Category Health/Medical

Researchers demonstrated unprecedented rates of recovery for spinal cord injuries. Individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury safely received a combination of stimulation of a nerve in the neck with progressive, individualized rehabilitation. This approach, called closed-loop vagus nerve stimulation (CLV), produced meaningful improvements in arm and hand function in these individuals.

In a new clinical study, researchers from the Texas Biomedical Device Center (TxBDC) at The University of Texas at Dallas demonstrated unprecedented rates of recovery for spinal cord injuries.

In this study, published in the journal Natu...

Fibroblasts are specialised connective tissue cells that play a key role in wound healing and tissue regeneration. The recent scientific publication from the University of Leipzig Medical Center shows that fibroblasts respond differently depending on the organ and disease context. Their functions are shaped by their embryonic origin, tissue-specific signals, and pathological stimuli...

Researchers led by Hiroshi Ohno at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) in Japan have discovered a new way to reduce obesity. Their study shows that supplying the gut with extra acetate reduces fat and liver mass in both normal and obese mice, as long as bacteria of the Bacteroides species are also present in the gut.

When both these conditions are met, gut bacteria can eliminate more sugars from the gut and promote the burning of fats for energy in the host. The findings were published in Cell Metabolism.

Affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world, obesity constitutes a global epidemic...

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center and Wake Forest University School of Medicine have identified ALDH4A1, a Mitochondrial proline-metabolizing enzyme, as a third structural component of the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) complex. Forming a trimeric assembly with MPC1 and MPC2, ALDH4A1 maintains MPC integrity and facilitates pyruvate import into mitochondria.

Mitochondrial pyruvate import serves as a critical step in cellular energy metabolism, linking cytosolic glycolysis to mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation...