Ars technica

Body’s defenses against common viruses may mess up neurons, spark depression

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Getting sick is definitely a bummer. But besides feeling icky and being stuck in bed, viral infections may cause us to actually be depressed. While scientists have been clued into this connection for a while, there was little data on how everyday viral infections, like the flu, might mess with our moods.

Now, data from a new mouse study shows that common viruses may spur sadness by causing the cells that line the blood-brain barrier to release signals that hush the chatter between neurons in the area of the brain responsible for mood. The findings, published this week in the journal Immunity, may finally explain the link between infections and mental health problems, and it could point researchers towards new strategies for treating depression and other mood disorders.

Researchers have been collecting hints of the connection between mental health and infections for years. Though it was first dismissed as people simply being blue about getting sick, doctors now accept that there is a condition called “sickness behavior.” This condition is marked by cognitive deficits, drowsiness, general malaise, and other depression-like symptoms in those with an infection. Moreover, in a 2013 Danish study, researchers found that people who had been treated for a severe infection were 62 percent more likely to suffer from mood disorders. Perhaps related, those that had an autoimmune disease were 45 percent more likely to have such a mental health issue.

 

Read at ArsTechnica

Mild concussion? Simple blood test can detect injury up to a week after

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Molecular marker could help treat and prevent brain damage.

 

A barely bruised brain can send out molecular SOS signals in the blood for days after an injury, researchers report this week in JAMA Neurology.

The finding suggests that new blood tests, already in development to detect those signals, may be able to identify even the mildest concussions well after a knock to the head.

“It is common for patients who have had a concussion or mild [traumatic brain injury] not to seek immediate medical attention,” the authors write. Kids, in particular, might have delayed or mild symptoms and go without treatment right away. Letting a concussion go undiagnosed may mean returning to work or school too soon, thwarting the brain’s efforts to heal. This can lead to dizziness, memory loss, depression, and headaches. And if a patient returns to play or sports too quickly, further hits to the head could lead to more severe or even permanent damage.

 

Read on ArsTechnica

Birth of a microbiome: Researchers smear babies with vaginal fluid

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Birth of a microbiome: Researchers smear babies with vaginal fluid

C-section newborns slathered with moms’ secretions may dodge lifelong health problems.

 

Birth, like life, is messy. But, while life’s messes often harm health, the untidiness of our entrance into the world may profoundly protect it—at least that’s a leading hypothesis among microbiome researchers.

Microbes picked up from mom while in or exiting the womb kick off humans’ lifelong association with the invisible critters that live in and on us and affect our health. In cases where that microbial colonization of a newborn goes awry, researchers have noted links to chronic health problems, such as asthma, obesity, allergies, and immune deficiencies. Researchers have also found that such a microbial debacle is often brought on by Cesarean delivery (C-section), which is a common surgical procedure to birth a baby through the mother’s abdomen rather than the normal shove down the birth canal.

To reverse the potential ill-fate of C-section babies, researchers smeared surgically delivered babies with the vaginal fluids from their mothers in the moments just after birth. After tracking the babies and their microbiomes for a month, the researchers report Monday in Nature Medicine that the quick slather partly restored normal microbiome development.

 

Link to full story at ArsTechnica

Misunderstanding the genome:

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A recent Ars feature story about genetic screening generated quite a lively debate in the discussion thread. However, it also underlined just how many misconceptions people have when it comes to genetics. Public perception hasn’t been helped by scientists overhyping their findings or by inaccurate portrayals in the media (GATTACA, anyone?). So today, I’m going to try to clear some common confusions.

Before moving recently to Ars full time, I spent six years working in the policy office of the National Human Genome Research Institute, the part of the National Institutes of Health responsible for the Human Genome Project (along with the UK’s Wellcome Trust). The job gave me a front row seat to the challenge of explaining a horribly complex topic, one where common assumptions are often counterfactual.

Maria Delany’s Ars article does a great job laying out how screening at-risk individuals for mutations in a pair of genes—BRCA1 and BRCA2—can spare people from developing cancer. Delany also explains why there isn’t unanimity among clinicians about rolling out BRCA testing at the population level. At first glance, such testing seems like a no brainer, right? Testing right now is targeted to at-risk groups, like women with a family history of breast cancer, but studies have found those mutations in people with no family history of the disease. If testing people for BRCA mutations finds them before cancer does, where’s the downside?

 

 

Full story at Ars Technica

Increased brain connectivity eases teenage impatience

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As many adults can attest, teenage behavior is often characterized by impulsivity and impatience. From a psychological perspective, this behavior can result either from disregard for future outcomes or from an over-emphasis on immediate rewards. Prior to the publication of a new study in PNAS, it wasn’t entirely clear which of these two components underlies developmental changes. This new paper examines impatience in teens and finds that it’s mostly a result of teens’ disregard for future outcomes. In their conclusions, the researchers state that increased control and increased integration of future-oriented thought are direct contributors to the changes in behavior that (hopefully) occur as we age.

 

 

Link to full article on Ars Technica