Hello friends and followers of NFBSupport!
This week's delay brought to you by a nearly fractured wrist!
Jeff was out and about and very nearly fractured his wrist, but didn't, thankfully. It has made keeping up with paperwork a little more difficult with him in a splint though.
Now on to this week's news!
Alzheimer's: Eyes and EMF
A study from University of California San Diego School of Medicine focuses on pupillary response, which is driven by the locus coeruleus (LC https://neurosciencenews.com/eyes-alzheimers-14906/). The LC is the first part of the brain affected by Tau proteins, the earliest known occurring biomarker of Alzheimer's. Their primary goal is to establish a proof-of-concept that measuring pupillary response to determine Alzheimer's risk.
NeuroEM Therapeutics, Inc. recently published a study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease regarding the use of "Transcranial electromagnetic treatment" to reverse memory loss from Alzheimer's (https://neurosciencenews.com/alzheimers-memory-electromagnetic-waves-14920/). Now if this sounds familiar to anyone in the field, that is because they're using pEMF, although their technology operates in a much higher register than what is used in the neurofeedback field. According to their patents, they are using 918MHz (918,000,000Hz). Interestingly enough this is in the frequency range of some cellphone signals and may be tangentially related to a recent study that found increased cell use had no effect on brain cancer rates.
Gut Health and Sleep
Researchers from Flinders University published a study that found in mice trials that after an antibiotic regimen, gut produced serotonin levels dropped and reduced obesity (https://neurosciencenews.com/gut-bacteria-serotonin-blood-sugar-14930/). Now the flaw in their study was that they have not yet pinpointed what part of the gut microbiome is responsible for the increase of serotonin, but this definitely points to keeping the gut microbiome balanced to regulate serotonin levels.
Now this is fascinating: the group of Henrique Veiga-Fernandes, at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal, discovered how a specific immune cell's internal clock can be thrown off causing gut damage and inflammation (https://neurosciencenews.com/sleep-microbiome-health-14933/). The cells in question are Type 3 Innate Lymphoid Cells (ILC3s), which handle a fair amount of gut protection after food intake. If they aren't in the right location at the right time, they don't function properly which is why disrupting your circadian rhythm can cause gut issues, especially for those working late shifts and such. Gut health is important!
To add to the discussion on circadian rhythm, another study from McGill University found that T cells, specifically CD8 T cells are more active during certain times of the day (https://neurosciencenews.com/circadian-clock-immune-response-14973/). Their study focused on mouse immune response to vaccines when the CD8 T cells were modified to be deficient for the clock gene, where they found the vaccines to be far less effective. Certainly something to consider when looking at our own immune responses.
Till next time!
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