Category Biology/Biotechnology

Persistently engaging in negative thinking patterns may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, finds a new UCL-led study.

In the study of people aged over 55, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, researchers found ‘repetitive negative thinking’ (RNT) is linked to subsequent cognitive decline as well as the deposition of harmful brain proteins linked to Alzheimer’s.

The researchers say RNT should now be further investigated as a potential risk factor for dementia, and psychological tools, such as mindfulness or meditation, should be studied to see if these could reduce dementia risk.

Lead author Dr Natalie Marchant (UCL Psychiatry) said: “Depression and anxiety in mid-life and old age are already known to be risk factors for dementia...

The design could advance the development of small, portable AI devices. MIT engineers have designed a “brain-on-a-chip,” smaller than a piece of confetti, that is made from tens of thousands of artificial brain synapses known as memristors — silicon-based components that mimic the information-transmitting synapses in the human brain.

The res...

Scientists have recently identified a small mitochondrial uncoupler, named BAM15, that decreases the body fat mass of mice without affecting food intake and muscle mass or increasing body temperature.

Obesity affects more than 40 percent of adults in the United States and 13 percent of the global population. With obesity comes a variety of other interconnected diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and fatty liver disease, which makes the disease one of the most difficult — and most crucial — to treat.

“Obesity is the biggest health problem in the United States...

Washington State University researchers have developed a technology that is more than 30 times more sensitive than current lab-based tests in finding early stage cancer biomarkers in blood.

The technology uses an electric field to concentrate and separate cancer biomarkers onto a paper strip. It could someday become a kind of liquid biopsy and could lead to earlier detection of and faster treatments for cancer, a disease that causes more than 9.6 million deaths a year around the world.

Led by Wenji Dong, associate professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, and graduate student Shuang Guo, the researc...