"It can take years to mold a dream. It takes only a fraction of a second for it to be shattered.”

"It can take years to mold a dream. It takes only a fraction of a second for it to be shattered.”
~M.Pearson

Work by bigblueboo

#animation #processing #maths #science

Scientists search for the clocks behind aging brain disorders

Scientists search for the clocks behind aging brain disorders
To understand the link between aging and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, NIH scientists compared the genetic clocks that tick during the lives of normal and mutant flies. They found that altering the activity of a gene called Cdk5 appeared to make the clocks run faster than normal, and the flies older than their chronological age. This caused the flies to have problems walking or flying later in life, to show signs of neurodegeneration, and to die earlier.

“We tried to untangle the large role aging appears to play in some of the most devastating neurological disorders,” said Edward Giniger, Ph.D., senior investigator at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the senior author of the study published in Disease Models & Mechanisms. “Our results suggest that neurodegenerative disorders may accelerate the aging process.”

On average, the normal flies in this study lived for 47 days. To create a genetic clock, Dr. Giniger’s team measured the levels of every gene encoded in messenger RNA molecules from cells from the heads and bodies of flies at 3, 10, 30, and 45 days after birth. This allowed the researchers to use advanced analysis techniques to search for the genes that seemed to be sensitive to aging, and create a standard curve, or timeline, that described the way they changed.

When they performed the same experiments on 10-day-old mutant flies and compared the results with the standard curve, they found that the flies were “older” than their chronological age. Altering Cdk5 activity made the brains of the flies appear genetically to be about 15 days old and their bodies to be about 20 days old.

Preclinical studies suggest that Cdk5 is a gene that is important for the normal wiring of the brain during early development and may be involved in some neurodegenerative disorders, including ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. In this study, Dr. Giniger’s team found that eliminating or increasing Cdk5 activity beyond normal levels shortened the lives of the flies to about 30 days. After 10 days of age, the manipulations reduced the distance flies could climb up tubes and the alterations caused older flies to have signs of neurodegeneration, including higher than normal levels of brain cell death and degradation.

More analysis showed that altering Cdk5 activity changed the level of several groups of genes that were also affected by aging, including those that control immunity, energy, and antioxidant activity.

To explore this idea further, the researchers tested the strength of the flies’ antioxidant defenses against toxic versions of several chemicals found in cells called oxygen free radicals. Initial experiments showed that aging reduced these defenses in normal flies. Three-day-old healthy flies lived for about 100 hours after exposure to free radicals, and that time decreased with age. In contrast, the defenses of Cdk5 mutant flies were even weaker as they died sooner than the control flies at all ages.

“Our results suggest that aging may not just predispose an individual to degeneration, as we thought. Acceleration of aging may actually be part of the mechanism by which degenerative disease disrupts the structure and function of the brain,” said Dr. Giniger. “We hope that our approach will help researchers untangle the mysteries behind several neurodegenerative disorders.”

His team plans to continue investigating the role of aging in the process of neurodegeneration.

Source:
https://www.ninds.nih.gov/News-Events/News-and-Press-Releases/Press-Releases/NIH-scientists-search-clocks-behind-aging-brain

Journal article:
http://dmm.biologists.org/content/11/3/dmm031161

#aging #neurodegeneration #cdk5 #fruitflies #genemutation #neuroscience

Double Lunar Transit

Double Lunar Transit
In just about seven hours, the SDO spacecraft saw the moon transit the Sun two times (Sept. 9-10, 2018). Transits occur when an object passes between a larger body and the viewer. The first transit lasted about an hour and covered 92 percent of the Sun at its peak. The second transit lasted about 50 minutes and covered just 34 percent of the Sun at its peak. The Moon appears to go in one direction in the first transit and the opposite direction in the second.

This is because the SDO spacecraft orbits around Earth, moving in the same direction as the Moon but faster. On the first transit it catches up with and passes the Moon. As SDO swings back around the far side of Earth, it encounters the Moon again from the far side of Earth, where it appears to travel in the opposite direction. The images were taken in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. None of this was visible from Earth.

Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA.
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/potw/item/930

#science #universe #space #SDO #sun

The Lonely Neutron Star in Supernova Remnant E0102-72.3

The Lonely Neutron Star in Supernova Remnant E0102-72.3
Why is this neutron star off-center? Recently a lone neutron star has been found within the debris left over from an old supernova explosion. The "lonely neutron star" in question is the blue dot at the center of the red nebula near the bottom left of E0102-72.3. In the featured image composite, blue represents X-ray light captured by NASA's Chandra Observatory, while red and green represent optical light captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in orbit.

The displaced position of this neutron star is unexpected since the dense star is thought to be the core of the star that exploded in the supernova and created the outer nebula. It could be that the neutron star in E0102 was pushed away from the nebula's center by the supernova itself, but then it seems odd that the smaller red ring remains centered on the neutron star. Alternatively, the outer nebula could have been expelled during a different scenario -- perhaps even involving another star. Future observations of the nebulas and neutron star appear likely to resolve the situation.

Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/ESO/F. Vogt et al.); Optical (ESO/VLT/MUSE & NASA/STScI)

#space #NASA #universe #supernova #science

Stars and Dust in Corona Australis

Stars and Dust in Corona Australis
Cosmic dust clouds and young, energetic stars inhabit this telescopic vista, less than 500 light-years away toward the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. The dust clouds effectively block light from more distant background stars in the Milky Way. But the striking complex of reflection nebulae cataloged as NGC 6726, 6727, and IC 4812 produce a characteristic color as blue light from the region's young, hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust.

The dust also obscures from view stars still in the process of formation. At top right, smaller yellowish nebula NGC 6729 bends around young variable star R Coronae Australis. Near it, glowing arcs and loops shocked by outflows from embedded newborn stars are identified as Herbig-Haro objects. On the sky this field of view spans about 1 degree. That corresponds to almost 9 light-years at the estimated distance of the nearby star forming region.

Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Josep Drudis

#space #nasa #universe #science

Immune system activation in pregnant women can shape brain development in their babies

Immune system activation in pregnant women can shape brain development in their babies
A landmark study published in the Journal of Neuroscience on February 26 reveals that activation of a pregnant mother’s immune system can affect her baby’s brain development. A team of researchers led by Bradley Peterson, MD, director of the Institute for the Developing Mind in the Department of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, found that short- and long-term brain functioning can be influenced by immune system activity during the third trimester of gestation.

Many triggers can generate immune responses, such as infections, stress, illness, or allergies. When the body’s immune system detects one of these triggers, proteins are released as part of an inflammatory response. Animal studies have shown that some of the proteins released during this response can impact offspring, but little is known about the effect on humans. The current study was designed to determine whether this immune response can impact the developing nervous system of infants.

The study recruited young women in their second trimester and involved a blood draw and fetal heart monitoring during the third trimester, anatomical brain scans of the newborns, and cognitive behavioral assessment of the babies at 14 months of age. The ages of the pregnant young women (14 to 19 years) put them at high risk for psychosocial stress and resulting inflammation.

This unique, prospective study design allowed Peterson and his colleagues to follow babies from a critical point in fetal brain development in utero, through birth, and all the way into toddlerhood. The goal was to examine the possible link between markers of inflammation in the mother’s blood with changes in the nervous system of their babies.

Blood drawn from mothers during their third trimester was tested for levels of IL-6 and CRP – two proteins that are found at higher levels when the immune system is activated. Peterson’s team also monitored fetal heart rate as an indicator for nervous system development. The team found that CRP did correlate with variability of the fetal heart rate, which is influenced heavily by the nervous system, indicating that maternal inflammation was already beginning to shape brain development.

When the babies were born, they were given MRI scans in their first few weeks of life, providing researchers a unique view of early neural development and the influence of prenatal factors. Brain imaging revealed a striking finding – significant changes in the communication between specific brain regions correlated with elevated maternal IL-6 and CRP levels. These brain regions are known collectively as the salience network, whose job is to filter stimuli coming into the brain and determine which deserve attention.

“Our brain is constantly receiving information from our bodies and the external world,” explains Peterson, who is also the director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Professor of Pediatrics in the Keck School of Medicine at USC. “The salience network sifts through that information and decides what is important and warrants action.” Disturbances in the functioning of this network, as well as various kind of infection and other triggers of a pregnant woman’s immune response, have been linked to development of psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders. Peterson’s study is the first to link maternal inflammation directly to disruptions in the salience network in infants.

The correlations of elevated maternal inflammatory markers were not limited to the newborn period, but continued to persist into toddlerhood. When the babies turned 14 months of age, researchers assessed them for motor skills, language development, and behavior. Following the established Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-Third Edition, Peterson found significant changes in the scores of toddlers born to mothers with elevated levels of both IL-6 and CRP.

While researchers still have much work to do in order to completely understand just how these immune factors contribute to altered brain development, this study represents an important step forward. “This finding fills in a missing piece,” says Peterson. “Although studies in animals have suggested it, this study indicates that markers of inflammation in a mom’s blood can be associated with short- and long-term changes in their child’s brain, which will now allow us to identify ways to prevent those effects and ensure children develop in the healthiest possible way beginning in the womb and continuing through later childhood and beyond.”

Source:
https://www.chla.org/press-release/immune-system-activation-pregnant-women-can-shape-brain-development-their-babies

Journal article:
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/11/2877

#pregnancy #braindevelopment #maternalimmuneactivation #interleukin6 #neuroscience

Saturn's North Polar Hexagon

Saturn's North Polar Hexagon
Extending to 70 degrees north latitude, the false-color video frame is map-projected, based on infrared, visible, and ultraviolet image data recorded by the Saturn-orbiting spacecraft in late 2012. First found in the outbound Voyager flyby images from the 1980s, the bizarre, long-lived feature tied to the planet's rotation is about 30,000 kilometers across.

At its center lies the ringed gas giant's hurricane-like north polar storm. A new long term study of Cassini data has found a remarkable higher-altitude vortex, exactly matching the outlines of the north polar hexagon, that formed as summer approached the planet's northern hemisphere. It appears to reach hundreds of kilometers above these deeper cloud tops, into Saturn's stratosphere.

Info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

#space #NASA #Cassini #Saturn #science #universe