November 25, 2023
Mayo Clinic researchers and collaborators have identified a protein expressed by immune cells that may play a key role in the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The team also found that an immunomodulatory treatment that blocks the protein w...
Read More
November 25, 2023
Mayo Clinic researchers demonstrated a nearly 20% increase in human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates among adolescents through a combination intervention approach, a new Mayo Clinic study finds. The strategy involved mailing reminders to parents about their child's eligibility for the HPV...
Read More
November 18, 2023
Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center and Columbia University received a five-year, $10.6 million U54 center grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to further study combining the molecular analysis of glioblastoma with MRI. Glioblastoma is a fast-growing and aggressive brain tumor tha...
Read More
November 18, 2023
New research from Mayo Clinic suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) could improve the diagnosis of peripartum cardiomyopathy, a potentially life-threatening and treatable condition that weakens the heart muscle of women during pregnancy or in the months after giving birth. Researchers used...
Read More
November 18, 2023
The researchers profiled 313 tumor biopsies from 68 high-grade glioma (HGG) patients. This image is a representation of the 3-dimensional relationship of multiple tissue biopsies from a single patient’s HGG tumor. The different colors depict different versions of genetic mutations relative to...
Read More
November 18, 2023
ROCHESTER, Minn. — New research from Mayo Clinic finds that patients with lymphedema —swelling of the limbs caused by the accumulation of protein-rich fluids of the immune system — had twice the risk of developing skin cancer than patients without lymphedema. Patients with lymphedema had ...
Read More
November 16, 2023
ROCHESTER, Minn. — An international research team led by Dr. Patrick Starlinger, a hepatobiliary and pancreas surgeon from Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, developed a risk prediction model that can be calculated with a smartphone app. It provides an individualized risk assessment for...
Read More
November 9, 2023
(Sisters left to right: Chris Swatfager, Cindy Larson, Carrie Patnode and Amy Scheid. Photo is courtesy of Chris Swatfager.) Sisters often share certain genetic traits, such as hair color and facial features. But for three sisters from Minnesota, they discovered a much deeper connection — a s...
Read More
November 9, 2023
There is no cure for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a brain disorder marked by walking and balance difficulties. Its symptoms also mimic Parkinson's disease and dementia. The condition leads to rapid, progressive decline and death. In a new paper published in Nature Communications, Ma...
Read More
November 2, 2023
Immunohistochemistry for HER2 shows positive membrane staining in this infiltrating ductal carcinoma. At the molecular level, breast cancer is typically broken down into four major subtypes — triple-negative, HER2-positive, luminal A and luminal B — each with different degrees of aggressive...
Read More
A single dose of ketamine enhances early life stress-induced aggression with no effect on fear memory, anxiety-like behavior, or depression-like behavior in mice.
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that has been shown to have antidepressant effects in humans and has been proposed as a potential treatment for mood disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder and aggression. However, previous studies from our lab and others have demonstrated that ketamine’s effects are highly context- and dose-dependent. In a recent study, we found that 10 mg/kg ketamine could exacerbate the effects of early life stress on excessive aggression in mice. To further investigate, the effect of ketamine on moods, such as fear, anxiety, depression, and aggression, we used a mouse model of early life stress, involving chronic social isolation followed by acute traumati...
Distinct competitive impacts of palatability of taste stimuli on sampling dynamics during a preference test.
Food or taste preference tests are analogous to naturalistic decisions in which the animal selects which stimuli to sample and for how long to sample them. The data acquired in such tests, the relative amounts of the alternative stimuli that are sampled and consumed, indicate the preference for each. While such preferences are typically recorded as a single quantity, an analysis of the ongoing sampling dynamics producing the preference can reveal otherwise hidden aspects of the decision-making process that depend on its underlying neural circuit mechanisms. Here, we perform a dynamic analysis of two factors that give rise to preferences in a two-alternative task, namely the distribution of d...
Proteome analysis indicates participation of the dorsal hippocampal formation in fear-motivated memory in a time-dependent manner.
Our previous behavioral and molecular data indicate a central role of the dorsal hippocampal formation (dHF) in recent conditioned lick suppression memory. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of the dHF in recent and remote memory of conditioned lick suppression employing proteomic analysis. Two or 40 days after conditioning, the rats were subjected to a retention test and were then euthanized after 24 hr for dHF collection. We identified 1,165 proteins and quantified 265 proteins. Upregulation of five proteins and downregulation of 21 proteins were found on postconditioning Day 2. Additionally, four proteins were upregulated and 21 proteins were downregulated on postcondit...
Mental representations mediate aversive learning in humans.
Mental representations of stimuli that are not physically present are critical for a range of cognitive capacities, including perception, memory, and learning. Overly robust mental representations, however, can contribute to hallucinations in healthy individuals and those diagnosed with psychotic illness. Measuring the strength of mental representations can thus provide insight into how the contents of the mind influence both adaptive and maladaptive behaviors. In rodents, the robustness of mental representations has been tested using the representation-mediated learning (RML) task, in which animals respond less to a cue after a stimulus that has previously been associated with this cue has ...
Hippocampal and amygdala volumes vary with residential proximity to toxicants at Birmingham, Alabama’s 35th Avenue Superfund site.
Exposure to environmental toxicants have serious implications for the general health and well-being of children, particularly during pivotal neurodevelopmental stages. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund program has identified several areas (Superfund sites) across the United States with high levels of environmental toxicants, which affect the health of many residents in nearby communities. Exposure to these environmental toxicants has been linked to changes in the structure and function of the brain. However, limited research has investigated the relationship between the proximity of childhood homes to a Superfund site and the development of subcortical structures like t...
