For the first time, a USC-led research team has mapped the genetic architecture of a crucial part of the human brain known as the corpus callosum—the thick band of nerve fibers that connects the brain’s left and right hemispheres. The findings open new pathways for discoveries about mental illness, neurological disorders and other diseases related to defects in this part of the brain. In the new study, published in Nature Communications, the team analyzed brain scans and genetic data from over 50,000 people, ranging from childhood to late adulthood, with the help of a new tool the team created that leverages artificial intelligence. The AI tool finds the corpus callosum in different types of brain MRI scans and automatically takes its measurements. Using this tool, the researchers identified dozens of genetic regions that influence the size and thickness of the corpus callosum and its subregions. The study revealed that different sets of genes govern the area versus the thickness of the corpus callosum—two features that change across the lifespan and play distinct roles in brain function. Several of the implicated genes are active during prenatal brain development, particularly in processes like cell growth, programmed cell death, and the wiring of nerve fibers across hemispheres. These findings provide a genetic blueprint for one of the brain’s most essential communication pathways. By uncovering how specific genes shape the corpus callosum and its subregions, researchers can start to understand why differences in this structure are linked to various mental health and neurological conditions at a molecular level.

New research has updated our understanding of how sugars, known as glycans, help immune cells move into skin in the inflammatory disease, psoriasis

Researchers identified that immune cells, which have their own cell surface glycocalyx, shed this layer to help them move from the blood and into tissues in inflammatory skin disease, changing the previous understanding that it was only the blood vessel wall that altered its glycocalyx layer to aid this process.

Designing drugs to alter the movement of immune cells between the blood and tissues is a potential way to treat both infections and inflammatory diseases. Therefore, this research may alter the approach taken to develop drugs targeting the movement of immune cells into tissues.    

The rates of bloodstream infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria will increase substantially across Europe in the next five years, driven largely by aging populations, according to a new paper published November 4^th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Gwenan Knight of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and colleagues.