Category Health/Medical

University of Arizona biomedical engineering doctoral student Jeffrey Watson, left, and associate professor of biomedical engineering Marek Romanowski assemble parts for the prototype microscopy device. Credit: UA College of Engineering

It allows neurosurgeons, who use microscopes extensively while operating, to see blood flowing inside vessels and more clearly distinguish cancerous from healthy tissue. It gives a more detailed picture in real time and helps them stay on course in surgeries where being off 2mm could cause paralysis, blindness and even death.

Prof Marek Romanowski, UA said “Our augmented technology provides diagnostic information under the microscope on demand and in color, appearing directly over tissue a surgeon is operating on, as if the tissue was painted to help direct...

A University of Oregon study finds abundance does not dictate the immune response to bacteria in the guts of zebrafish. This graphic depicts immune response (neutrophils, shown in green) to separate bacterial species, and the response when the two bacteria are placed into a germ-free fish gut at the same time. Credit: Courtesy of Annah S. Rolig

University of Oregon scientists have found strength in numbers doesn’t hold true for microbes in the intestines.The findings provide a path to study the function of each bacterial species in the gut and to eventually, perhaps, predict and prevent disease...

Electronic glasses have been proven as effective as eye patches for lazy eye in children. Credit: American Academy of Ophthalmology

Programmable digital glasses for lazy eye work as well as eye patching, study shows, improving vision by about 2 lines on the reading chart after 3 months. First new effective lazy eye treatment in 50 years. Amblyopia remains the most common cause of visual impairment in children.The child needs to receive treatment by the age of 8 or so while their eyes and brain are still developing, or he or she could become blind in the weaker eye.

Unfortunately, its hard getting kids to comply with lazy eye treatments like eye patches or medicated drops.Nearly 15% refuse to take eye drops at all. Both drops and eye patches work based on the occlusion method...

The Salk team expanded upon their previous development of a drug candidate J147, which takes a different tack by targeting Alzheimer’s major risk factor—old age. In the new work, the team showed that the drug candidate worked well in a mouse model of aging not typically used in Alzheimer’s research. When these mice were treated with J147, they had better memory and cognition, healthier blood vessels in the brain and other improved physiological features.

“Initially, the impetus was to test this drug in a novel animal model that was more similar to 99% of Alzheimer’s cases,” says Prof Antonio Currais. “We did not predict we’d see this sort of anti-aging effect, but J147 made old mice look like they were young, based upon a number of physiological parameters.”

Alzheimer’s is the 3rd ...