Videos:
- “You are ignoring science! It’s a disaster!” Dr Masanori Fukushima of Kyoto University
- Why Meta Droopped 70% (10:54)
- INTERVIEW: #Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries on the planet and is lying about its dead
INTERVIEW: #Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries on the planet and is lying about its dead“
Researchers find that brains with more vitamin D function better
Tufts University, December 7, 2022
An estimated 55 million people worldwide live with dementia, a number that’s expected to rise as the global population ages. To find treatments that can slow or stop the disease, scientists need to better understand the factors that can cause dementia. Researchers at Tufts University have completed the first study examining levels of vitamin D in brain tissue, specifically in adults who suffered from varying rates of cognitive decline. They found that members of this group with higher levels of vitamin D in their brains had better cognitive function. The study was published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Vitamin D supports many functions in the body, including immune responses and maintaining healthy bones. Dietary sources include fatty fish and fortified beverages (such as milk or orange juice); brief exposure to sunlight also provides a dose of vitamin D. Booth, Shea, and their team examined samples of brain tissue from 209 participants in the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a long-term study of Alzheimer’s disease that began in 1997. Researchers at Rush University assessed the cognitive function of the participants, older people with no signs of cognitive impairment, as they aged, and analyzed irregularities in their brain tissue after death. In the Tufts study, researchers looked for vitamin D in four regions of the brain—two associated with changes linked to Alzheimer’s disease, one associated with forms of dementia linked to blood flow, and one region without any known associations with cognitive decline related to Alzheimer’s disease or vascular disease. They found that vitamin D was indeed present in brain tissue, and high vitamin D levels in all four regions of the brain correlated with better cognitive function.
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Reading for pleasure strengthens memory in older adults
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, December 6, 2022
A team of researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology have uncovered yet another reason to love reading: it may help preserve memory skills as people—and their brains—grow older. Their work is reported in Frontiers in Psychology. One of these mental abilities is episodic memory, or memory for events, which allows us to remember what happened in previous chapters of a book and to make sense of the ongoing story. Another ability is working memory, the capacity to hold things in our minds as we engage in other mental processes. Working memory helps us keep track of things that happened in recent paragraphs as we continue reading. Both episodic memory and working memory tend to decline as we get older, but habitual readers routinely practice these skills in different contexts. Stine-Morrow and the interdisciplinary team, which included Beckman researchers Dr. Daniel Llano, a professor of molecular and integrative physiology, and Aron Barbey, a professor of psychology, conducted a study to test the causal relationship between reading and memory. “We didn’t rely solely on popularity,” said Kristina Hoerner, the library’s adult services manager at the time of the study. “We wanted to make sure that the list contained both familiar titles and books that the participants might not have discovered on their own. The list also contained a variety of genres from non-fiction to mystery to more complicated literary fiction.” Participants read for 90 minutes a day, five days a week, for eight weeks. A separate active control group completed word puzzles on their iPads instead of reading while tracking their progress with the same custom app. The results were incontrovertible: in comparison to the puzzle group, the group that read books for eight weeks showed significant improvements to working memory and episodic memory. In other words, the study demonstrated that regular, engaged reading strengthened older adults’ memory skills. The causal linkage between reading and memory opens several new avenues for future treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
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Mangoes are powerful natural antidepressants, scientists discover
University of Lagos (Nigeria), December 02, 2018
A study conducted by researchers from the University of Lagos in Nigeria showed that extracts from the bark of a mango tree significantly improves depression. The mango tree, especially its bark, is widely used in Ayurvedic and African medicine. It is commonly used to treat hypertension, insomnia, tumor growth, rheumatism, and depression. Previous research shows that mango bark is rich in bioactive compounds such as alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, tannins, phenols, ascorbic acid, riboflavin, niacin, and thiamine. These phytochemicals might play a role in the plant’s different biological activities. However, there are limited studies that explore its antidepressant activity. In this study, the researchers administered extracts from mango tree bark to mice. They then proceeded to observe the mice for depression- and anxiety-like behavior using the forced swim, tail suspension, and elevated plus maze tests. The team also tried to determine possible mechanisms of action by co-administering inhibitors of known neurotransmitter pathways used by antidepressant medications. They used the serotonin antagonists parachlorophenylalanine and metergoline, as well as yohimbine, and sulpiride, which block adrenaline and dopamine pathways, respectively. From these experiments, they observed that the mango tree bark had potent antidepressant and anti-anxiety effects. These were possibly due to interactions with the receptors of serotonin, adrenaline, and dopamine since coadministration of the antagonists prevented improvements in the depression- and anxiety-like behavior of mice.
Overall, these results prove that mangoes can potentially be used as alternative remedies for depression to reduce the dependence on harmful antidepressant medications.
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Prevention and reversal of selenite-induced cataracts by N-acetylcysteine amide
Missouri University of Science and Technology, December 6, 2022
The present study sought to evaluate the efficacy of N-acetylcysteine amide (NACA) eye drops in reversing the cataract formation induced by sodium selenite in male Wistar rat pups. Forty male Wistar rat pups were randomly divided into a control group, an N-acetylcysteine amide-only group, a sodium selenite-induced cataract group, and a NACA-treated sodium selenite-induced cataract group. Sodium selenite was injected intraperitoneally on postpartum day 10, whereas N-acetylcysteine amide was injected intraperitoneally on postpartum days 9, 11, and 13 in the respective groups. Cataracts were evaluated at the end of week 2 (postpartum day 14) when the rat pups opened their eyes. N-acetylcysteine amide eye drops were administered beginning on week 3 until the end of week 4 (postpartum days 15 to 30), and the rats were sacrificed at the end of week 4. Lenses were isolated and examined for oxidative stress parameters such as glutathione, lipid peroxidation, and calcium levels along with the glutathione reductase and thioltransferase enzyme activities. Casein zymography and Western blot of m-calpain were performed using the water soluble fraction of lens proteins. Morphological examination of the lenses in the NACA-treated group indicated that NACA was able to reverse the cataract grade. In addition, glutathione level, thioltransferase activity, m-calpain activity, and m-calpain level (as assessed by Western blot) were all significantly higher in the NACA-treated group than in the sodium selenite-induced cataract group. Furthermore, sodium selenite- injected rat pups had significantly higher levels of malondialdehyde, glutathione reductase enzyme activity, and calcium levels, which were reduced to control levels upon treatment with NACA. The data suggest that NACA has the potential to significantly improve vision and decrease the burden of cataract-related loss of function. Development of pharmacological agents like NACA may eventually prevent cataract formation in high-risk populations and may prevent progression of early-stage cataracts. This brings a paradigm shift from expensive surgical treatment of cataracts to relatively inexpensive prevention of vision loss.
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This is your brain on God: Spiritual experiences activate brain reward circuits
University of Utah, November 29, 2022
Religious and spiritual experiences activate the brain reward circuits in much the same way as love, sex, gambling, drugs and music, report researchers at the University of Utah School of Medicine. The findings will be published in the journal Social Neuroscience.
Specifically, the investigators set out to determine which brain networks are involved in representing spiritual feelings in one group, devout Mormons, by creating an environment that triggered participants to “feel the Spirit.” Identifying this feeling of peace and closeness with God in oneself and others is a critically important part of Mormons’ lives—they make decisions based on these feelings; treat them as confirmation of doctrinal principles; and view them as a primary means of communication with the divine. During fMRI scans, 19 young-adult church members—including seven females and 12 males—performed four tasks in response to content meant to evoke spiritual feelings. The hour-long exam included six minutes of rest; six minutes of audiovisual control (a video detailing their church’s membership statistics); eight minutes of quotations by Mormon and world religious leaders; eight minutes of reading familiar passages from the Book of Mormon; 12 minutes of audiovisual stimuli (church-produced video of family and Biblical scenes, and other religiously evocative content); and another eight minutes of quotations. Researchers collected detailed assessments of the feelings of participants, who, almost universally, reported experiencing the kinds of feelings typical of an intense worship service. They described feelings of peace and physical sensations of warmth. Many were in tears by the end of the scan. In one experiment, participants pushed a button when they felt a peak spiritual feeling while watching church-produced stimuli.”When our study participants were instructed to think about a savior, about being with their families for eternity, about their heavenly rewards, their brains and bodies physically responded,” says lead author Michael Ferguson, Ph.D., who carried out the study as a bioengineering graduate student at the University of Utah. Based on fMRI scans, the researchers found that powerful spiritual feelings were reproducibly associated with activation in the nucleus accumbens, a critical brain region for processing reward. Peak activity occurred about 1-3 seconds before participants pushed the button and was replicated in each of the four tasks. As participants were experiencing peak feelings, their hearts beat faster and their breathing deepened. In addition to the brain’s reward circuits, the researchers found that spiritual feelings were associated with the medial prefrontal cortex, which is a complex brain region that is activated by tasks involving valuation, judgment and moral reasoning. Spiritual feelings also activated brain regions associated with focused attention.
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Study: Virgin Coconut Oil Protects Neuronal Damage and Mortality after a Stroke Incidence
University of Tokyo & De La Salle University (Philippines), December 5, 2022
Researchers from Japan and the Philippines have just published a new study conducted on “stroke-prone” hypertensive rats that indicate Virgin Coconut Oil can help prevent neuronal damage and deaths due to strokes.
Prophylactic diets before the onset of stroke have been implicated to work. In this research, the effects of virgin coconut oil (VCO) on stroke were evaluated using a stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHRSP) model. Eight-week-old SHRSPs were subjected to the repeated oral administration (5 mL/kg/day) of either 1% Tween 80 (group A) or VCO (group B). An early stroke onset was observed due to hypertension that was aggravated by the administration of 1% NaCl in water ad libitum. Data collected included the days until stroke occurred, the survival rate until the animal died, and blood pressure (BP) every two weeks using the tail-cuff method. After necropsy, the organs were harvested, and the brain was processed for a routine histopathological analysis. Virgin Coconut Oil delayed the incidence of it and prolonged their survival. Compared to group A, group B showed a significantly lowered BP by 20 mmHg at four weeks after the start of VCO treatment. Lastly, the brain histopathology showed that the structurally damaged areas were smaller in group B than they were in group A. The Virgin Coconut Oil could have protective effects on the brain before and even after stroke incidence.