Reston, VA (March 16, 2025)—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. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt one’s thinking and behavior appropriately to ...

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. Now, a team led by University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine researchers ...

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) invites you to a congressional briefing: Title: The Impact of Obesity and Opportunity for CMS to Address When: Tuesday, April 1, from 12 to 1 p.m. ET Where: Virtual Click to RSVP GSA is a professional membership organization committed to promoting the best available interdisciplinary aging research to advance innovations in practice and policy. This is especially key to managing the chronic condition of obesity in health care. Older people with obesity and overweight require access to proven treatment options and care to improve overall health and reduce other related health care costs. ...

Appalachia is globally recognized as a key supplier of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) with growing demand for its resources. Nearly half of the woodland medicinal species in the global nutraceutical market come from the region, contributing to a multibillion-dollar industry. Species such as ginseng, slippery elm, and black cohosh are prominent understory sources of medicinal material. Appalachian edible products are also gaining popularity beyond the region. Ramps, a wild Appalachian plant, can sell for more than $20 per pound in places such as New York City. Spanning 205,000 square miles, Appalachia is home to over ...

Reston, VA (March 28, 2025)—A novel PET imaging approach can effectively quantify a key enzyme associated with brain inflammation, according to research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. The first-in-human study, which imaged the COX-2 enzyme, offers a never-before-seen view of inflammation in the brain, opening the door for COX-2 PET imaging to be used in clinical and research settings for various brain disorders. COX-2 is an enzyme in the brain that can be markedly upregulated by inflammatory stimuli and neuroexcitation. Researchers say that the density of COX-2 in the brain may be a biomarker and effect of inflammation, ...

Music is central to human emotion and culture. Does our ability to enjoy music have a biological basis? A genetic twin study, published in Nature Communications, shows that music enjoyment is partly heritable. An international team led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, uncovered genetic factors that influence the degree of music enjoyment, which were partly distinct from genes influencing general enjoyment of rewarding experiences or musical ability. Music plays an important role in human emotion, social bonding, and cultural expression. As Darwin already noted, music "must ...

Why do some plants thrive in specific regions but not in others? A study led by researchers at the University of Göttingen explores the factors shaping plant distributions and how these patterns have changed over millions of years. Analyzing nearly 270,000 seed plant species worldwide, the research highlights the roles of environmental conditions and dispersal barriers in influencing global plant diversity. The results were published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.   Using advanced methods that integrate plant distributions with phylogenetic information – meaning data about the evolutionary relationships among plant species – researchers ...

HOUSTON – (March 28, 2025) – A new study published in the journal Immunity reveals a mechanism that allows triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) to develop resistance to therapy. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine showed that lipid accumulation in tumor cells and nearby immune cells promotes immune suppression, but disrupting lipid formulation reverses treatment resistance and the immunosuppressive microenvironment.  Standard-of-care treatment for TNBC includes chemotherapy and immunotherapy. However, some initially responsive tumors still develop recurrences. Researchers studied mouse models and found that TNBC cells that survived treatment accumulated ...

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. Researchers from DZNE report on this in the journal Cell Metabolism, together with a Chinese team from Qingdao University and the University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. They suggest that similar mechanisms may exist in humans and view fasting as a potential approach for treating unwanted loss of sexual desire. Fasting ...

28 March 2024, Leuven, Belgium — Accumulation of a protein called TDP-43 is a key feature of ALS and frontotemporal dementia. In a newly published study, researchers report ‘seeding’ this accumulation through fragments of the culprit protein created in the lab. The findings provide further evidence for a prion-like paradigm wherein protein aggregation occurs in a templated fashion. This breakthrough provides the research field with a powerful way to model and study the mechanisms driving neurodegeneration. TAR DNA-binding ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL 11 a.m. EST on Friday, March 28, 2025 Contact: Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu  Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu ## Discrimination-related Depression, Anxiety Pronounced Among Multiracial, White, Asian Populations A new study found that more than half of US adults encounter some form of discrimination, and that this mistreatment may fuel higher chances of depression and/or anxiety among specific racial and ethnic groups due to cultural, social, and systemic factors.  A ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have uncovered a more efficient way to turn carbon dioxide into methanol, a type of alcohol that can serve as a cleaner alternative fuel.  In the lab, synthesizing methanol can be extremely difficult, due to the extremely complex reaction pathway needed to select for it. Previous attempts by the same team to manufacture this valuable liquid fuel from carbon dioxide have used a combination of cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) molecules and electricity, but this method is inefficient as only about 30% of the carbon dioxide is converted to methanol.  To ...

Leveraging the power of AI and machine learning technologies, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine developed a more effective model for predicting how patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer will respond to chemotherapy. The model harnesses whole-slide tumor imaging data and gene expression analyses in a way that outperforms previous models using a single data type. The study, published March 22 in npj Digital Medicine, identifies key genes and tumor characteristics that may determine treatment success. The ability to accurately anticipate ...

Anthrax, an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, is often treatable in its early stages. But once the disease has progressed beyond the “point of no return” after just a few days, patients are almost certainly doomed. In a new Nature Microbiology study, University of Pittsburgh researchers show that a cocktail of growth factors reversed would-be lethal cell damage in mice with anthrax, suggesting that this approach could be adapted for use in patients beyond the brink. “While only a few people die from anthrax in the United States each year, there is always the concern ...

If you just put away your phone to read this, chances are you’re not alone. Our phones are an endless source of distraction, and we interact with them every four to six minutes. This is often driven by habit as well as notifications, leading to a disrupted flow of activity while we’re trying to be productive. A new study published in Frontiers in Computer Science investigated if placing smartphones just out of our reach while we’re at work influenced device use for activities not related ...

Population surveillance. The carrying of identification while traveling. Add to that the public presence of diverse religions and it sounds like 2025, but this was life in the Ottoman Empire 200 years ago. Yet this seeming tolerance of non-Muslim faiths was in fact tied to the first two aspects, according to research by Osaka Metropolitan University Associate Professor Masayuki Ueno. The Ottoman Empire lasted from around 1300 until 1922, and at various points in its history ruled present-day Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, and beyond. In the wake of the 1821 Greek revolt, the Ottoman Empire instituted ...

Banning smartphone and social media access alone fails to equip children for healthy use of technology, argues a group of international experts in The BMJ today. They say the focus should shift to a rights based approach, underpinned by age appropriate design and education, that protects children from harm while developing skills to help them participate in a digital society. Bans on smartphone and social media access have been advocated in many countries to protect children from harm despite ...

Ikoma, Japan—In an era where climate change threatens food security, scientists worldwide are searching for reliable ways to improve crop production. Extreme weather and shifting seasonal patterns can disrupt traditional agricultural cycles, making technologies that regulate the timing of plant growth invaluable for farmers worldwide. Plant growth and development are dependent on many factors such as the environment, photoperiod, and genetics. Flowering is an important event in a plant’s life ...

A new USC Schaeffer Center white paper finds expanded access to anti-obesity medications would lead to significant increases in life expectancy and disease-free years while generating a substantial societal return on investment, even after accounting for treatment costs.   More than 4 in 10 U.S. adults have obesity, which is linked to increased risk of over 200 diseases — including heart disease, diabetes, cancer and dementia — and costs society $260 billion annually to treat. Highly effective new anti-obesity medications can be a powerful tool against chronic disease, but fewer than one-third of health insurers cover them amid concerns about upfront ...

Ikoma, Japan—Throughout evolution, plants have continuously adapted to survive in changing environments. Apart from complex structural changes, plants have also developed various defense strategies against herbivores, including tougher protective layers, thorns, and chemical deterrents. Delving deeper into the evolution of defense mechanisms, a research team led by Assistant Professor Makoto Shirakawa from Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), identified a surprising genetic adaptation in the Brassicales plant order. In these cruciferous ...

New York, NY — The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), is pleased to announce the 2025 recipients of three of its annual Scientific Awards of Distinction: David B. Allison, PhD, will receive the Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction; Daniel W. Belsky, PhD, will receive the Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research; and Arlan Richardson, PhD, will receive the George M. Martin Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award. The Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction is named in honor of AFAR’s founder and recognizes exceptional contributions to basic ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Vaping during pregnancy is becoming more common, but its impact on early human development is not well understood. A new study by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, now reports that the flavor chemical menthol used in electronic cigarettes could pose risks to a developing baby. The study, published in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine, used human embryonic stem cells, or hESCs, to characterize early stages of embryonic development and examined how low concentrations of menthol affect important cellular processes. The ...

Clothes that can mimic the feeling of being touched, touch displays that provide haptic feedback to users, or even ultralight loudspeakers. These are just some of the devices made possible using thin silicone films that can be precisely controlled so that they vibrate, flex, press or pull exactly as desired. And all done simply by applying an electrical voltage. The research teams at the Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology in Saarbrücken (ZeMA) headed by Professors Stefan Seelecke and Paul Motzki (Saarland University) and John Heppe (htw saar – University of Applied Sciences ...

FAMU-FSU College of Engineering researchers have created a new method for studying protein degradation within immune cells that uses engineered microparticles to track and analyze degradation processes more effectively than traditional methods. The work, which was published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, has important implications for treating diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and autoimmune disorders. “There is a lot we still don’t know about how cells ingest and eliminate tissue debris or pathogens — the process ...

How gravity causes a perfectly spherical ball to roll down an inclined plane is part of elementary school physics canon. But the world is messier than a textbook.    Scientists in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have sought to quantitatively describe the much more complex rolling physics of real-world objects. Led by L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Physics, and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology in SEAS and FAS, they combined theory, simulations, and experiments to understand what happens when an imperfect, ...