Researchers identify molecule with anti-inflammatory properties in maple syrup
Universite Laval (Quebec), December 22, 2022
Arthritis and other inflammatory diseases could someday be treated with medication containing a molecule from maple syrup. Université Laval researchers demonstrated in a recent study that quebecol, a molecule found in maple syrup, has interesting properties for fighting the body’s inflammatory response. Discovered in 2011, quebecol is the result of chemical reactions during the syrup-making process that transform the naturally occurring polyphenols in maple sap. After successfully synthesizing quebecol and its derivatives, Université Laval researchers under the supervision of Normand Voyer, a chemist with the Faculty of Science and Engineering, evaluated its anti-inflammatory properties. They called on colleague Daniel Grenier of the Faculty of Dentistry, who developed an in vitro model for determining the anti-inflammatory potential of natural molecules. “We take blood cells called macrophages and put them with bacterial toxins,” explained Professor Grenier. “Macrophages usually react by triggering an inflammatory response. But if the culture medium contains an anti-inflammatory molecule, this response is blocked.”
The researchers carried out tests that showed quebecol curbs the inflammatory response of macrophages, and some derivatives are even more effective than the original molecule. “The most powerful derivative has a simpler structure and is easier to synthesize than quebecol,” said Normand Voyer. “This paves the way for a whole new class of anti-inflammatory agents, inspired by quebecol, that could compensate for the low efficacy of certain treatments while reducing the risk of side effects.” The study, coauthored by Sébastien Cardinal, Jabrane Azelmat, Daniel Grenier, and Normand Voyer, was published in the journal Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters.
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Midnight munchies mangle memory
University of California-Los Angeles, December 23, 2022
An occasional late-night raid on turkey leftovers might be harmless but new research with mice suggests that making a habit of it could alter brain physiology. Eating at times normally reserved for sleep causes a deficiency in the type of learning and memory controlled by the hippocampal area of the brain, according to findings in the journal eLife. Researchers from the Semel Institute in the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) became interested in the cognitive effects of eating at inappropriate hours because it is already known to have an impact on metabolic health, for example leading to a pre-diabetic state. “We have provided the first evidence that taking regular meals at the wrong time of day has far-reaching effects for learning and memory,” says first author Dawn Loh from the UCLA Laboratory of Circadian and Sleep Medicine. The current study shows that some learned behaviours are more affected than others. The team tested the ability of mice to recognise a novel object. Mice regularly fed during their sleep-time were significantly less able to recall the object. Long-term memory was also dramatically reduced, demonstrated during a fear conditioning experiment. Both long-term memory and the ability to recognise a novel object are governed by the hippocampus. The hippocampus plays an important role in our ability to associate senses and emotional experiences with memory and our ability to organise and store new memories. During an experience, nerve impulses are activated along specific pathways and, if we repeat the experience, the same pathways increase in strength. However, this effect was reduced when food was made available to mice during a six-hour window in the middle of their normal sleep time instead of a six-hour daytime window when the mice were active. Some genes involved in both the circadian clock and in learning and memory are regulated by a protein called CREB (cAMP response element-binding protein). When CREB is less active, it decreases memory, and may play a role in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. In the mice fed at the wrong time, the total activity of CREB throughout the hippocampus was significantly reduced, with the strongest effects in the day. “For the first time, we have shown that simply adjusting the time when food is made available alters the molecular clock in the hippocampus and can alter the cognitive performance of mice.” Eating at the wrong time also disrupted sleep patterns. The inappropriate feeding schedule resulted in the loss of the normal day/night difference in the amount of sleep although the total time spent asleep over 24 hours was not changed. Sleep became fragmented, with the mice catching up on sleep by grabbing more short naps throughout the day and night.
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More Connectivity In The Brain Found In People Who Run
University of Arizona, December 21, 2022
University of Arizona researchers compared brain scans of young adult cross country runners to young adults who don’t engage in regular physical activity. The runners, overall, showed greater functional connectivity — or connections between distinct brain regions — within several areas of the brain, including the frontal cortex, which is important for cognitive functions such as planning, decision-making and the ability to switch attention between tasks. Previous studies have shown that joggers have a clear improvement in prefrontal function. Exercise and running can actually help those aging with dementia and and Alzheimer’s disease. Although additional research is needed to determine whether these physical differences in brain connectivity result in differences in cognitive functioning, the current findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, help lay the groundwork for researchers to better understand how exercise affects the brain, particularly in young adults. UA running expert David Raichlen, an associate professor of anthropology, co-designed the study with UA psychology professor Gene Alexander, who studies brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease as a member of the UA’s Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute. Along with their colleagues, Raichlen and Alexander compared the MRI scans of a group of male cross country runners to the scans of young adult males who hadn’t engaged in any kind of organized athletic activity for at least a year. Participants were roughly the same age — 18 to 25 — with comparable body mass index and educational levels. The findings shed new light on the impact that running, as a particular form of exercise, may have on the brain. “These activities that people consider repetitive actually involve many complex cognitive functions — like planning and decision-making — that may have effects on the brain,” Raichlen said. Since functional connectivity often appears to be altered in aging adults, and particularly in those with Alzheimer’s or other neurodegenerative diseases, it’s an important measure to consider, Alexander said. And what researchers learn from the brains of young adults could have implications for the possible prevention of age-related cognitive decline later on.
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Singing found to support stroke rehabilitation
University of Helsinki, December 29, 2022
Approximately 40% of stroke survivors experience aphasia, a difficulty with comprehending or producing spoken or written language caused by a cerebrovascular accident. In half of these cases the language impairment still persists one year post-stroke. Aphasia has wide-ranging effects on the ability to function and quality of life of stroke survivors and easily leads to social isolation. According to a recent study conducted at the University of Helsinki, singing-based group rehabilitation can support communication and speech production of patients and increase social activity even at the chronic phase of stroke. The burden experienced among the family caregivers participating in the study also decreased notably. “Our study is the first where caregivers participated in rehabilitation and their psychological well-being was evaluated,” says Postdoctoral Researcher Sini-Tuuli Siponkoski. Previous research has established that the ability to sing can be retained even in severe aphasia. However, the use of singing, especially choral singing, in aphasia rehabilitation has not been widely studied. “Our study utilized a wide variety of singing elements, such as choral singing, melodic intonation therapy and tablet-assisted singing training,” says Doctoral Researcher Anni Pitkäniemi. In melodic intonation therapy, speech production is practiced gradually by utilizing melody and rhythm to progress from singing towards speech production. In addition to speech therapy, melodic intonation therapy has been used to some extent in aphasia rehabilitation. Therapy has typically been implemented as individual therapy, requiring a great deal of resources. According to the researchers, singing-based group rehabilitation should be utilized in health care as part of aphasia rehabilitation.
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Violence spreads like a disease among adolescents, study finds
Ohio State University, December 20, 2022
A study of U.S. adolescents provides some of the best evidence to date of how violence spreads like a contagious disease. Researchers found that adolescents were up to 183 percent more likely to carry out some acts of violence if one of their friends had also committed the same act. But the spread of violence doesn’t just stop at friends – results suggest the contagion extends by up to four degrees of separation – from one person to a friend, to the friend’s friend and two more friends beyond.”This study shows just how contagious violence can be,” said Robert Bond, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at The Ohio State University. “Acts of violence can ricochet through a community, traveling through networks of friends.”Results showed that participants in the study were 48 percent more likely to have been in a serious fight, 183 percent more likely to have hurt someone badly, and 140 percent more likely to have pulled a weapon on someone if a friend had engaged in the same behavior.”We now have evidence that shows how important social relationships are to spreading violent behavior, just like they are for spreading many other kinds of attitudes and behaviors,” Bushman said. Data from the study came from 5,913 young people who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (ADD Health) and who were interviewed in-depth. The ADD Health researchers interviewed as many students (grades 7 to 12) as they could from 142 schools across the country so they could have information on social networks within each school. The finding that adolescents were more likely to commit acts of violence if their friends had done so is not surprising, Bond said. Much of that association is related to what scientists call a “clustering effect” – people with similar interests, including the use of violence, tend to cluster together as friends. Results showed that each additional friend who had seriously hurt someone increased the likelihood that a participant had hurt someone badly by 55 percent, even after taking into account the clustering effects and other factors. If you include only male participants (who were more likely than females to seriously hurt others), then the likelihood increased to 82 percent.
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Vitamin D “sufficiency” is disease-dependent
University of South Australia, December 23 2022.
An article published in the journal Nutrients proposes that vitamin D sufficiency is dependent upon the condition targeted for prevention, and that what constitutes a sufficient level to prevent skeletal diseases is significantly lower what is necessary to prevent cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer. “We hypothesize that just as vitamin D metabolism is tissue dependent, so the levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D that signify sufficiency are disease dependent,” write Simon Spedding of the University of South Australia and colleagues. “Thus the response to vitamin D supplementation is dependent on the baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D level, the dose of vitamin D and dose-response characteristics.” For their review, the authors evaluated randomized and non-randomized trials, cohort studies, case-control studies and others, that were classified as providing varying levels of evidence concerning vitamin D. While they estimate that the minimum effective level of vitamin D that is sufficient to prevent osteoporosis and fractures is just 20 ng/mL, a reduction in premature mortality, for which there is the highest level of evidence for vitamin D, requires a level of at least 30 ng/mL. For depression, sufficiency also begins at 30 ng/mL, and for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, a minimum sufficient level is 32 ng/mL. To prevent falls and respiratory infections requires a concentration of at least 38 ng/mL, and for cancer prevention, the level is 40 ng/mL or more. “In the field of research, trials can be designed to minimize limitations of study design that lead to null outcomes knowing the range of serum 25-OHD in which changes in serum levels will lead to responses in specific body systems,” Dr Spedding and his coauthors write. “This will also provide more clarity when assessing the effectiveness of vitamin D in different diseases, greater uniformity in the results of meta-analyses and less confusing guidelines.”