Category Biology/Biotechnology

Master Athlete

Researchers examined cerebral blood flow in master athletes (ages 50-80 years) before and after a 10-day period during which they stopped all exercise. Using MRI brain imaging techniques, they found a significant decrease in blood flow to several brain regions important for cognitive health, including the hippocampus, after they stopped their exercise routines.

“We know that the hippocampus plays an important role in learning and memory and is one of the first brain regions to shrink in people with Alzheimer’s disease,” says Dr. J. Carson Smith, associate professor of kinesiology...

Acetylcholine receptors, also known as nicotinic receptors

Several scientific studies have indicated that nicotine may be beneficial for memory function. Scientists set out to shed further light on the properties attributed to nicotine – which is known to have an adverse effect on health – by determining the precise structure of the nicotinic receptors in the hippocampus region of the brain. Using mouse models for Alzheimer’s disease, they identified the β2 subunit of the nicotinic receptor as a target that, if blocked, prevents the memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by two types of lesion: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary degeneration...

Cancer — Histopathologic image of colonic carcinoid. Credit: Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0

A team including the National Cancer Center (NCC), RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies (CLST), and Carna Biosciences Inc. has jointly announced the development of a novel small-molecule Wnt inhibitor named NCB-0846. Wnt signaling is a key pathway of cancer stem cell (CSC) development. The inhibitor may provide a new therapy option for patients with drug-refractory colorectal cancer.

Colorectal cancer is a major cause of cancer death, accounting for approximately 700,000 deaths annually worldwide...

A rat enjoys some chocolatey liquid. Ellen Ambrose, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Johns Hopkins neuroscientists believe they have figured out how some mammals’ brains—in this case, rats—solve navigational problems. If there’s a “reward” at the end of the trip, like the chocolatey drink used in their study, specialized neurons in the hippocampus of the brain “replay” the route taken to get it, but backward. And the greater the reward, the more often the rats’ brains replay it. The finding suggests both the presence and magnitude of rewards influence how and how well the hippocampus forms memories.

“We’ve long known that the brains of awake animals have these replay events when they pause in their travels...