Category Health/Medical

Kyoto University’s Institute team coated gold nanorods with lipoprotein. This allowed the nanorods to bind efficiently to nerve cell membranes bearing a pain receptor called TRPV1 (transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1). Near-infrared light was then applied to the nanorod-coated pain receptors. The nanorods heated up, activating the pain receptors to allow an influx of calcium ions through the membrane. Prolonged activation of TRPV1 is known to subsequently lead to their desensitization, bringing pain relief. Importantly, heating the gold nanorods enabled safe activation of the TRPV1 pain receptors alone, without affecting the membrane in which they lie.

Previous studies had shown that magnetic nanoparticles are also able to activate TRPV1 receptors by applying a magnetic fie...

The hippocampus is particularly active when a person solves conflicts quickly and successfully. Credit: © RUB, Grafik: Bierstedt

In everyday life, people are confronted with decision conflicts, especially if they need to suppress an action that would have made sense under normal circumstances. eg when the pedestrian lights go green, a pedestrian would normally start walking. If, however, a car comes speeding along at the same time, the pedestrian should stay where he is.

METHOD: Study participants heard the words “high” or “low” spoken in a high or low tone, and they had to state – regardless of the meaning of the word – at what pitch the speaker said them...

The Virginia Tech researchers discovered that pre-diabetic people who were considered to be insulin resistant – also had altered mitochondrial DNA. Researchers made the connection by analyzing blood samples taken from 40 participants enrolled in the diaBEAT-it program, a long-term study run by multiple researchers in the Fralin Translational Obesity Research Center and funded by a grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Participants did not have diabetes or cardiovascular disease, but were pre-diabetic and showed signs of insulin resistance.

Blood samples revealed participants had lower amounts of mitochondrial DNA with a higher amount of methylation – a process that can change the expression of genes and mitochondrial copy numbers in ...

“Alcohol abuse costs almost $220 billion to the U.S. economy every year. That’s a shocking number. We need a better treatment right now.” Tiruveedhula is a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. The exact causes of alcoholism are not well understood, but the researchers explain that the urge to drink is related to the brain’s pleasure centers. Scientists have found that alcohol triggers the brain to release dopamine, the same neurochemical whose levels increase in response to pleasurable behavior like eating, sex or listening to music.

Some drugs currently available to treat alcoholism are aimed at dopamine. “They dampen out the dopamine system a little bit, so you don’t get so happy when you have an alcoholic beverage,” says James Cook, Ph.D...