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A lipid synthesized on skin may promote brain development—and a swabbing with vaginal fluid can provide it to C-section babies, study finds

Cerebrospinal fluid amyloid beta 42, total tau, and phosphorylated tau 181 are well accepted markers of Alzheimer's disease. These biomarkers better reflect disease pathogenesis compared to clinical diagnosis. Here, we perform a genome wide association study meta-analysis including 18,948 individuals of European ancestry and identify 12 genome-wide significant loci across all three biomarkers, eight of them novel. We replicate the association of biomarkers with APOE, CR1, GMNC/CCDC50 and...

Neuroinflammation plays a key role in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and many other neurodegenerative disorders. Chronic activation of astrocytes and microglia fuels neuronal damage via cytokine secretion, oxidative stress, and proteolysis, yet glial inflammatory regulation remains poorly understood. Using chemoproteomics, we identified CK2, particularly the brain-enriched catalytic subunit CK2α2, as a key driver of astrocytic inflammation. CK2 enhances NF-κB activity by phosphorylating NF-κB S529 and...

Diagnostic models using primary care routine clinical variables have been limited in their ability to identify Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. In this study, we sought to better understand the effect of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) on the predictive performance of AD diagnostic models. We sourced data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort. CatBoost was used to assess the utility of routine clinical variables that are accessible to primary care physicians, such...

The subthalamic nucleus (STN) is a critical hub for inhibitory control, implicated in decision making under conflict and impulsivity. Delta frequency oscillations have also been associated with inhibitory control processes, yet the relationship between human STN neuronal activity and local delta frequencies during response inhibition remains unresolved. Here we recorded STN neurons and local field potentials in patients with Parkinson's disease performing a stop-signal reaction time task during...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease with progressive loss of motor neurons. Insufficiency of neurotrophic factors is suspected to underlie the disease, but direct evidence remains scarce. In this study, we discover that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) val/met mutation, which results in a decrease in BDNF secretion, reduces survival time of ALS patients in two separate cohorts. Using a knockin mouse model of the ALS causal gene FUS^(R521C), we demonstrate...

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) lacks effective targeted therapies and carries a poor prognosis. TNBC cells escape oncogene-induced senescence and adapt to elevated replication stress. Here, we show that cells escaping senescence depend on overexpression of RNase H2, which removes misincorporated ribonucleotides from genomic DNA. RNASEH2A, the catalytic subunit of RNase H2, is overexpressed in TNBC tumors and correlates with poor survival. Genetic silencing or pharmacological inhibition of...

Semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist, improves metabolic health and reduces liver fat in people with HIV (PWH) and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). This post hoc analysis of the 24-week SLIM LIVER single-arm trial (ACTG A5371, No. NCT04216589, registered 02nd Jan 2020) in 41 PWH with MASLD receiving semaglutide (1.0 mg weekly) aimed to evaluate its effect on epigenetic aging and determine whether changes in epigenetic clocks associate with clinical...

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Aging is associated with progressive deterioration of vascular function and cardiovascular risk. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is closely associated with cardiovascular health, yet longitudinal data in healthy older adults remain limited. This study examined 3-year changes in vascular and echocardiographic parameters in older adults and their associations with CRF and muscle strength. Forty-nine participants (mean age 63.8 ± 3.8 years) underwent vascular assessments (brachial/central blood...