News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Moving around in the half-light is difficult but not impossible. To help us in this undertaking we have the rods, a type of photoreceptors present in the retina of vertebrates, capable of detecting very low lights. They are the protagonists of the new study published in PNAS by a team of researchers of SISSA and CNR-Iom which reveals new and essential details of how the retina works and in particular photoreceptors.

About half of the people with multiple sclerosis have the HLA-DR15 gene variant. A study led by the University of Zurich has now shown how this genetic predisposition contributes to the development of the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis in combination with environmental factors. The decisive factor is the shaping of a repertoire of immune cells which - although they are effective in fighting off pathogens such as Epstein-Barr virus - also attack brain tissue.

It is probably the immune response to, rather than the virus in itself, that causes sudden confusion and other symptoms from the nervous system in some patients with COVID-19. This is shown by a study of cases involving six Swedish patients, now published in the journal Neurology.

Mayo Clinic researchers, along with national and global collaborators, have developed a potential test for Machado-Joseph disease, or spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) ? a disease that has no cure. They also have clarified the role of a gene target associated with the disease.

Intranasal administration of an anti-inflammatory drug helped reduce disease progression in a preclinical model of multiple sclerosis, according to recent research out of the University of Alberta.

Neurons in a visual brain area of zebrafish are arranged as a map for catching prey.

'To our surprise, we discovered that while higher executive functions, as measured behaviorally, were dominant factors in weight loss, this was not reflected in patterns of brain connectivity,' says Gidon Levakov, a graduate student, who led the study from the BGU Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. 'Consequently, we found that weight loss is not merely a matter of willpower, but is actually connected to much more basic visual and olfactory cues.'

The processes our brains use to avoid harming other people are automatic and reflexive - and quite different from those used when avoiding harm to ourselves, according to new research.