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Magic mushrooms may reshape the brain long after the trip ends

2 weeks 3 days ago
A single dose of psilocybin produced measurable changes in brain activity and possible changes in brain structure that lasted for up to a month. Participants who experienced the greatest increase in flexible, varied brain activity also reported more personal insight and later improvements in well-being. The findings suggest that the psychedelic experience itself may help people break free from entrenched patterns of thinking.

Coffee may protect your heart but energy drinks could harm it

2 weeks 3 days ago
For most adults, a daily caffeine habit may be safer for the heart than many people assume. A new American Heart Association review found that up to 400 milligrams of caffeine a day, roughly three to five cups of regular black coffee, is generally safe and may even be linked to lower risks of heart disease, stroke, heart failure, and Type 2 diabetes. But the source matters: highly concentrated energy drinks and shots can sharply raise blood pressure and trigger irregular heart rhythms.

Watching too much TV in midlife may shrink the brain

2 weeks 3 days ago
Watching television very often in midlife may be linked to troubling brain changes decades later. In a study of about 1,700 adults, frequent TV viewers later showed smaller brain regions involved in memory, decision-making, and visual processing, along with more signs of damage in the brain’s white matter. Surprisingly, sitting itself did not appear to be the main issue, since people who spent long hours seated at mentally engaging jobs often showed healthier brain patterns.

Dual-function PROTAC suppresses ferroptosis and restores neuronal function via brain-targeted delivery

2 weeks 3 days ago
Targeted protein degradation (TPD) via proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) offers a promising strategy for modulating disease-associated proteins, yet effective brain-preferred protein degradation remains challenging. Herein, we report a dual-function PROTAC, dACSL4, and its nose-to-brain delivery for brain-preferred protein degradation and therapeutic suppression of ferroptosis in neurodegeneration. dACSL4 selectively degrades acyl-CoA synthetase long-chain family member 4 (ACSL4) while...
Tianyu Ma

Spatial multi-omics identifies early synaptic pruning and context-specific dopaminergic vulnerability in synucleinopathies

2 weeks 3 days ago
Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta, but the molecular events preceding neuronal loss remain unclear. Here, we combine spatial transcriptomics, spatial proteomics, and α-synuclein (αSyn) seed amplification assays to profile post-mortem midbrain tissue from controls, incidental Lewy body disease (iLBD), PD, Alzheimer's disease (AD), and AD with Lewy body pathology (AD + LBP). We find that αSyn seeding activity...
Svenja-Lotta Rumpf

Early-life sugar rationing, brain aging, and long-term neurodegenerative and psychiatric health outcomes: a population-based natural experiment study

2 weeks 3 days ago
Early-life nutrition is linked to adult brain health, yet evidence from quasi-experimental studies remains scarce. Leveraging the UK's historical sugar rationing as a natural experiment, we examined whether early-life sugar restriction reduces the risk of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders in later life. Among 60,394 UK Biobank participants (born 1951-1956), three groups were defined: in-utero-only, in utero plus 2 years, and non-rationed controls. Compared with non-rationed...
Xingji Lian

Predictive Validity of the Life-Space Assessment in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA)

2 weeks 3 days ago
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The LSA did not show evidence of predictive validity for adverse outcomes among middle-aged and older Canadian adults after a 3-year follow-up. This may be because of the CLSA sample being relatively highly functioning at baseline, the 3-year-long gap in assessment, and the low prevalence of adverse outcomes in this sample. Further research is needed to determine the usefulness of the LSA for predicting these adverse outcomes at the population level.
Selina Malouka

Machine Learning-Based Prediction of Planned Home Care Follow-Up Intervals in Older Adults: Evidence From the YASAM Observational Cohort

2 weeks 3 days ago
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Machine learning models demonstrated substantial predictive performance with interdisciplinary team-determined follow-up interval categories among community-dwelling older adults. Explainable artificial intelligence analyses highlighted the contribution of multidimensional geriatric assessment domains to individualized follow-up planning. These findings support the potential role of artificial intelligence-assisted decision support in home-care scheduling, although...
Bilal Katipoğlu

CSF clearance through arachnoid fenestrations to olfactory meningeal lymphatics

2 weeks 3 days ago
Meningeal (dural) lymphatics are essential for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) clearance to cervical lymph nodes, yet the precise pathway is incompletely understood. Using a multifaceted approach in mice, we examined tracer dynamics and the CSF outflow pathway from the subarachnoid space (SAS) to the nasal mucosa and identified a discrete arachnoid region surrounding the olfactory bulbs with abundant fenestrations. Similar arachnoid fenestrations were found in cynomolgus monkeys. Fluorescent tracers...
Seon Pyo Hong