Lifeboat Foundation

Globally, approximately 139 million people are expected to have Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by 2050. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an important tool for identifying changes in brain structure that precede cognitive decline and progression with disease; however, its cost limits widespread use.

A new study by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham health care system, demonstrates that a simplified, low magnetic field (LF) MRI machine, augmented with machine learning tools, matches conventional MRI in measuring brain characteristics relevant to AD. Findings, published in Nature Communications, highlight the potential of the LF-MRI to help evaluate those with cognitive symptoms.

“To tackle the growing, global health challenge of dementia and cognitive impairment in the aging population, we’re going to need simple, bedside tools that can help determine patients’ underlying causes of cognitive impairment and inform treatment,” said senior author W. Taylor Kimberly, MD, Ph.D., chief of the Division of Neurocritical Care in the Department of Neurology at MGH.

In a recent study published in the journal Nature Aging, researchers identified plasma proteomic biomarkers and dynamic changes associated with brain aging, leveraging a multimodal approach combining brain age gap (BAG) and proteome-wide association analysis.

Background

The global aging population is expected to exceed 1.5 billion individuals aged 65 and above by 2050, highlighting the urgent need to address aging-associated challenges.

A study links healthy plant-based diets to improved physical performance and strength in aging adults, emphasizing diet quality over quantity.

For the first time, scientists have observed a collection of particles, also known as a quasiparticle, that’s massless when moving one direction but has mass in the other direction. The quasiparticle, called a semi-Dirac fermion, was first theorized 16 years ago, but was only recently spotted inside a crystal of semi-metal material called ZrSiS. The observation of the quasiparticle opens the door to future advances in a range of emerging technologies from batteries to sensors, according to the researchers.

The team, led by scientists at Penn State and Columbia University, recently published their discovery in the journal Physical Review X.

“This was totally unexpected,” said Yinming Shao, assistant professor of physics at Penn State and lead author on the paper. “We weren’t even looking for a semi-Dirac fermion when we started working with this material, but we were seeing signatures we didn’t understand—and it turns out we had made the first observation of these wild quasiparticles that sometimes move like they have mass and sometimes move like they have none.”

Although it looks more like an entity seen through a microscope than a telescope, this rounded object, named NGC 2022, is certainly not algae or a tiny, blobby jellyfish. Instead, it is a vast orb of gas in space, cast off by an aging star. The star is visible in the orb’s center, shining through the gases it formerly held onto for most of its stellar life.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have developed and demonstrated an innovative set of methods to evaluate long-term aging in real-world battery cells. The methods, described in a recent paper, are based on a phenomenon called nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), commonly used in medical imaging. This is the first-ever NMRspectroscopy capability that can track in fine detail how the chemistry of commercial pouch battery cells evolves over years of operation.

Argonne develops a novel method that uses nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to characterize the chemical evolution inside battery cells over years of operation.

Ageing of lung stem cells drives iron insufficiency.

Thirteen proteins linked to brain aging in humans are identified in a Nature Aging paper. Changes in the concentrations of these blood proteins may peak at 57, 70, and 78 years old in humans, and suggest that these ages may be important for potential interventions in the brain aging process.

It is estimated that by 2050 the number of individuals aged 65 years and over will exceed 1.5 billion globally, highlighting the need for a deeper understanding of the aging process—particularly in relation to the brain.

The prevalence of neurodegenerative disorders, such as dementia, is known to increase with aging; however, effective therapies are still limited. The early identification of and intervention in brain aging could help us to prevent such disorders.

Summary: Research reveals that people with high blood pressure who also sleep less than six hours per night face increased risks of brain injury, accelerated brain aging, and impaired executive function. The study assessed 682 participants from the Framingham Heart Study, analyzing sleep patterns, blood pressure, cognitive performance, and brain MRIs.

These risks were not present in individuals with normal blood pressure, highlighting a concerning interaction between sleep deprivation and hypertension. Researchers suggest treating sleep problems and hypertension as potential interventions to protect brain health and delay cognitive decline.