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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 5, 2025 at 7:57am

Scientists observe that smartphone restriction for three days can alter brain activity

A smartphone's glow is often the first and last thing we see as we wake up in the morning and go to sleep at the end of the day. It is increasingly becoming an extension of our body that we struggle to part with. In a recent study in Computers in Human Behavior, scientists observed that staying away from smartphones can even change one's brain chemistry.

The researchers recruited young adults for a 72-hour smartphone restriction diet where they were asked to limit smartphone use to essential tasks such as work, daily activities, and communication with their family or significant others.

During these three days, the researchers conducted psychological tests and did brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the effects of restricting phone usage. Brain scans showed significant activity shifts in reward and craving regions of the brain, resembling patterns seen in substance or alcohol addiction.

For this study, 25 young adults aged 18 to 30 who regularly used smartphones were selected. Before the 72-hour restriction period, participants were screened for the severity of physical, psychological, and social issues related to smartphone use and computer gaming, as well as to ensure they did not have any existing mental health conditions.

To assess their mood, smartphone habits, and cravings, participants completed two questionnaires before their first brain scan. They were then instructed to limit phone use for the next 72 hours.

After the three-day restriction period, participants underwent fMRI scans while being shown different sets of images: neutral scenes (such as landscapes and boats), smartphones turned on, and smartphones turned off.

The scans revealed that limiting smartphones led to brain activity changes in areas associated with dopamine and serotonin—neurotransmitters that regulate mood, emotions and also addiction.

The researchers noted that smartphone restriction can resemble withdrawal from addictive substances or even food cravings in some ways, which was noticeable in both heavy (ESU) and regular smartphone (non-ESU) participants.

Mike M. Schmitgen et al, Effects of smartphone restriction on cue-related neural activity, Computers in Human Behavior (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2025.108610

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2025 at 1:29pm

Vesuvius volcano turned this brain to glass

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2025 at 12:35pm

Study links intense energy bursts to ventilator-induced lung injury

A new study  suggests that repeated collapse and reopening of tiny alveoli—air sacs in the lungs essential for breathing—during mechanical ventilation may cause microscopic tissue damage, playing a key role in ventilator-related injuries that contribute to thousands of deaths annually.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study sheds light on ventilator-induced lung injury, a complication that gained increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a surge in patients requiring mechanical ventilation. These devices pump oxygen-rich air into a patient's airways when they are unable to breathe adequately on their own.

The study identified that alveolar recruitment/derecruitment—when collapsed air sacs in the lungs repeatedly open and close—accounts for only 2–5% of energy dissipation during ventilation but correlates directly with lung injury in a model of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

It's like a tiny explosion at the delicate lung surface. Though small in magnitude, it creates a power intensity of about 100 watts per square meter—comparable to sunlight exposure.

ARDS is a severe lung condition that affects roughly 10% of intensive care unit patients and carries a mortality rate of 30–40%, even with modern ventilation techniques. Using a pig model of ARDS, the team examined how ventilator energy is transferred and dissipated in the lungs.

The researchers found that reducing this type of energy dissipation led to rapid recovery, while patients continued to deteriorate when 5–10% of alveoli underwent repetitive recruitment/derecruitment.

The study suggests that minimizing these repetitive collapse-and-reopening cycles could significantly reduce ventilator-induced lung injury. Researchers noted that adjusting ventilation strategies to prevent such events may improve outcomes for critically ill patients.

The study's findings could also help inform the development of new ventilation protocols aimed at reducing lung injury and improving patient care in intensive care units worldwide.

Gaver, Donald P., Mechanical ventilation energy analysis: Recruitment focuses injurious power in the ventilated lung, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2419374122. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2419374122

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2025 at 12:12pm

Polymers used in everyday products can degrade into toxic chemicals, study finds

The scientific community has long believed that polymers—very large molecules—are too big to migrate out of products into people and therefore pose no health risks. As a result, polymers have largely evaded regulation. For example, polymers are exempt from the major toxics acts. However, a study published recently in Nature Sustainability demonstrates that polymers used as flame retardants can break down into smaller harmful chemicals.

The study suggests polymers can act as a trojan horse for toxic chemicals.

They are added to products as inert large molecules, but over time they can degrade, exposing us to their harmful breakdown products.

The researchers tested two polymeric brominated flame retardants (polyBFRs) that were developed as "non-toxic" alternatives to banned flame retardants. They found that both polyBFRs broke down into dozens of types of smaller molecules. Toxicity testing of these smaller molecules in zebrafish showed significant potential for causing mitochondrial dysfunction and developmental and cardiovascular harm.

The scientists went on to search for these polymer break-down products in the environment and, further raising alarm, detected them in soil, air, and dust. The levels were highest near electronic waste recycling facilities and lessened moving away from the facilities. These results confirm that the use of polyBFRs in electronics leads to the release of toxic breakdown products into the environment with potential for human and wildlife exposure and harm.

Widespread use of these polyBFRs in electronics may result in exposures when these products are manufactured, when they're in our homes, and when they're discarded or recycled, the researchers say.

Xiaotu Liu et al, Environmental impacts of polymeric flame retardant breakdown, Nature Sustainability (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-025-01513-z

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2025 at 12:03pm

One therapy that has proven effective is a fecal microbiota transplant, which is designed to restore a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut. However, it's not without risks.

To a certain extent, a fecal transplant is almost like going to the pharmacist where they take a little bit of everything off the shelf and put it into one pill, assuming that something will probably help. But we don't know 100% what's in there.The research team set out to identify C. difficile's "friends" and "foes;" in other words, those that tend to either co-occur with C. difficile or those that may reduce the growth of C. difficile. They gathered information on the human microbiome from 12 previously published studies, which included microbiome sequencing data and clinical diagnoses of C. difficile colonization.

They then used machine learning to home in on the key features of microorganisms that were positively and negatively associated with C. difficile.

Thirty-seven strains of bacteria were found to be negatively correlated with C. difficile. In other words, when these microorganisms were present, there was no C. difficile infection. Another 25 bacteria were positively correlated with C. difficile, meaning that they were present alongside C. difficile infection.
In the lab, the researchers then combined bacteria that appeared to repress C. difficile and developed a synthetic version of a fecal transplant.

When tested in vitro and given orally to mice, the synthetic microbiome therapy significantly reduced growth of C. difficile, resisted infection and was as effective as a traditional human fecal transplant. In mice, it was also shown to protect against severe disease, delay relapse and decrease the severity of recurrent infections caused by antibiotic use.

Through experiments, the researchers determined that just one bacterial strain was critical for suppressing C. difficile. Alone, it was just as effective as a human fecal transplant in preventing infection in a mouse model.
If you have this Peptostreptococcus strain, you don't have C. difficile. It's a very potent suppressor and is actually better than all 37 strains combined.

The team's approach to microbiome science could be used to understand complex host-microbial interactions in other conditions like inflammatory bowel disease with the potential to develop novel therapies.

The goal is to develop the microbes as targeted drugs and therapies.

A designed synthetic microbiota provides insight to community function in Clostridioides difficile resistance, Cell Host & Microbe (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2025.02.007. www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe … 1931-3128(25)00055-1

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2025 at 11:59am

Synthetic microbiome therapy suppresses bacterial infection without antibiotics

A synthetic microbiome therapy, tested in mice, protects against severe symptoms of a gut infection that is notoriously difficult-to-treat and potentially life-threatening in humans, according to a team of researchers who developed the treatment for Clostridioides difficile, or C. difficile, a bacterium that can cause severe diarrhea, abdominal pain and colon inflammation.

C. difficile can overgrow when the balance of the gut microbiome—the trillions of organisms that keep your body healthy—is disrupted. The team said their findings could lead to the development of new probiotic strategies for humans to treat C. difficile infections as an alternative to antibiotics and conventional fecal microbiota transplants.

While it draws on the idea of human fecal transplants, a medical procedure where bacteria from a healthy donor's stool is transferred to a patient's gastrointestinal tract to restore balance to the microbiome, the new approach doesn't require any fecal matter.

Instead, this microbiome therapy uses fewer but more precise bacteria strains that have been linked to C. difficile suppression. It was as effective as human fecal transplants in mice against C. difficile infection and with fewer safety concerns.

The findings were published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe and the researchers also filed a provisional application to patent the technology described in the paper.

Typically, the organisms in the microbiome keep each other in check. While many people carry C. difficile in their gut, it usually doesn't cause a problem. However, antibiotics can tip the scales, creating an environment where C. difficile can flourish by knocking out good bacteria along with harmful ones. C. difficile accounts for 15% to 25% of antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Infection can often set in after a visit to the hospital or other health care setting.

Treating these infections is challenging. Antibiotics aren't effective against C. difficile because the bacteria are drug-resistant. Antibiotics also further disrupt the gut microbiome, creating a positive feedback loop that leads to recurrent infections.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2025 at 11:13am

Melting Antarctic ice sheets are slowing Earth's strongest ocean current, research reveals

Melting ice sheets are slowing the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the world's strongest ocean current, researchers have found. This melting has implications for global climate indicators, including sea level rise, ocean warming and viability of marine ecosystems.

Researchers have shown the current slowing by around 20% by 2050 in a high carbon emissions scenario. The work is published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

This influx of fresh water into the Southern Ocean is expected to change the properties, such as density (salinity), of the ocean and its circulation patterns.

The ocean is extremely complex and finely balanced. If this current 'engine' breaks down, there could be severe consequences, including more climate variability, with greater extremes in certain regions, and accelerated global warming due to a reduction in the ocean's capacity to act as a carbon sink.

 Taimoor Sohail et al, Decline of antarctic circumpolar current due to polar ocean freshening, Environmental Research Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/adb31c

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2025 at 10:57am

The researchers' discovery was unexpected when they were investigating the function of a gene called Plvap in certain liver cells in mice. The team knew from previous studies that humans born without this gene have problems with their lipid metabolism, a connection the research team set out to investigate.

It turned out that the Plvap gene enables the body's metabolic shift from burning sugar to fat when fasting. And when Plvap is turned off—as the researchers did in their laboratory mice—the liver does not recognize that the body is fasting and continues burning sugar.
In other words, the research team has found an entirely new way in which the liver's metabolism is regulated, which may have medical applications.
Beyond the intriguing ability of Plvap knockout to "trick" the liver into thinking it is not fasting, the researchers made several other important observations in their study:

The signal that triggers metabolic changes during fasting comes from the liver's stellate cells rather than hepatocytes, the liver's most abundant cells responsible for carrying out metabolic processes. This suggests that stellate cells play a previously unknown role in controlling liver metabolism by directing other cell types, introducing a new mode of cell-to-cell communication.
Although fat was redirected to the muscles instead of the liver, the mice showed no negative effects. In fact, they experienced improved insulin sensitivity and lower blood sugar levels.
This discovery could have far-reaching implications—not just for obesity treatments, but also for improving our understanding of how fat and sugar are processed in metabolic diseases. In the long run, it may open new avenues for treating conditions like type 2 diabetes and steatotic liver disease.

 Hepatic stellate cells regulate liver fatty acid utilization via plasmalemma vesicle2 associated protein, Cell Metabolism (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2025.01.022. www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/f … 1550-4131(25)00022-1

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2025 at 10:53am

How to trick the body's metabolism: Study reveals new path for weight-loss and diabetes treatments

Many people who have tried to lose weight by cutting calories are familiar with this frustrating reality: At some point, the body stops shedding pounds. It senses the reduced calorie intake and responds by slowing down metabolism, causing it to burn fewer calories than before the diet.

This happens because the body perceives a potential starvation threat and adapts by conserving energy while still carrying out essential functions. 

Now, a new study has identified a possible way to maintain calorie burning even when consuming fewer calories. The work appears in Cell Metabolism.

This discovery could be particularly important for patients using weight-loss or diabetes medicines like Wegovy and Ozempic. Many people taking these medications find that their weight loss plateaus after losing about 20–25% of their body weight. This stall is likely due to the body's natural response.

If we could develop a medication that helps maintain fat or sugar burning at its original high level alongside weight-loss treatments, people could continue losing weight beyond the usual plateau.

However,  the findings are currently based on mouse models, meaning human trials are still a long way off, and potential treatments even further down the line.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2025 at 7:53am

The researchers found that T cell receptor sequences provided the most relevant information about lupus and type 1 diabetes while B cell receptor sequences were most informative in identifying HIV or SARS-CoV-2 infection or recent influenza vaccination. In every case, however, combining the T and B cell results increased the algorithm's ability to accurately categorize people by their disease state regardless of sex, age or race.
Although the researchers developed Mal-ID on just six immunological states, they envision the algorithm could quickly be adapted to identify immunological signatures specific to many other diseases and conditions. They are particularly interested in autoimmune diseases like lupus, which can be difficult to diagnose and treat effectively.
Mal-ID may also help researchers identify new therapeutic targets for many conditions.

Maxim E. Zaslavsky et al, Disease diagnostics using machine learning of B cell and T cell receptor sequences, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.adp2407

Part 3

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