Category Health/Medical

Overexpressed Arc in the visual cortex. Credit: Elissa Pastuzyn

Like much of the rest of the body, the brain loses flexibility with age, impacting the ability to learn, remember, and adapt. Now, scientists at University of Utah Health report they can rejuvenate the plasticity of the mouse brain, specifically in the visual cortex, increasing its ability to change in response to experience. “It’s exciting because it suggests that by just manipulating one gene in adult brains, we can boost brain plasticity,” says Jason Shepherd, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at University of Utah Health.

“This has implications for potentially reducing normal cognitive decline with aging, or boosting recovery from brain injury after stroke or traumatic brain injury,” he says...

 For the first time, scientists have conducted thermonuclear measurements of nuclear reaction cross-sections under extreme conditions like those of stellar interiors.

For the first time, scientists have conducted thermonuclear measurements of nuclear reaction cross-sections under extreme conditions like those of stellar interiors.

Most of the nuclear reactions that drive the nucleosynthesis of the elements in our universe occur in very extreme stellar plasma conditions. This intense environment found in the deep interiors of stars has made it nearly impossible for scientists to perform nuclear measurements in these conditions – until now...

Researchers demonstrate a process known as tissue nanotransfection at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. In laboratory tests, this process was able to heal the badly injured legs of mice in just three weeks with a single touch of this chip. The technology works by converting normal skin cells into vascular cells, which helped heal the wounds. Credit: Courtesy The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

Device instantly delivers new DNA or RNA into living skin cells to change their function. Researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Ohio State’s College of Engineering have developed a new technology, Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT), that can generate any cell type of interest for treatment within the patient’s own body...

“Tissue Papers” from Organ-Specific Decellularized Extracellular Matrices. Advanced Functional Materials, 2017; 1700992 DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201700992 Credit: Image courtesy of Northwestern University

Bioactive tissue paper made from organs is pliable enough to fold into origami structures. Northwestern Medicine scientists and engineers have invented a range of bioactive “tissue papers” made of materials derived from organs which potentially can be used to support natural hormone production in young cancer patients and aid wound healing. The tissue papers are made from structural proteins excreted by cells that give organs their form and structure. The proteins are combined with a polymer to make the material pliable.

In the study, individual types of tissue papers were made from ovarian,...