Robotic Brace Measures Neck Mobility in Cancer Patients
Patients with head and neck cancer frequently require surgical removal of lymph nodes from the neck. While this is necessary, it can cause pain and stiffness that can persist for a long time after surgery. Assessing neck mobility of such patients would be useful, as it would allow doctors to identify deficits in range of motion, and design appropriate strategies to help improve them.
However, current techniques to achieve this are somewhat crude and do not produce quantifiable data, or involve equipment that is not easily portable or easy to use, making routine clinical assessments challenging.
Researchers at Columb...
Source: Medgadget - July 21, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Oncology Rehab Surgery columbia Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 23rd 2020
In conclusion, the study indicates that HBOT may induce significant senolytic effects that include significantly increasing telomere length and clearance of senescent cells in the aging populations.
Data on the Prevalence of Liver Fibrosis in Middle Age
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/11/data-on-the-prevalence-of-liver-fibrosis-in-middle-age/
Fibrosis is a consequence of age-related disarray in tissue maintenance processes, leading to the deposition of scar-like collagen that disrupts tissue structure and function. It is an ultimately fatal issue for which there are only poor treatment options ...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 22, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Tau Protein and Blood-Brain Barrier Dysfunction in Aging
Aggregation of phosphorylated tau protein into neurofibrillary tangles (and consequent toxicity leading to widespread cell death) is characteristic of late stage Alzheimer's disease, while dysfunction of the blood-brain barrier is a feature of aging thought to begin much earlier in the progression of the condition. The blood-brain barrier is a specialized set of cells lining the blood vessels of the central nervous system, allowing only certain molecules and cells to pass. When this barrier starts to leak, unwanted materials make their way into the brain, generating chronic inflammation and consequent issues in brain tissu...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 18, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Flexible Skin Sensor to Help ALS Patients Communicate
Researchers at MIT have developed a wearable sensor that can detect small deformations of the skin, potentially serving as a way to help amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients to communicate through facial movements. The low-cost sensors are much cheaper and may be more effective than current assistive communication technologies for ALS patients.
Canan Dagdeviren, the lead researcher on the project, and who has been previously interviewed by Medgadget, became inspired to develop technology to assist those with ALS to communicate after meeting Professor Stephen Hawking in 2016, and noting that the technology he use...
Source: Medgadget - October 23, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Rehab Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 31st 2020
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter,
please visit:
https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/
Longevity Industry Consulting Services
Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out m...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 30, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
DOK7 Gene Therapy Regrows Neuromuscular Junctions to Improve Aged Muscle Function
One of the numerous possible contributing causes to sarcopenia, the name given to the characteristic age-related decline in muscle mass and strength, is the dysfunction and loss of neuromuscular junctions. These structures link muscles and nerves, but how much of the lost strength of sarcopenia is due to this cause versus, say, declining muscle stem cell activity. The best way to assess the contribution of any given form of damage to any specific age-related condition is to repair that damage, and only that damage, and then observe the results. With that in mind, researchers here report on their implementation of a gene th...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 24, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 10th 2020
This study aimed to characterize the role of BDNF in age-related microglial activation. Initially, we found that degrees of microglial activation were especially evident in the substantia nigra (SN) across different brain regions of aged mice. The levels of BDNF and TrkB in microglia decreased with age and negatively correlated with their activation statuses in mice during aging. Interestingly, aging-related microglial activation could be reversed by chronic, subcutaneous perfusion of BDNF. Peripheral lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injection-induced microglial activation could be reduced by local supplement of BDNF, while shTrkB...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 9, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
An Aged Hematopoietic System can Cause Cognitive Decline via SASP Component CyPA
Today's open access paper outlines an investigation into how the aging of hematopoietic stem cell populations in bone marrow, responsible for producing blood and immune cells, can contribute to age-related dysfunction in the brain. The authors find that detrimental effects are mediated by circulating levels of CyPA, a signaling factor that is a part of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), an inflammatory mix of signal molecules produced by senescent cells. The focus here is on direct inhibition of CyPA as an approach to therapy, but senolytic treatments to clear senescent cells may be the more useful appro...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 4, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
ALS2 Funding Opportunity: Fundamental Research in Underlying Causes of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
We’re pleased to announce our participation in the Accelerating Leading-edge Science in ALS (ALS2) program (NOT-RM-20-019). ALS2 is a $25 million NIH Common Fund initiative to spur innovative research into the basic biology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) through the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award. NIGMS encourages our community of basic scientists working on relevant processes to consider applying for this opportunity.
ALS is a devastating disease with no known cure. The development of effective therapeutics can benefit tremendously from basic ALS research that 1.) tests highly novel concepts, ...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 30, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities NIH Common Fund Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 16th 2020
We report a new class of natural-product-inspired covalent inhibitors of telomerase that target the catalytic active site.
Age-Related Epigenetic Changes that Suppress Mitochondrial Function
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/03/age-related-epigenetic-changes-that-suppress-mitochondrial-function/
Today's open access research reports on two specific epigenetic changes observed in old individuals that act to reduce mitochondrial function. This joins an existing list of genes for which expression changes are known to impact mitochondrial function with age. A herd of hundreds of mitochondria are found...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 15, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Reviewing CD38 in Neurodegeneration and Neuroinflammation
Age-related upregulation of CD38 is quite closely related to the decline of NAD+ levels in mitochondria. That in turn causes some fraction of the age-related loss of mitochondrial quality control and mitochondrial function. As mitochondria are the power plants of the cell, providing chemical energy store molecules (adenosine triphosphate, ATP) to power cellular operations, this causes a broad range of issues in tissues throughout the body. Mitochondrial decline is particularly influential in the aging of the brain, given the high energy demands of that organ.
Due to the lack of effective treatment to at least slow...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 12, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
E-luminations: Racing Cars Helps Me Live With Degenerative Swallowing Disorder
It’s not often that a person growing up among the cotton fields of southwest Oklahoma goes on to become a successful manager of global technology companies, but Leland White is not your average person. During his career, he built and managed semiconductor manufacturing plants around the world and provided management consulting services to large corporations and federal agencies. After a successful business career, he retired in Colorado to pursue two passions: downhill skiing and high-performance driving.
Referred to by family and friends as “Lee,” he turned 78 last spring. I talked to Lee about the challenges he...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - March 11, 2020 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Sharon Baker Tags: Health Care Slider Speech-Language Pathology Dysphagia Swallowing Disorders Source Type: blogs
EnClear Therapies Raises $10 Million to Develop a Means to Filter Molecular Waste from Cerebrospinal Fluid
Leucadia Therapeutics and EnClear Therapies are both testing the hypothesis that clearance of molecular waste from cerebrospinal fluid is a viable form of prevention and treatment for many neurodegenerative conditions, though they couldn't be more different in their areas of focus and specific implementations. Most of the common neurodegenerative conditions are characterized by rising levels of various forms of harmful molecular waste in the brain, misfolded proteins, and the like. Cerebrospinal fluid circulates in the brain and drains into the body through a variety of pathways, carrying away this waste. Unfortunately, th...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 20, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 10th 2020
In conclusion, the concept of an epigenetic clock is compelling, but caution should be taken in interpreting associations with age acceleration. Association tests of age acceleration should include age as a covariate.
A Discussion of Recent Work on Allotopic Expression of Mitochondrial Genes at the SENS Research Foundation
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/02/a-discussion-of-recent-work-on-allotopic-expression-of-mitochondrial-genes-at-the-sens-research-foundation/
A paper published last month outlines recent progress on allotopic expression of mitochondrial genes carried out by the SENS Research...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 9, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Reviewing Efforts to Develop NAD+ Therapies to Reverse Age-Related Loss of Mitochondrial Function
Increasing levels of NAD+ in mitochondria, is a class of therapy that probably produces most of its benefits in animal models and human trials by restoring mitophagy. This may well be true of mitochondrially targeted antioxidants as well. Mitophagy removes damaged mitochondria, but is hampered by age-related changes in mitochondrial dynamics, among other reasons. Mitochondria are responsible for packaging chemical energy store molecules to power cellular operations. Mitochondrial function is critical to tissue function throughout the body, but is of particular note in the energy-hungry tissues of muscle and brain.
N...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 7, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
