A new worm model developed by Brown University researchers could play a key role in treating a rare genetic disease that causes paralysis in children and worsens with age. Developed in the lab of neuroscientist Anne Hart, a genetically engineered C. elegans nematode model provides a fast, inexpensive way to evaluate potential drug treatments for alternating hemiplegia of childhood, or AHC, a disorder that currently has no cure or effective treatments.

The loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities, which is experienced in everyday life and can be very distressing, is a core symptom of major depression. However, it has remained unclear exactly how anhedonia, also known as a pleasure deficit, manifests itself. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the University of Bonn, and the University Hospital Tübingen have found that people with depression do not perceive food as less rewarding when they actually consume it. The differences compared to people without depression emerge during anticipation: how much they want something before they receive it. This reduced desire is also linked to the clinical severity of anhedonia. The study’s findings have now been published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.