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Memory loss is often the first sign of Alzheimer’s disease, followed by confusion and difficulty thinking. These symptoms reflect the typical pattern of worsening damage to brain tissues. Toxic clusters of proteins first concentrate in the temporal lobes of the brain — the memory area — before spreading to parts of the brain important for thinking and planning.
A study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis yields clues to why certain parts of the brain are particularly vulnerable to Alzheimer’s damage. It comes down to the gene APOE, the greatest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. The parts of the brain where APOE is most active are the areas that sustain the most damage, they found.
The findings, published Nov. 16 in Science Translational Medicine, help explain why symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease sometimes vary, and highlights an understudied aspect of Alzheimer’s disease that suggests yet-to-be discovered biological mechanisms may play an important role in the disease.
“There are some rare, atypical forms of Alzheimer’s in which people first develop language or vision problems rather than memory problems,” said senior author Brian A. Gordon, PhD, an assistant professor of radiology at the School of Medicine’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. “When you scan their brains, you see damage to the language or the visual areas, and not so much to the memory areas. People with atypical Alzheimer’s are often screened out of research studies because it’s easier to study a group where everyone has the same set of symptoms. But this heterogeneity tells us that there are things we still don’t understand about how and why Alzheimer’s develops the way it does. There’s a reason why certain brain areas become damaged and not others, and we don’t know that reason yet. Every mystery we uncover with this disease pushes us closer to what we need to address it.”
Alzheimer’s disease begins with a brain protein known as amyloid beta. The protein starts building up into plaques two decades or more before people show the first signs of neurological problems. After years of amyloid accumulation, tangles of tau — another brain protein — begin to form. Soon after, tissues in the affected areas begin to wither and die, and cognitive decline sets in.
To understand why Alzheimer’s brain damage occurs where it does, Gordon and colleagues — including first author Aylin Dincer, a technician in Gordon’s lab — studied 350 people who volunteer for memory and aging studies through the School of Medicine’s Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center. The participants underwent brain scans so the researchers could measure the amount and location of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, and the volumes of various brain areas.

With what some are calling a “tripledemic” of COVID-19, the influenza virus and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, soaring in many parts of the country, the holiday season will come with some tough decisions again this year:
Should you go to that Thanksgiving gathering even though you woke up with the sniffles? Send your child to that school performance even though she was coughing last night? Wear a mask to the grocery store after you learned your friend has COVID-19?
New University of Colorado Boulder research, published in the journal PNAS Nexus, shows that when people simply take a moment to reflect on the consequences of their behavior they tend to choose options that impose fewer risks on other people.
The international study of 13,000 people also found that, almost universally, people value others’ health and wellbeing.
“Most people aspire to behave in a way that considers others’ wellbeing but often, in the moment, they behave more selfishly than they aspire to,” said senior author Leaf Van Boven, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at CU Boulder. “Our lab is trying to devise ways to help people better align their in-the-moment behavior with their values.”
For the study, conducted at the height of the pandemic, Van Boven and collaborators in London, Austria, Singapore, Israel, Italy and Sweden presented participants in those countries and the United States with three hypothetical scenarios:
In one, they owned a small restaurant and were considering reducing capacity as the virus surged.

There is a high rate of adverse physical effects and challenging psychological effects from using the plant-based psychoactive ayahuasca, though they are generally not severe, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Daniel Perkins of University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues.
Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive brewed drink used in traditional medicine and ceremony. Its contemporary use has been expanding throughout the world for mental health purposes and for spiritual and personal growth. Although clinical trials and observational studies have examined the potential benefits of ayahuasca, few have analyzed its adverse effects.
In the new study, the researchers used data from an online Global Ayahuasca survey carried out between 2017 and 2019, involving 10,836 people from more than 50 countries who were at least 18 years old and had used ayahuasca at least once. Information on participants’ age, physical and mental health and history and context of ayahuasca use was collected.
Overall, acute physical health adverse effects were reported by 69.9% of the sample, with the most common effects being vomiting and nausea (68.2% of participants), headache (17.8%) and abdominal pain (12.8%). Only 2.3% of participants reporting physical adverse events required medical attention for this issue. Among all participants, 55% also reported adverse mental health effects, including hearing or seeing things (28.5%), feeling disconnected or alone (21.0%), and having nightmares or disturbing thoughts (19.2%). However, of all respondents identifying these mental health effects, 87.6% believed they were completely or somewhat part of a positive growth process.
The researchers also identified several factors that predispose people to the adverse physical events, including older age, having a physical health condition or substance use disorder, lifetime ayahuasca use and taking ayahuasca in a non-supervised context.
The authors make the observation that ayahuasca has notable, although rarely severe, adverse effects according to the standards used for assessing prescription medicines. In that sense, they state that ayahuasca practices can hardly be assessed with the same parameters used for prescription medicines, since the myriad of its effects include challenging experiences that are intrinsic to the experience, some of which are considered as part of its healing process.
The authors add: “Many are turning to ayahuasca due to disenchantment with conventional Western mental health treatments, however the disruptive power of this traditional medicine should not be underestimated, commonly resulting in mental health or emotional challenges during assimilation. While these are usually transitory and seen as part of a beneficial growth process, risks are greater for vulnerable individuals or when used in unsupportive contexts.”
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Less than half of mums meet the recommended levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity — and mothers of younger children manage to do the least, Cambridge and Southampton researchers have found.
Physical activity — particularly when it is moderate to vigorous — has many health benefits, decreasing the risk of a wide range of diseases from cancer to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, as well as helping maintain a healthy weight and better mental health.
Evidence suggests physical activity can help parents cope with the daily challenges of being a parent and strengthen relationships with children if they are active together. However, parents tend to be less active than non-parents.
To examine how family composition affected the amount of physical activity mothers engaged in, researchers at the University of Cambridge and University of Southampton analysed data from 848 women who participated in the UK Southampton Women’s Survey. The women, aged 20-34 years, were recruited between 1998 and 2002 and followed up over subsequent years. They were given accelerometers to assess their levels of activity. The results are published today in PLOS ONE.
Women with school-aged children did on average around 26 mins* of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, whereas mothers with only younger children (aged four years or under) managed around 18 mins* per day.
Having more than one child meant mothers managed only around 21 mins* of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, but interestingly, mums with multiple children all under five years old did more light intensity activity than those with children of school-age.
Less than 50% of mothers met the recommended levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (150 minutes per week), regardless of the ages of their children.
Dr Kathryn Hesketh from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge said: “When you have small children, your parental responsibilities can be all-consuming, and it’s often hard to find the time to be active outside of time spent caring for your children. Exercise is often therefore one of the first things to fall by the wayside, and so most of the physical activity mums manage to do seems to be of a lower intensity.
“However, when children go to school, mums manage to do more physical activity. There are a number of possible reasons why this might be the case, including more opportunities to take part in higher intensity activities with their children; you may return to active commuting; or feel more comfortable using time to be active alone.”
Rachel Simpson, a PhD student in the MRC Epidemiology Unit, added: “There are clear benefits, both short term and long term, from doing more physical activity, particularly if it increases your heart rate. But the demands of being a mother can make it hard to find the time. We need to consider ways not only to encourage mums, but to make it as easy as possible for busy mums, especially those with younger children, to increase the amount of higher intensity physical activity they do.”
Professor Keith Godfrey from the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre and the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre said: “It is perhaps not unexpected that mothers who have young children or several children engage in less intense physical activity, but this is the first study that has quantified the significance of this reduction. More needs to be done by local government planners and leisure facility providers to support mothers in engaging in physical activity.”
*Note: these are mean averages
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New wearable electronics paired with artificial intelligence could transform screening for health problems.
Flexible, wearable electronics are making their way into everyday use, and their full potential is still to be realized. Soon, this technology could be used for precision medical sensors attached to the skin, designed to perform health monitoring and diagnosis. It would be like having a high-tech medical center at your instant beck and call.
Such a skin-like device is being developed in a project between the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME). Leading the project is Sihong Wang, assistant professor in UChicago PME with a joint appointment in Argonne’s Nanoscience and Technology division.
Worn routinely, future wearable electronics could potentially detect possible emerging health problems — such as heart disease, cancer or multiple sclerosis — even before obvious symptoms appear. The device could also do a personalized analysis of the tracked health data while minimizing the need for its wireless transmission. “The diagnosis for the same health measurements could differ depending on the person’s age, medical history and other factors,” Wang said. “Such a diagnosis, with health information being continuously gathered over an extended period, is very data intensive.”
Such a device would need to collect and process a vast amount of data, well above what even the best smartwatches can do today. And it would have to do this data crunching with very low power consumption in a very tiny space.
To address that need, the team called upon neuromorphic computing. This AI technology mimics operation of the brain by training on past data sets and learning from experience. Its advantages include compatibility with stretchable material, lower energy consumption and faster speed than other types of AI.

Women football players require specifically tailored products such as kit, boots, and balls in order to optimise their performance and safety on the pitch, according to a paper published in Sports Engineering. The authors conclude that, while some progress has been made in addressing the equipment requirements of female players, essential gaps in research, development, and production remain in women’s football.
Although the popularity of professional women’s football has increased in many countries, highlighted by England’s recent win in 2022 UEFA European Women’s Football Championships, technology and equipment are still largely designed for men’s football. Notably, a recent review identified only 32 published scientific articles on technology in women’s football.
Kat Okholm Kryger and colleagues — including Captain of the England Women’s National Football team Leah Williamson — posed ten questions to highlight the minimal progress made in elite women’s football technology, and the barriers to making bespoke equipment available to women players that still remain. The authors discuss why tailored technology for women football players is necessary and highlight that although women have different physical needs than men, equipment such as football boots and balls continue to be designed for men rather than women. These issues can both increase the risk of injury from ill-fitting boots, and reduce performance due to the proportionally greater effort required to kick the ball compared to men.
Additionally, the authors report that many women footballers feel uncomfortable while wearing football shorts (which are typically white) due to concerns about possible menstrual leaks. Professional women football players are also often obliged to wear specific sports bras supplied by kit sponsors, rather than the optimum sports bra for their physique. This can also reduce performance and lead to discomfort while running and turning.
The authors note that manufacturers are acknowledging the lack of development in women’s football technology and there is a positive shift towards women-specific products. However, advances are limited by the lack of existing research, and a concerted effort is needed to address essential gaps in the understanding of the needs of women football players.
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A Cup of ruby red hibiscus tea not only warms the body in winter but also is known to boost the immune system, control blood pressure, and reduce body weight. And here is yet another reason to enjoy this tea — It may defeat Alzheimer’s disease.
Professor Kyong-Tai Kim and PhD candidate Kyung Won Jo (Department of Life Sciences) at POSTECH has verified that the gossypetin found in hibiscus activates microglia, the resident immune cell in the brain. The research team also demonstrated that microglia scavenge amyloid-beta (Aβ) in the brain to ameliorate cognitive impairments brought on by Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
AD begins as Aβ and Tau protein aggregates form deposits in the brain tissue. Microglia internalize such aggregates (phagocytosis) to protect the brain. However, incessant exposure to Aβ will ultimately exhaust the microglia, leading to a chronic inflammatory reaction and damages in the nerve cells. As a result, the victim suffers cognitive decline and memory loss.
While looking for a new AD treatment without serious side effects, the POSTECH team focused on gossypetin, a flavonoid compound found in hibiscus, also known as Hibiscus sabdariffa or roselle.
The research team treated AD model mice with gossypetin through intragastric administration for three months and concluded that their impaired memory and cognition were almost restored to the normal level. Furthermore, they saw a decrease in the various types of Aβ aggregates, which are commonly found in the brain tissue with AD-type dementia.
The researchers then collaborated with Professor Jong Kyoung Kim (Department of Life Sciences at POSTECH) and proceeded with single-cell RNA sequencing. The analysis demonstrated that gossypetin prevented the expression of genes associated with gliosis, which promotes chronic inflammatory reactions, while increasing the expression of genes associated with Aβ phagocytosis. In other words, gossypetin facilitated microglia’s Aβ clearance.
Professor Kyong-Tai Kim explained, “We have confirmed that removing Aβ aggregates deposited in the brain is effective in preventing and treating dementia. Gossypetin from hibiscus will contribute to the development of a safe and affordable drug for patients suffering from AD.”
Published in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, the study was conducted with the support from NovMetaPharma Co., and clinical trials are planned for developing treatment for dementia prevention and treatment that use gossypetin.
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Exercise plays a significant role in training, rehabilitation, and a healthy lifestyle. These activities require different regimens based on the desired outcomes. For instance, unlike a senior citizen, an athlete can undertake a demanding exercise routine. An appropriate training program design should, therefore, be based on identifying and analyzing factors affecting individual training.
Previous research has shown that high-intensity isometric training results in greater strength improvements compared to low-intensity isometric training. However, a recent study has suggested that strength gain depends primarily on the total training volume. Training volume is defined as the product of the percentage of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC), the duration of contraction per set, and the number of sets per session. Notably, the above conclusion is based on the group average response. However, interindividual variables like temporal strength changes and fatigue resistance also affect the actual training volume. Therefore, it should equal the total impulse given by the areas under force-time training curves.
In this vein, researchers from Japan, including Prof. Ryota Akagi of the Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT) and Dr. Ryoichi Ema from Shizuoka Sangyo University, examined, in a recent study, the relationship between interindividual variability in strength changes and training volume. “In our study, we compared the strength gains of muscle groups with different joint actions to resolve the inconsistencies in the existing research literature,” elaborates Prof. Akagi.Their work was published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology on September 26, 2022.
As part of the study, 26 untrained healthy young men completed four weeks of isometric training, which involved either knee extension (KE) or hip flexion (HF). The training sessions, held three times a week, comprised four sets of ten three-second contractions, one every 20 seconds. The participants were made to exert maximum force as fast and hard as possible. Their efforts in each session, i.e., the training volumes, were estimated by calculating the areas under the time-torque curve of 40 contractions. In addition, the researchers assessed changes in the maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) torque (the peak value of each contraction) during KE and HF for the participants.
They found that the torque increased significantly in the KE and HF groups. Moreover, the corresponding MVC torque changes, training volume, and time course changes in total impulse were similar for both groups.
Next, the researchers further analyzed the collected data by subdividing the participants in each group into high and low responders based on the decreasing magnitude of MVC torque changes. The low responders had significantly higher baseline torque and training volume. They also had a faster and higher increase in the latter parameter. Moreover, the total volume was positively correlated with MVC torque changes, indicative of strength gain, in their case. Among the high responders, this correlation was observed only for the first week.
Finally, the responders showed no significant association between baseline strength and strength gain. The baseline determined only the training response of the participant (above or below average) in the training group.
The study, thus, establishes an association between total training volume and the magnitude of strength gains in the low responders. It suggests that the training volume may determine individual adaptation in participants with a relatively high strength-to-weight ratio a priori. The findings are applicable for athletes so that trainers could assess their training responses by investigating the strength-to-weight ratio at the baseline and the increase in training volume from the first session to the middle of training. The presented isometric resistance regimen can improve the MVC strength by approximately 20% regardless of joint actions.
“Improvement of muscular strength is important for maintaining good health and enjoying sports activities. In this regard, our work will contribute to developing effective and individual training regimens for everyone,” concludes Prof. Akagi, speaking of the future implications of the work.
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A diet containing lots of salt can contribute to increased levels of stress, a new study shows.
Scientists found in studies of mice that a high-salt diet increased the levels of a stress hormone by 75 per cent.
Experts hope the findings will encourage a review of public health policy around salt consumption, with a view to manufacturers reducing the amount of salt in processed food.
The recommended salt intake for adults is less than six grams a day but most people regularly eat about nine grams.
This can contribute to higher blood pressure, which increases the risks of heart attacks, strokes and vascular dementia.
While effects on the heart and circulatory system have been well established, little was known about the impact of a high-salt diet on a person’s behaviour.
To study this, experts from the University of Edinburgh used mice, who ordinarily have a low-salt diet, and gave them high-salt food to reflect the typical intake of humans.
They found that not only did resting stress hormone levels increase, but the mice’s hormone response to environmental stress was double that of mice that had a normal diet.
Salt intake increased the activity of genes that produce the proteins in the brain which control how the body responds to stress.
Experts say further studies are already underway to understand if a high-salt intake leads to other behavioural changes such as anxiety and aggression.
The study is published in Cardiovascular Research. It was funded by the British Heart Foundation and Kidney Research UK.
Matthew Bailey, Professor of Renal Physiology at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Cardiovascular Science, said: “We are what we eat and understanding how high-salt food changes our mental health is an important step to improving wellbeing. We know that eating too much salt damages our heart, blood vessels and kidneys. This study now tells us that high salt in our food also changes the way our brain handles stress.”
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Scientists at the University of Cologne have discovered how cells can eliminate mutated mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cells. Due to their evolutionary descent from bacteria, they still have genetic material packaged in chromosome-like structures (nucleoids). They convert the chemical energy in our food into a biologically usable form. A team of researchers from the University of Cologne’s Physiology Centre at the Faculty of Medicine, the Centre for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC) and the CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research has now shown that mutations of the mtDNA lead to a local rearrangement of proteins in the mitochondrial membrane. The mutated mtDNA is targeted, eliminated, and subjected to autophagy, the cellular ‘waste disposal’. The results have appeared in Nature Communications under the title ‘Mitochondrial membrane proteins and VPS35 orchestrate selective removal of mtDNA’.
In many tissues, mutations in mtDNA accumulate as a result of normal aging. These kinds of mutations are an important cause of many aging-associated diseases. There are thousands of copies mtDNA in every cell, so mitochondrial function is only impaired when the percentage of mutated mtDNA molecules exceeds a certain threshold value. It has long been established that mitochondrial damage, including acute mtDNA damage, triggers the process of mitophagy. In this process, dysfunctional mitochondrial parts are selectively degraded and recycled.
Dr David Pla-Martin, the lead author of the current study, explained the details: ‘What is new in our study is that this mechanism does not affect the cells’ endowment with mitochondria, but only clears out the damaged mtDNA. By labelling neighbouring proteins — so-called proximity labelling — we showed that mtDNA damage leads to the recruitment of endosomes in close proximity to nucleoids.’ Their removal is coordinated by the interaction of the nucleoid protein Twinkle and the mitochondrial membrane proteins SAMM50 and ATAD3. ATAD3 controls their distribution, SAMM50 induces the release and transfer of the nucleoid to the so-called endosomes. ‘This additionally prevents the activation of an immune response. The protein VPS35, the main component of the retromer, mediates the maturation of early endosomes into late autophagy vesicles, where degradation and recycling ultimately take place,’ said Pla-Martin.
Using a mouse model in which mtDNA mutations lead to impaired muscle regeneration, the scientists also showed that selectively mutated mtDNA can be removed by stimulating the activity of the autophagy mechanism with rapamycin. The total number of mtDNA copies thus remains constant, preserving mitochondrial function.
Group leader Professor Dr Rudolf Wiesner added: ‘Mutations in the genes that code for these proteins lead to severe neurological diseases, in VPS35 for example Parkinson’s disease. We now want to use these proteins as new molecular targets to open up entirely new treatment options for these kinds of aging-associated diseases.’ Although the road to therapeutic application could still be long, the research team sees a promising approach here.
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