Category Health/Medical

An artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that can detect subtle brain abnormalities that cause epileptic seizures has been developed by a UCL-led team of international researchers.

The Multicentre Epilepsy Lesion Detection project (MELD) used over 1,000 patient MRI scans from 22 global epilepsy centers to develop the algorithm, which provides reports of where abnormalities are in cases of drug-resistant focal cortical dysplasia (FCD)—a leading cause of epilepsy.

FCDs are areas of the brain that have developed abnormally and often cause drug-resistant epilepsy. The condition is typically treated with surgery, however identifying the lesions from an MRI is an ongoing challenge for clinicians, as MRI scans in FCDs can look normal.

To develop t...

Researchers and entrepreneurs have developed an implant made of collagen protein from pig’s skin, which resembles the human cornea. In a pilot study, the implant restored vision to 20 people with diseased corneas, most of whom were blind prior to receiving the implant. The study jointly led by researchers at Linköping University (LiU) and LinkoCare Life Sciences AB has been published in Nature Biotechnology. The promising results bring hope to those suffering from corneal blindness and low vision by providing a bioengineered implant as an alternative to the transplantation of donated human corneas, which are scarce in countries where the need for them is greatest.

“The results show...

Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast discovered how the journey or molecular pathway of an identified protein is both essential for brain development and how an alteration to its pathway could result in the spread of cancer.

The study, published today in Nature Cell Biology, has revealed the molecular mechanisms of a timely and spatially controlled movement of cells that is essential for the migration of newborn neurons during brain development and can also cause the spread of cancer, or cancer metastasis throughout the body.

It is expected this discovery will have a huge impact on the fundamental understanding of cancer metastasis and brain development and could lead to earlier diagnosis and better treatments, the research authors said.

During brain development, neural ...

Wearable human-machine interface devices, HMIs, can be used to control machines, computers, music players, and other systems. A challenge for conventional HMIs is the presence of sweat on human skin.

In Applied Physics Reviews, scientists at UCLA describe their development of a type of HMI that is stretchable, inexpensive, and waterproof...