Healthinnovations

Nano-prosthetics to repair neural circuitry.

Neurons are continuously exposed to signals generated by the extracellular environment at the nanoscale to drive key biological tasks. This ability has been exploited to engineer interfaces with nanostructures with
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Study identifies the brain cells which regulate the Pavlovian response.

In his famous experiment, Ivan Pavlov rang a bell each time he fed his dogs. Soon, the dogs began drooling in anticipation when they heard the bell, even before food
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Pre-clinical study suggests Parkinson’s could start in the gut.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with devastating clinical manifestations. Recent research on Parkinson’s disease has focused on the gut-brain connection, examining patients’ gut bacteria. However, researchers understand little
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First human study targets cortical neurons in the brain to improve motor function.

The spinal cord is very sensitive to injury, however, unlike other parts of the body, the spinal cord does not have the ability to repair itself when damaged. A spinal
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Study finds small colony of neurons modulate amount of insulin the pancreas produces.

The brain is the key regulator of appetite, body weight and metabolism. Specifically, there is a small group of hypothalamus neurons, named the Proopiomelanocortin neurons (POMC), which can detect and
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Neuroimaging connects stress-associated brain activity to cardiovascular disease in humans.

Stress is the feeling of being under mental or emotional pressure, where a person may feel unable to cope. How much stress a person experiences and how they react to
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Somatosensory neuron receptors used to form brown fat, has implications for diabetes and obesity.

Brown fat has long been investigated as a treatment for obesity and type 2 diabetes due to the fact it burns energy faster than white fat, which hoards it, leading
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Previously unknown type of regenerating insulin-producing cell discovered.

Type I diabetes is a disease with two parts, firstly, the beta cells are killed by the body’s own immune system, and then they fail to regenerate. Without these cells,
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Researchers successfully eliminate neurons outside the brain to trigger obesity.

Specific cell ablation is an important tool for selectively destroying one or multiple cells in a given organism. For example, a laser beam or a controllable gene can be used
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Brain circuit that supports smoking cessation identified.

It is known that smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death globally. Diseases related to tobacco smoking have been shown to kill approximately half of long-term smokers
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