Category Biology/Biotechnology

Targeting a receptor responsible for our sense of touch and temperature, which researchers have now found to be present in our colon, could provide a new avenue for treating chronic pain associated with gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome.

A team examining the colon, led by Professor Hongzhen Hu at Washington University and Professor Nick Spencer at Flinders University, identified the presence of Piezo2, the subject of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, now known to be responsible for sensing light touch on our skin.

“In discovering that this receptor is also in our gut, there’s the potential that selectively targeting these channels could be used for long-term silencing of pain sensations from internal organs, without the need for frequent c...

In a study examining the link between non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and brain dysfunction, scientists at the Roger Williams Institute of Hepatology, affiliated to King’s College London and the University of Lausanne, found an accumulation of fat in the liver causes a decrease in oxygen to the brain and inflammation to brain tissue — both of which have been proven to lead to the onset of severe brain diseases.

NAFLD affects approximately 25% of the population and more than 80% of morbidly obese people. Several studies have reported the negative effects of an unhealthy diet and obesity can have on brain function however this is believed to be the first study that clearly links NAFLD with brain deterioration and identifies a potential therapeutic target.

The research, c...

Wi-Fi routers continuously broadcast radio frequencies that your phones, tablets and computers pick up and use to get you online. As the invisible frequencies travel, they bounce off or pass through everything around them—the walls, the furniture and even you. Your movements, even breathing, slightly alter the signal’s path from the router to your device.

Those interactions don’t interrupt your internet connection, but they could signal when someone is in trouble...

A probiotic bacterium called Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus HA-114 prevents neurodegeneration in the C. elegans worm, an animal model used to study amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). That’s the finding of a new study at Canada’s CHUM Research Centre (CRCHUM) led by Université de Montréal neuroscience professor Alex Parker and published in the journal Communications Biology.

He and his team suggest that the disruption of lipid metabolism contributes to this cerebral degeneration, and show that the neuroprotection provided by HA-114, a non-commercial probiotic, is unique compared to other strains of the same bacterial family tested.

“When we add it to the diet of our animal model, we notice that it suppresses the progression of motor neuron degenera...