Speech sounds elicit comparable neural responses and stimulate the same region in the brain of humans, macaques and guinea pigs, a multidisciplinary group of University of Pittsburgh researchers reported in the journal eNeuro today. The finding could help pave the way for better understanding and diagnosis of auditory processing deficits. The brain’s responses to sound—called […]
Lifestyle
Cystic fibrosis faithfully modeled in a human Lung Airway Chip
The inherited progressive disorder cystic fibrosis (CF) causes severe damage to the lungs, and other tissues in the body by affecting the cells that produce mucus, sweat, and digestive juices. In individuals carrying mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene, which encodes an ion channel controlling the flow of ions and water […]
Venetoclax shown to benefit patients with Waldenström Macroglobulinemia, including some who relapsed
A drug that strips cancer cells of their quest for immortality represents an effective new option for patients with Waldenström macroglobulinemia, including those not helped by the only class of drugs currently approved to treat the disease, a clinical trial by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators demonstrates. Of the 32 patients in the trial, more than […]
Deepfaking the mind’ could improve brain-computer interfaces for people with disabilities
In a paper published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the team successfully taught an AI to generate synthetic brain activity data. The data, specifically neural signals called spike trains, can be fed into machine-learning algorithms to improve the usability of brain-computer interfaces (BCI). BCI systems work by analyzing a person’s brain signals and translating that neural […]
Suffering from psoriasis? Blame this trio of proteins
About 7.5 million Americans suffer from psoriasis, an autoimmune disease that shows up as patches of red, inflamed skin and painful, scaly rashes. Although there are effective treatments for psoriasis, not everyone responds to these therapies—and for many, the relief is temporary. “These therapies don’t reduce disease by 100 percent, and they don’t cure the […]
New technique solves HIV capsid structure and could be blueprint of capsid-targeting antivirals
A new technique using electron tomography and subtomogram averaging at Diamond’s electron Bio-Imaging Centre (eBIC), has solved the structure of the HIV capsid alone and in complex with host factors. This work also led to the building of an atomistic model of the whole HIV capsid using information gained from electron tomography, which the team […]
Using PET scans to better treat cancer patients
One of the primary tools that oncologists use to stage cancers is the PET (positron emission tomography) scan, an imaging test that uses a small amount of radioactive sugar to detect metabolically active areas within the body. CU Cancer Center member Sarah Milgrom, MD, recently conducted research to study if PET scans can help to […]