseases at an earlier stage. Their work, recently published in the scientific journal ACS Nano, shows a new innovative method for finding specific proteins in complex biological fluids, such as blood, without having to label the proteins chemically. The research is an important milestone in nanopore technology, and could revolutionise medical diagnostics.
Nanopores are ...
Healthy sex life during pandemic tied to an array of sexual coping strategies
2023-06-15
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — New research suggests that people who maintained healthy sexual and intimate lives early in the pandemic used sex as a coping mechanism to enhance their relationship with their partners, explore new sexual activities and in an array of other ways to adapt to the restrictions, stress and the changes in their daily lives.
One year into the pandemic, Liza Berdychevsky, a professor of recreation, sport and tourism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, conducted an online survey of 675 people to explore the differences between people whose sex lives had fizzled and those whose sex lives had flourished. The sample ...
Short telomeres in alveolar type II cells associate with lung fibrosis in post COVID-19 patients with cancer
2023-06-15
“[...] here we reveal a link between short telomere length in ATII cells and post-viral lung fibrosis outcome in post-COVID-19 patients.”
BUFFALO, NY- June 15, 2023 – A new research paper was published on the cover of Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 11, entitled, “Short telomeres in alveolar type II cells associate with lung fibrosis in post COVID-19 patients with cancer.”
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The severity of COVID-19 increases with each decade of life, ...
Legal recreational cannabis use and binge drinking is on the rise for older adults
2023-06-15
June 15, 2023 --New research at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health examined changes in binge drinking after the implementation of recreational cannabis laws.
Analysis of national survey data from Americans aged 12 and older showed that past-month binge drinking increased overall among people aged 31 and over from 2008 to 2019. At the same time, binge drinking declined overall among people aged 12-30. The results are published online in the International Journal of Drug Policy.
The most substantial declines in binge drinking were observed ...
New study gives clues on why exercise helps with inflammation
2023-06-15
TORONTO, CANADA, June 15, 2023 - Researchers have long known that moderate exercise has a beneficial impact on the body’s response to inflammation, but what’s been less understood is why. New research coming out of York University done on a mouse model suggests that the answers may lie at the production level of macrophages — white blood cells responsible for killing off infections, healing injury and otherwise acting as first responders in the body.
“Much like if you train your muscles through ...
Climate change likely led to violence in early Andean populations
2023-06-15
Climate change in current times has created problems for humans such as wildfires and reduced growing seasons for staple crops, spilling over into economic effects. Many researchers predict, and have observed in published literature, an increase in interpersonal violence and homicides when temperatures increase.
Violence during climatic change has evidence in history. University of California, Davis, researchers said they have have found a pattern of increased violence during climatic change in the south central Andes between A.D. 470 and 1500. During that time, which includes the Medieval Climatic ...