News by Subject Medicine & Health

Philosophers, artists and scientists - and probably all the rest of us - have long obsessed over the key to human immortality. We all, no matter our income, culture or religion are bound to die. Even if we escape mortal diseases or accidents, we all face a deadly biological deterioration. While the debate of human longevity has divided the scientific community for centuries, a new study finds fresh evidence for our inevitable death.

Researchers have identified a new gene that may increase a person's risk of developing ALS, according to a new study published in the June 16, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The gene, called TP73, produces a protein to help regulate the life cycle of a cell. Researchers found that some people with ALS have mutations in this gene and that the mutations may interfere with nerve cell health.

Chatbots hold promise for dementia patient or caregiver support, but are still in their infancy, finds a new paper. None of the interactive digital apps tested performed well on all testing criteria, and all the apps contained linguistic biases and usability challenges. The authors conclude that until developers produce evidence-based chatbots that have undergone end user evaluation it will be hard to evaluate their potential to adequately educate and support dementia patients and their caregivers.

A new therapy prompts immune defense cells to swallow misshapen proteins, amyloid beta plaques and tau tangles, whose buildup is known to kill nearby brain cells as part of Alzheimer's disease, a new study shows.

Study published in PLoS Biology shows that Alzheimer disease experimental papers that omit mice from their titles are linked to more science news stories and gain greater visibility. The finding points to yet another type of spin in the reporting of biomedical research.

While the United States faces a nationwide nursing shortage, a recent study at the University of Missouri found rural Missouri counties experience nursing shortages at a greater rate than the state's metropolitan counties.

Diego Mastroeni of the NDRC teamed up Forest White and Douglas Lauffenburger, to explore how protein and signaling pathways change in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Their work creates a new model of disease progression, taking advantage of the heterogeneity that is inherent to human studies.