Category Health/Medical

University of Louisville researchers have discovered how a naturally occurring microbial compound may help protect the gut and support future treatment strategies for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

IBD, which includes conditions such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects millions of people worldwide. The disease is characterized by chronic inflammation and damage to the intestinal lining. A healthy gut barrier helps keep harmful bacteria from leaking out of the intestines while allowing nutrients to enter the body. In people with IBD, that barrier becomes weakened, leading to inflammation, pain and long-term complications.

A research team led by Venkatakrishna Rao Jala, associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and UofL’s Brown Cancer C...

University of Louisville researchers have discovered how a naturally occurring microbial compound may help protect the gut and support future treatment strategies for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

IBD, which includes conditions such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects millions of people worldwide. The disease is characterized by chronic inflammation and damage to the intestinal lining. A healthy gut barrier helps keep harmful bacteria from leaking out of the intestines while allowing nutrients to enter the body. In people with IBD, that barrier becomes weakened, leading to inflammation, pain and long-term complications.

A research team led by Venkatakrishna Rao Jala, associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and UofL’s Brown Cancer C...

A night without sleep produced increased markers of connections between brain cells, showing that sleep in humans may be important for restoring cellular balance in the brain, according to a study published in PLOS Biology by David Elmenhorst from the Forschungszentrum Jülich Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and colleagues.

Scientists have long wondered why humans and other animals need to sleep. One potential mechanism is that sleep is required to restore synaptic connections and homeostasis in the brain...

In humans and other mammals, spinal cord injuries can be devastating, leading to permanent loss of movement, sensation and bladder control. When severed axons (the long fibers that carry messages between nerve cells) cannot regrow, a dense scar forms, preventing nerve signals from passing the injury site.

But the situation is different for some primitive invertebrates, which can rapidly reconnect severed nerves by fusing them. Inspired by this natural phenomenon, scientists led by Michael Lebenstein-Gumovski at the Sklifosovsky Institute for Emergency Medicine in Russia report that they have successfully reconnected severed spinal cords in pigs, enabling them to walk again.

When a spinal cord is completely cut, the two severed ends naturally pull away from each other...