More than one-third of people who have a clot removed from a major blood vessel in the brain after a stroke return to work within three months, according to a new study from Germany. But women were half as likely to do so as men. The study, published Thursday in the American Heart Association journal Stroke, found women and men were more likely to return to work if they were treated with a combination of mechanical blood clot removal and clot-busting medication to clear their clogged blood vessels than if they just had their clots removed. When blood clots in the brain block a major artery, th ..read more

A new study from the from the University of Missouri School of Medicine and MU Health Care shows patients hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia have a higher risk of developing dementia than those with other types of pneumonia. A team of MU researchers pulled Cerner Real World Data from 1.4 billion medical encounters prior to July 31, 2021. They selected patients hospitalized with pneumonia for more than 24 hours. Among 10,403 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, 312 (3%) developed new onset dementia after recovering, compared to 263 (2.5%) of the 10,403 patients with other types of pneumonia diag ..read more

Among people with depression, those using antidepressants over the long term had no better physical or mental health. Over time, using antidepressants is not associated with significantly better health-related quality of life, compared to people with depression who do not take the drugs. These are the findings of a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Omar Almohammed of King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, and colleagues. It is generally well known that depression disorder has a significant impact on the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients. While s ..read more

Researchers have developed a wearable device that plays specific sounds to enhance deep sleep. The first clinical study has now shown that the device is effective, but not at the same level of effectiveness for everyone. Many people, especially the elderly, suffer from abnormal sleep. In particular, the deep sleep phases become shorter and shallower with age. Deep sleep is important for the regeneration of the brain and memory, and also has a positive influence on the cardiovascular system. Researchers have shown that the brain waves characterizing deep sleep, so-​called slow waves, can be imp ..read more

Australian researchers have discovered a new neurodevelopmental disorder after uncovering its link to a tumor suppressor gene. The international research collaboration, led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, has linked a recognised tumor suppressor gene to a new neurodevelopmental syndrome, ending the diagnostic journey for 32 families around the world. The study found variations in the FBXW7 gene were associated with the newly identified condition, which causes mild to severe developmental delay, intellectual disability ..read more

Rutgers researchers discover hormone has therapeutic effects on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in mouse study A hormone that triggers puberty and controls fertility in humans might be developed as a treatment for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, according to new Rutgers research. The study, appearing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, provides powerful evidence that a modified version of the naturally occurring hormone kisspeptin can be used to treat non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Globally, NAFLD is the most common form of chronic liver disease that affects children and ..read more

The lethargy that many Alzheimer’s patients experience is caused not by a lack of sleep, but rather by the degeneration of a type of neuron that keeps us awake, according to a study that also confirms the tau protein is behind that neurodegeneration. The study’s findings contradict the common notion that Alzheimer’s patients sleep during the day to make up for a bad night of sleep and point toward potential therapies to help these patients feel more awake. The data came from study participants who were patients at UC San Francisco’s Memory and Aging Center and volunteered to have their sleep m ..read more

New research from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine suggests that the children younger than age 5 who are infected with the COVID-19 omicron variant have less risk of severe health outcomes than those infected with the delta variant. The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, is the first large-scale research effort to compare the health outcomes of coronavirus infection from omicron to delta in children 4 and younger—the age group not yet able to be vaccinated. The findings show that the omicron variant is six to eight times more infectious than the delta variant. The severe cl ..read more

SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein (green) staining in the pacemaker cells (red) of SARS-CoV-2 infected hamsters. The nuclei of the cells are stained blue. Image courtesy of Dr. Shuibing Chen. The SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect specialized pacemaker cells that maintain the heart’s rhythmic beat, setting off a self-destruction process within the cells, according to a preclinical study co-led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian and NYU Grossman School of Medicine. The findings offer a possible explanation for the heart arrhythmias that are commonly observed in patients with SARS-C ..read more

Exercising for half an hour may reduce symptoms of depression for at least 75 minutes post-workout and amplify the benefits of therapy, according to two new studies led by researchers at Iowa State University. For the first study, the researchers recruited 30 adults who were experiencing major depressive episodes. The participants filled out electronic surveys immediately before, half-way-through and after a 30-minute session of either moderate-intensity cycling or sitting, and then 25-, 50- and 75-minutes post-workout. Those who cycled during the first lab visit came back a week later to run ..read more