In what could one day become a new treatment for epilepsy, researchers at UC San Francisco, UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley have used pulses of light to prevent seizure-like activity in neurons.  

Researchers discovered an unexpected link between zinc deficiency, the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-13 (IL-13), and Acinetobacter baumannii lung infection and demonstrated that blocking IL-13 prevented infection-associated death in an animal model. The findings, published Nov. 15 in Nature Microbiology, suggest that anti-IL-13 antibodies, which are FDA-approved for use in humans, may protect against bacterial pneumonia in patients with zinc deficiency.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have linked disease-related proteins and genes to identify specific cellular pathways responsible for Alzheimer’s genesis and progression. The proteins were gathered from cerebrospinal fluid and are a good proxy for activity in the brain. Several of them may be potential targets for therapies.

University of Miami researchers find a link between early vocabulary composition and later language development in children with cochlear implants.