Category Health/Medical

View of synapses in the amygdala of a mouse, obtained using a confocal microscope. mGlu4 receptors in red, and mGlu1a receptors in green. The white bar bottom right corresponds to 5 ?m. Credit: Zussy et al., 2016

Pain serves as a valuable warning signal, but when it becomes chronic, pain should be considered as a real disease. An international team including research scientists from the CNRS and INSERM has identified and controlled one of the centers associated with chronic pain. This work, published on 20 December 2016 in Molecular Psychiatry, made it possible to relieve the symptoms in mice and demonstrated the ability of the brain to remedy this problem.

While around 20% of the European population has experienced episodes of chronic pain, treatments are only effective in fewer than half...

Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have created a bacteria-powered battery on a single sheet of paper that can power disposable electronics. Credit: Seokheun

Instead of ordering batteries by the pack, we might get them by the ream in the future. Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have created a bacteria-powered battery on a single sheet of paper that can power disposable electronics. The manufacturing technique reduces fabrication time and cost, and the design could revolutionize the use of bio-batteries as a power source in remote, dangerous and resource-limited areas.

“Papertronics have recently emerged as a simple and low-cost way to power disposable point-of-care diagnostic sensors,” said Assistant Professor Seokheun “Sean...

86% accuracy was achieved with the artificially intelligent nanoarray hreathalyzer for detection and discrimination of 17 disease conditions examined.

Before modern medical lab techniques became available, doctors diagnosed some diseases by smelling a patient’s breath. Scientists have been working for years to develop analytical instruments that can mimic this sniff-and-diagnose ability. Now, researchers report in the journal ACS Nano that they have identified a unique “breathprint” for each disease. Using this information, they have designed a device that screens breath samples to classify and diagnose several types of diseases.

Exhaled breath contains nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen, as well as a small amount of more than 100 other volatile chemical components...

(a) Domain organization of ATX. (b) Ribbon diagram of the ATX structure in the free form. (c) Surface representation of the ATX structure in the free form. Somatomedin B-like domain 1 (SMB1), orange; SMB2, brown; core subdomain, cyan; insertion (Ins) subdomain, pale cyan; nuclease-like domain (NLD), magenta; L1, beige; L2, yellow-green; EF hand–like motif, pink. N-glycans and sulfate ion are shown as yellow and orange sticks, respectively. Zn2+, Ca2+, Na+ and K+ ions are shown as gray, green, purple and blue spheres, respectively. All 15 disulfide linkages are shown as sticks.

Higher levels of the enzyme, autotaxin, significantly predict memory impairment and type 2 diabetes. The research emphasizes the link between physical and mental health...