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Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences
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Total 132 results found since Jan 2013.
UCLA neuroscientists use weak electrical signal to stimulate human brain and improve memory
FINDINGSNeuroscientists at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA have discovered precisely where and how to electrically stimulate the human brain to enhance people’s recollection of distinct memories. People with epilepsy who received low-current electrical pulses showed a significant improvement in their ability to recognize specific faces and ignore simila r ones.Eight of nine patients ’ ability to recognize the faces of specific people improved after receiving electrical pulses to the right side of the brain’s entorhinal area, which is critical to learning and memory. However, electrical stimulation deli...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 24, 2017 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Biomarkers can reveal traumatic brain injury, even when concussions don ’t show up on CAT scan
FINDINGSUCLA researchers have identified four biomarkers that could help doctors diagnose brain trauma and concussions through a simple blood test. The biomarkers are proteins, from brain cells called astrocytes, which are released instantly into the bloodstream when astrocytes ’ outer membranes rupture from blunt impact or whiplash trauma.BACKGROUNDMild traumatic brain injuries, also called concussions, often go undiagnosed, but they can lead to lasting neurological impairment, especially after repeated occurrences.Currently, doctors use CT scans or a standard scoring system to describe the level of consciousness in a p...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - October 27, 2017 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA helps many to live long and prosper
In Westwood, more than 100 faculty experts from 25 departments have embarked on anall-encompassing push to cut the health and economic impacts of depression in half by the year 2050. The mammoth undertaking will rely on platforms developed by the new Institute for Precision Health, which will harness the power of big data and genomics to move toward individually tailored treatments and health-promotion strategies.On the same 419 acres of land, researchers across the spectrum, from the laboratory bench to the patient bedside, are ushering in a potentially game-changing approach to turning the body ’s immune defenses again...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 9, 2017 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Doctors develop new way to use MRI to predict pregnancy complications
FINDINGSUCLA scientists have developed anew way to use magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to scan the placenta. The noninvasive approach offers valuable insights into how the mother ’s blood enters the placenta and sustains the fetus with oxygen and nutrients during early pregnancy. The technique breaks new ground because most previous studies on this subject occurred in the laboratory after childbirth.BACKGROUNDThe placenta is a temporary organ that joins a pregnant woman to her baby through the umbilical cord. Few methods exist for safely and accurately studying the placenta in early pregnancy. Ultrasound indirectly m...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 6, 2017 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Neuroscientists show deep brain waves occur more often during navigation and memory formation
FINDINGSUCLA neuroscientists are the first to show that rhythmic waves in the brain called theta oscillations happen more often when someone is navigating an unfamiliar environment, and that the more quickly a person moves, the more theta oscillations take place — presumably to process incoming information faster.In an unexpected finding, theta oscillations were most prominent in a blind person who relied on a cane to move. The scientists hypothesized that a sightless person explores a strange environment through multiple senses, which would require more brain activity to process the extra sensory input.BACKGROUNDTheta o...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 11, 2017 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Device that measures cell strength could help identify drugs for asthma, hypertension and muscular dystrophy
Engineers, doctors and scientists at UCLA and Rutgers University have developed a tool that measures the physical strength of individual cells 100 times faster than current technologies.The new device could make it easier and faster to test and evaluate new drugs for diseases associated with abnormal levels of cell strength, including hypertension, asthma and muscular dystrophy. It could also open new avenues for biological research into cell force. It is the first high-throughput tool that can measure the strength of thousands of individual cells at a time.“Our tool tracks how much force individual cells exert over time...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - February 9, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Cardiovascular health disparities between whites and minorities narrow, study shows
The nation ’s overall cardiovascular health worsened from 1988 to 2014, with disparities among racial and ethnic groups dropping slightly. But the reduction in disparities was due to worsening health among whites — not improvements among African-Americans and Mexican-Americans, a new UCLA-led study suggest s.“The reason for the reduction in disparities was unexpected,” said lead author Dr. Arleen Brown, professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Olive View Medical Center. “Whites were the only group we studied where the pre valence of opti...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - March 20, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA scientists pioneer new method for watching brain cells interact in real time
An advance by UCLA neuroscientists could lead to a better understanding of astrocytes, star-shaped brain cells that are believed to play a key role in neurological disorders like Lou Gehrig ’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases.Reported in Neuron, the new method enables researchers to peer deep inside a mouse ’s brain and watch astrocytes’ influence over the communication between nerve cells in real time. The test relies on fluorescence resonance energy-transfer microscopy, or FRET microscopy, a technique that uses light to measure the tiniest of distances between molecules. The UCLA team focused on astrocyt...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - April 5, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA biologists ‘transfer’ a memory
UCLA biologists report they have transferred a memory from one marine snail to another, creating an artificial memory, by injecting RNA from one to another. This research could lead to new ways to lessen the trauma of painful memories with RNA and to restore lost memories.“I think in the not-too-distant future, we could potentially use RNA to ameliorate the effects of Alzheimer’s disease or post-traumatic stress disorder,” said David Glanzman, senior author of the study and a UCLA professor of integrative biology and physiology and of neurobiology. The team’sresearch is published May 14 in eNeuro, the online journa...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - May 15, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Surgery allows young woman paralyzed in fall 10 years ago to walk again
At 16, Yadira Perdomo of Bogot á, Colombia, was often taunted by other students at her high school for her small-town accent and her taste in music. When her mother asked her if she’d like to change schools, she replied that she was determined to stick it out and finish the year.But the bullying escalated. One day at school, a group of students lured Perdomo near a window on the third floor — and then pushed her out.In that instant, everything changed. The impact from the fall left Perdomo with fractured vertebra in the lower back and the loss of all sensation in her legs. She could no longer walk or control much of h...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - July 11, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Statins associated with improvement of rare lung disease
This study suggests that oral statin therapy may be a new approach for patients with autoimmune pulmonary alveolar proteinosis.AUTHORSThe study ’s co-senior authors are Dr. Elizabeth Tarling of UCLA and Dr. Bruce Trapnell of Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati, Ohio. Other authors are listed in the journal article.JOURNALThe study was published in the journal Nature Communications. FUNDINGThe National Institutes of Health funded the research.Learn more about the cardiovascular research theme at UCLA.
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - August 17, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
New therapy spurs nerve fibers to regrow through scar tissue, transmit signals after spinal cord injury in rodents
Neuroscientists at UCLA, Harvard University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have identified a three-pronged treatment that triggers axons — the tiny fibers that link nerve cells and enable them to communicate — to regrow after spinal cord injury in rodents. Not only did the axons grow through scars, they could also transmit signals across the damaged tissue.If researchers can produce similar results in human studies, the findings could lead to a therapy to regrow axon connections in people living with spinal cord injury, potentially restoring function. Nature publishes the research in its Aug. 29 onl...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - August 29, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
How to stay healthy and happy through the decades
Successful aging can be the norm, says UCLA psychology professor Alan Castel in his new book, “Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging” (Oxford University Press). Castel sees many inspiring role models of aging. French Impressionist Claude Monet, he notes, began his beloved water lily paintings at age 73.Castel cites hundreds of research studies, including his own, combined with personal accounts from older Americans, including Maya Angelou, Warren Buffett, John Wooden, Bob Newhart, Frank Gehry, David Letterman, Jack LaLanne, Jared Diamond, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Glenn and Vin Scully.Castel notes that ar...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 1, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Scientists discover new type of immune cells that are essential for forming heart valves
UCLA researchers have identified for the first time the origin of an immune cell that plays a critical role in the formation of healthy heart valves. The findings could pave the way for new treatments for heart valve disorders, which can be caused by congenital defects, aging or disease.Their study, led by Dr. Atsushi “Austin” Nakano, a UCLA associate professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology and member of theEli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, was published in the journal Developmental Cell.Building on previous research by Nakano, which showed that the embr...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - February 21, 2019 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Study shows how serotonin and a popular anti-depressant affect the gut ’s microbiota
In this study, we were interested in finding out why they might do so,” said Hsiao, UCLA assistant professor of integrative biology and physiology, and of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics in the UCLA College; and of digestive diseases in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.Hsiao and her research group reported in the journal Cell in 2015 that in mice, a specific mixture of bacteria, consisting mainly of Turicibacter sanguinis and Clostridia, produces molecules that signal to gut cells to increase production of serotonin. When Hsiao’s team raised mice without the bacteria, more than 50% of t...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - September 6, 2019 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
