Aggregator

A surprising new discovery suggests that fear may cause the brain to blur the line between danger and safety rather than distinguish them more clearly. By observing brain activity in mice using augmented reality, scientists found that memories of threatening and harmless environments began to overlap, potentially allowing faster responses to danger. This "better safe than sorry" survival mechanism could help explain why people with anxiety or PTSD sometimes experience intense fear in completely safe situations.

Scientists have uncovered an unexpected connection between inflammation during pregnancy, placental damage, and autism-like traits in male mice, while females appeared naturally protected. The discovery could help explain why autism is diagnosed more frequently in boys and reveal new opportunities for early intervention.

Eating an avocado and a cup of mango every day may provide surprising benefits for heart health, according to a new study involving adults with prediabetes. After just eight weeks, participants experienced significant improvements in blood vessel function and diastolic blood pressure, particularly among men. These benefits occurred without weight gain or changes in calorie intake, suggesting that the nutrient-rich combination could support cardiovascular health through a simple dietary adjustment.

A massive new study reveals that intelligence plays a surprisingly limited role in children's reading success, while visual processing showed no meaningful connection at all. Instead, the strongest predictors are sound recognition, vocabulary, and background knowledge, offering new clues about how to help struggling readers.

Mark Dybul contends the group can finally help countries control malaria, TB, and HIV

More than €55 billion from EU fund has gone to research and innovation, but researchers worry those investments will not be sustained

Neuroinflammation and microglial activation are common features in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and excessive alcohol consumption. Alcohol induces liver damage and inflammation, and altered serum aminotransferases have been reported in patients with AD. Small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) and their cargo are emerging as mediators of intercellular communication in AD and alcohol-induced liver injury. However, the effects of alcohol use on AD progression remain to be elucidated. In this study, we...

Handgrip strength (HGS) declines with age and is associated with morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to investigate sex-specific associations between absolute and allometric HGS and all-cause mortality in Mexican adults aged 50 years and older. We analyzed data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study, including 1917 adults aged ≥ 50 years with HGS assessed at wave 3. Absolute HGS (kg) and allometric HGS (HGS/height²) were examined using sex-specific quartiles and standardized z-scores....

Psychosocial stress is a risk factor for aging-related diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic placed a psychosocial burden on individuals, potentially increasing the risk for aging-related diseases for which epigenetic clocks are used as early biomarkers. Based on four epigenetic clocks (DunedinPACE, GrimAge2, Horvath, and PedBE), we investigated whether epigenetic aging changed during the pandemic and whether these changes were associated with objective and subjective pandemic-related stressors and...

Age-related decline in male fertility, including diminished sperm quality, poses significant risks to offspring health and is exacerbated by modern trends toward delayed parenthood. Focusing on the hypothalamus-pituitary-testis axis, which governs hormonal control of male reproduction, we identified Synage, a long noncoding RNA expressed in the hypothalamic medial preoptic area (mPOA). We found that Synage expression in gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons decreases with age,...

This paper uses newly harmonized survey and register data on incomes and labor market outcomes as the basis for consistent comparisons of inequalities across 17 North American and European countries over the period 1995-2021. We examine trends in disposable income inequality in the working-age population, defined as persons aged 25 to 60, as well as its component parts of market income inequality and redistribution through government tax and transfer systems. We adjust incomes to allow for...

Senescent cells play important roles in various biological processes that promote fitness and health; however, their timely elimination by immune cells is critical to maintain tissue homeostasis and prevent disease. Despite this, senescent cells accumulate systemically with age, suggesting that certain immune cells also become senescent and dysfunctional during aging. In support of this, we previously demonstrated that CD8 T cells, immune cells capable of targeting senescent cells, increasingly...

CONCLUSION: Nicotine attenuated selected D-galactose-associated behavioral and hippocampal alterations. The genotype comparisons support α7-nAChR-associated modulation of platform-site crossings, serum GSH, and hippocampal IBA1. They do not establish that changes in brain GSH or amyloid production mediate these effects, or that all nicotine responses share one receptor-dependent mechanism.

Age-related declines in pulmonary function and immune regulation increase morbidity and mortality in older adults. Physical activity mitigates these effects, but the isolated impact of resistance training (RT) on lung function and immune responses remains unclear. Sixty-nine older adults without participation for at least one year in structured exercise programs (aged 60-85 years) were recruited from a community extension program at a Brazilian university and randomized into an RT group (n = 31)...

CONCLUSIONS: Older adults with higher mortality risk had poorer social wellbeing at baseline and were more likely to become lonely and decrease social participation at follow-up. Prognostic information may help clinicians avoid low-value medical interventions while prioritizing interventions to support meaningful social connection.

ObjectiveTo examine the association between early-life circumstances and healthy aging among community-dwelling older Chinese adults.MethodsData were from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. We used regression methods to identify independent and joint associations of six early-life factors with healthy aging as assessed by the Chinese Healthy Aging Index (CHAI; 0-12), a composite score evaluating six physiological systems.ResultsOf 3,069 participants, 4.82% had the healthiest...

ObjectivesUsing longitudinal data, we investigate changes in coresidence preference of Chinese older adults and, with application of the Andersen-Newman framework, examine factors contributing to coresidence preference.MethodsData come from five waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey collected between 2005 and 2018. A random-effect model uses baseline covariates to predict coresidence preference at follow-up between two adjacent waves, controlling for baseline preference and...