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    dopamine tagged posts

    High-Intensity Exercise can Reverse Neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s, study suggests

    February 29, 2024, Categories  Uncategorized

    Dopamine Transporter Levels Pre- and Post-Exercise. A Average 18F-FE-PE2I DAT BPND images before and after six months of exercise. The red box including the midbrain and SN is enlarged. B 18F-FE-PE2I BPND in the SN pre- and post-exercise by study participant. Individual lines are red if an increase was observed, blue if a decrease was observed. The solid black line represents the mean of our cohort, the dashed black line represents the expected decrease from the pre-exercise average in the absence of intervention. Credit: npj Parkinson’s Disease (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41531-024-00641-1

    High-intensity exercise induces brain-protective effects that have the potential to not just slow down but possibly reverse the neurodegeneration associated with Parkinson’s disease, a new pilot ...

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    New Gut-Brain Circuits found for Sugar and Fat Cravings

    January 20, 2024, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Fat, sugar, and the combination of both (chocolate) navigate a gut-brain maze. The blue path represents the sugar route, the green path signifies the fat route, and the yellow path represents the combined impact of fats and sugars. Each path leads to the brain, but the combined route has a greater impact, triggering heightened dopamine release in the reward circuits, emphasizing the synergistic effect of fat-sugar combinations on neural responses. Image credit: Isadora Barga, de Lartigue lab

    A new study has unraveled the internal neural wiring of separate fat and sugar craving pathways. However, combining these pathways overly triggers a desire to eat more than usual. Understanding why we overeat unhealthy foods has been a long-standing mystery...

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    SARS-CoV-2 can Infect Dopamine Neurons causing Senescence

    January 18, 2024, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    SARS-CoV-2 can infect dopamine neurons causing senescence
    Stained tissue from the midbrain of a COVID-19 patient shows DNA in the cells’ nuceli (blue), dopamine neurons (green) and phosphor-alpha-synuclein (red). Credit: Liuliu Yang

    A new study reported that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, can infect dopamine neurons in the brain and trigger senescence—when a cell loses the ability to grow and divide. The researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons suggest that further research on this finding may shed light on the neurological symptoms associated with long COVID, such as brain fog, lethargy, and depression.

    The findings, published in Cell Stem Cell on Jan...

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    Study finds Dopamine Regulates How Quickly and Accurately Decisions are made

    September 23, 2023, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Dopamine regulates how quickly and accurately decisions are made
    Behavioral data. Response time (RT) distributions (n = 31, within-subject design) under Placebo (a), L-dopa (b), and Haloperidol (c). Choices of the suboptimal (20% reinforced) options in (a–c) are coded as negative RTs, whereas choices of the optimal (80% reinforced) options are coded as positive RTs. d Accuracy per drug condition (chance level is 0.5). e Total rewards earned per condition. f Median RT per drug condition. Pl – Placebo, L – L-dopa, H – Haloperidol. For boxplots, lines represent the median, the box covers the upper and lower quartiles, and the whiskers denote the range of datapoints falling within 1.5 times the interquartile range. Credit: Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41130-y

    A recent study provides new insight into the relat...

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