Center for BrainHealth and Warfighter Fitness
Business Announcement
The National Guard Bureau has taken a bold step toward securing and enhancing Warfighter brain health, and ensuring cognitive combat readiness with the launch of a new initiative to measure, track and improve cognitive performance and psychological well-being. The Warfighter Brain Fitness program is a research protocol with almost 1,000 participants across the United States. In partnership with Applied Research Associates, Inc., the Center for BrainHealth® at The University of Texas at Dallas, Posit Science, and Cortical Metrics, the Warfighter Brain Fitness program will collect data to optimize the online delivery of scientifically validated cognitive training approaches to reserve and active-duty populations.
Researchers from McGill University have identified a form of chemical signaling in mice to defend their offspring. The researchers found that proximity to pregnant and lactating female mice increased stress hormones in males and even decreased their sensitivity to pain.
Small interfering RNAs hold promise to treat tumors, through their ability to specifically knock down oncogenes that promote tumor growth. However, the siRNAs need a delivery vehicle to protect them from degradation in the blood. Researchers have demonstrated a 100-nanometer polymersome that safely and efficiently carries PARP1 siRNA to triple-negative breast cancer tumors in mice. There, the siRNA knocked down expression of the DNA repair enzyme PARP1 and, remarkably, gave breast cancer-bearing mice a fourfold increase in survival.
A new study by a University of Arkansas information systems researcher and his colleague at the University of Waikato in New Zealand shows that COVID vaccine trials conducted in geographic locations with low infection rates had higher efficacy results, compared to trials in locations with high infection rates.
Annals of Family Medicine is a peer-reviewed, indexed research journal that provides a cross-disciplinary forum for new, evidence-based information affecting the primary care disciplines.
Researchers from the group of Eva van Rooij used advanced sequencing technology to better understand the heart disease arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, in which heart muscle tissue is replaced by fat cells. Using explanted human hearts, they found regions in which heart muscle was actively degenerated and identified a new gene, ZBTB11, that drives heart muscle cell degradation. The results were published in Cardiovascular Research on 17 May 2022.
People with chronic kidney disease (CKD) require three- to eight-times higher levels of acute care than the general population for comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. It is unclear how regular access to primary care influences subsequent acute care use. This study found that hospital use increased among patients who experienced poorer continuity of care. Poor continuity also resulted in sub-optimal prescribing of a recommended statin.