New treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and motor neurone disease (MND) could be unlocked thanks to microscopic medicines developed by researchers at the University of Essex. Using artificial intelligence, an international team of scientists has created tiny antibody fragments that can be made directly inside human cells, where they bind to proteins linked to disease. These redesigned molecules will be made freely available to other scientists now the research has been published in Nature Communications. 

Second-language sentence processing raises fundamental questions about whether learners rely on native-like structural mechanisms or alternative strategies. In a new study, researchers compared native English speakers and native Japanese speakers learning English as a second language using eye-tracking during comprehension of ambiguous filler-gap sentences. Results revealed that learners with higher structural computation ability showed native-like, structure-based prediction, whereas lower-accuracy learners relied more on lexical cues, supporting a gradient view of predictive processing.

Researchers at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) have developed a novel virtual reality (VR) system that could make the treatment of arachnophobia, also known as spider phobia, more targeted and personalised in the future. The “VRSpi” system is a prototype which analyses the EEG data and heart rate of the participants during a confrontation with spiders in a VR environment. Based on this objective measurement data, it adjusts the intensity of the stimuli in real time to the person’s current level of anxiety. This avoids over- or under-stimulation and optimises the effectiveness of the exposure in order to get the users used to the creatures.

There is a promising new drug for the rare disease mastocytosis, which is associated with skin lesions, among other things. Researchers at the University of Basel have now been able to use artificial intelligence to quantitatively measure for the first time the extent to which it reduces skin lesions.