Last update:

High-dose vitamin D may improve cognition among those at risk of dementia, study finds

With more than 7 million Americans living with Alzheimer's dementia—a number projected to reach nearly 13 million by 2050—new Emory University research suggests that higher vitamin D supplement intake may be associated with ...

AI-calculated brain age predicts dementia risk years before doctors can see it

Memory clinics still rely on visual rating scales to assess brain atrophy, yet these tools lack the sensitivity to catch subtle changes associated with early dementia. A measure of how old a person's brain appears on brain ...

Medical research news

Ambient light activates wearable patch for wound treatment

A research team has developed a wearable patch that simultaneously promotes wound closure and tissue regeneration using room light or sunlight, without batteries or an external electrical power source. The work has been published ...

Does your immune system learn like AI?

Could AI hold the key to answering questions that have stumped doctors and scientists for decades? A recent study at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) borrows concepts from machine learning to address an age-old riddle ...

Newly found 'immune organ' inside skull directs brain defense

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered lymph node-like structures in the skull bone marrow of mice for the first time and demonstrated that they act as rapid first responders ...

Why do we get sleepy? How neurons control sleep drive

Why does staying awake inevitably make us sleepy? Researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland, have identified neuronal populations in the brains of mice that become activated during prolonged wakefulness and are ...

Sweeteners slow growth of important gut bacteria in lab tests

Cambridge researchers have shown how commonly used sweeteners slow the growth of certain gut bacteria. One sweetener in particular—isosteviol—when combined with the antidepressant duloxetine, significantly impaired two important ...

Sleep disorders don't just exhaust you, they change your brain

Sleep disorders may do more than leave people feeling tired. New research from Florida International University shows that sleep disorders are associated with structural changes in brain regions involved in attention, motivation ...

Can magnetic fields help fight Parkinson's disease?

An international team has succeeded in using a magnetic field to target structures deep within the brain. The researchers injected magnetic nanoplatelets into the relevant region. By doing so, they succeeded in treating movement ...

New research clears the way to healing lung diseases

Pulmonary fibrosis is a deadly disease in which scar tissue grows in the lungs, making breathing more difficult. Approximately 2,170 Australians are diagnosed annually with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a form of the ...

Roasted and browned: How gut bacteria break down heated foods

Crusty bread, fried meat and roasted coffee owe their characteristic taste and browning to chemical reactions that occur when foods are heated. In the so-called Maillard reaction, amino acids—the building blocks of proteins—react ...

How the skin really tells cool from warm

Whether we hold a warm mug or step onto a cool floor, specialized nerve cells in the skin constantly report temperature to the brain. Scientists have long assumed that separate groups of sensory cells detect nonpainful cool ...