Patient Talk

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Echoes in the brain: Why today’s workout could fuel next week’s bright idea

The everyday effects of sleep, exercise, heart rate and mood — both good and bad — could linger in our brains for over two weeks, according to a pioneering study
According to a pioneering study, the everyday effects of sleep, exercise, heart rate and mood — both good and bad — could linger in our brains for over two weeks.

In a rare, longitudinal study, researchers from Aalto University and the University of Oulu tracked one person’s brain and behavioural activity for five months using brain scans and data from wearable devices and smartphones. 

‘We wanted to go beyond isolated events,’ says research leader Ana Triana. ‘Our environment and experiences constantly shape our behaviour and mental states. Yet, we know little about the response of brain functional connectivity to environmental, physiological, and behavioural changes on different timescales, from days to months.’ 

The study discovered that our brains don’t react to daily life in short, isolated bursts. Instead, brain activity changes in response to sleep patterns, physical activity, mood, and respiration rate over several days. This implies that even a workout or a restless night from last week could still impact your brain — and consequently your attention, thinking, and memory — well into next week.

The research also revealed a strong link between heart rate variability, which measures the heart’s adaptability, and brain connectivity, particularly during rest. This suggests that activities that affect our body’s relaxation response, such as stress management techniques, could influence the wiring of our brains even when we are not actively focusing on a task. The study also found that physical activity has a positive impact on the interaction between different brain regions, potentially affecting memory and cognitive flexibility. Furthermore, even small changes in mood and heart rate had lasting effects for up to fifteen days.

The study goes beyond a snapshot.

The research is unusual because few brain studies involve detailed monitoring over days and weeks. ‘The use of wearable technology was crucial’, says Triana. ‘Brain scans are useful tools, but a snapshot of someone lying still for half an hour can only show so much. Our brains do not work in isolation.’

Triana was the subject of the research, being monitored as she went about her daily life. Her dual role as both lead author and study participant added complexity but also provided firsthand insights into how to best maintain research integrity during several months of personalized data collection.

‘At the beginning, it was exciting and a bit stressful. Then, routine settles in, and you forget,’ says Triana. Qualitative data from mood surveys complemented data from the devices and twice-weekly brain scans. 

The researchers identified two distinct response patterns: a short-term wave lasting under seven days and a long-term wave of up to fifteen days. The short-term wave reflects rapid adaptations, such as how the focus is impacted by poor sleep, but it recovers quickly. The long wave suggests more gradual, lasting effects, particularly in areas tied to attention and memory.

Single-subject studies offer opportunities for improving mental health care.

The researchers hope their innovative approach will inspire future studies that combine brain data with everyday life to help personalise mental health treatment. 

‘We must bring data from daily life into the lab to see the full picture of how our habits shape the brain, but surveys can be tiring and inaccurate,’ says study co-author, neuroscientist and physician Dr Nick Hayward. ‘Combining concurrent physiology with repeated brain scans in one person is crucial. Our approach gives context to neuroscience and delivers very fine detail to our understanding of the brain.’ 

The study is also a proof-of-concept for patient research. Tracking brain changes in real-time could help detect neurological disorders early, especially mental health conditions where subtle signs might be missed.

“Linking brain activity with physiological and environmental data could revolutionize personalized healthcare, opening doors for earlier interventions and better outcomes,” says Triana.

Posted on Patient Talk

Multiple sclerosis: early warnings in the immune system

CD8 T cells could be used to develop new diagnostic methods that allow MS to be detected early enough to halt irreversible nerve damage.
CD8 T cells could be used to develop new diagnostic methods that allow MS to be detected early enough to halt irreversible nerve damage.

LMU researchers demonstrate that specific immune cells already play an essential role in the early stages of multiple sclerosis.

  • The researchers compared the CD8 T cells of monozygotic twin pairs, one of which suffers from MS while the other is asymptomatic, and found specific changes.
  • These findings could open new therapeutic avenues and could be used to develop new diagnostic methods.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease in which the immune system attacks the central nervous system. This impairs the transmission of signals between the brain and body and can lead to deficits in vision, motor control, sensation, and cognitive impairment. The causes of MS are still incompletely understood. In a study of identical twins, a team led by PD Dr Lisa Ann Gerdes (Institute of Clinical Neuroimmunology at LMU University Hospital and Biomedical Center) has shown that a type of immune cells, CD8-positive T cells, play a role in the early stages of the disease.

Although it is known that CD8 T cells occur in inflammatory areas in the brains of MS patients, it was unclear what role they play in the disease: Are they a mere by-product or active facilitators of inflammation? And what prompts their entry from the blood into the central nervous system? The LMU team has now investigated these questions with the help of this unique patient cohort, comparing the CD8 T cells of monozygotic twin pairs, of which one twin suffers from MS while the other is asymptomatic.

The twin cohort allows the analysis of high-risk patients.

Genes and the environment partially determine who might get MS. Monozygotic twins offer unique insight, as these factors are mainly identical. As the healthy twin has an elevated risk (up to 25%) of also developing MS, they allow researchers to investigate the early stages of MS. “It’s a unique opportunity to investigate high-risk patients before the disease manifests,” says Vladyslav Kavaka, first author of the paper.

Using innovative methods such as combining single-cell RNA sequencing and T cell receptor analyses, the researchers analysed CD8 T cells from blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples taken from the twin pairs. Their results show that CD8 T cells occur with the same specific changes in MS patients and people with early signs of the disease. In addition, they exhibit increased migration ability, promote inflammation and show activation markers. “These properties show that these CD8 T cells are migratory in the blood and are already embarking on their journey to the central nervous system, where we encounter the same cells,” explains Dr. Eduardo Beltrán, one of the lead authors. The researchers also found this cell type in the brain tissue of MS patients, which indicates lasting changes in the CNS.

Early stages of the disease are already visible.

Intriguingly, the same CD8 T cells did not only occur in people with MS. They were also present in those who did not yet exhibit any symptoms but in whom there were other signs of inflammation without symptoms being evident. Thus, these cells could be earlier facilitators of MS before symptoms arise.

Posted on Patient Talk

Why Do So Many People Have Autism Now?

Current data from the CDC states that autism prevalence is estimated to be about 1 in 36. Many people are wondering why there are so many people who have autism now. In this video, I’ll address that question.

Posted on Autism, Epilepsy, Mental health, Patient Talk

Brain molecule makes neurons less selective, deepening understanding of human cognition

Excitatory neurons from the brains of mice

Excitatory neurons from mice’s brains are depicted in green, and PV inhibitory neurons are pictured in magenta. Cells in the deep hippocampus, which helps navigate space, are represented toward the left side of the image. Toward the right side, cells are defined in the visual cortex. Findings from Johns Hopkins Medicine may help scientists better understand the causes of autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy.

Neuroscientists from Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have determined how a brain cell surface molecule shapes certain neurons’ behaviour.

The research, which was published on October 2 in Nature, reveals how a molecule called the calcium-permeable (CP)-AMPA receptor suppresses a specific neuron’s ability to pay attention to specific external cues, such as your friend’s earrings. The study was conducted on genetically engineered mice. Understanding why some neurons are less “selective” about their response to certain cues may also help researchers study conditions such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, and autism, which are marked by the faulty processing of external cues and misfirings of neurons in the mammalian brain.

“We have found that the calcium-permeable subtype of AMPA receptors plays an additional role in suppressing the selectivity of a specific neuron,” says Dr. Ingie Hong, the first author and a neuroscience instructor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Until now, the function of these particular receptors in the broader mammalian brain during everyday activities has been a mystery.”

AMPA receptors are critical to the fast transfer of information and memory formation in the brain, such as hearing and remembering a person’s name. The subtype of AMPA receptors in this study, CP-AMPA receptors, act as a “gate” that lowers the selectivity of parvalbumin (PV) neurons, which are inhibitory and thereby cast unselective inhibition to nearby neurons, the researchers say.

“Selective neurons will respond to something really specific, for example, your grandfather’s mustache, whereas less selective neurons will respond to different faces or people as well,” Hong says. “We’ve been looking for the mechanisms and molecules that control this specificity, or selectivity, and how it goes awry in conditions such as autism and epilepsy, where excitatory neurons can become overstimulated.”   

The researchers also found that mutations of GluA2, a protein subunit within the CP-AMPA receptor, are associated with intellectual disabilities.

“Human mutations in the GluA2 subunit of the AMPA receptors, which regulates the calcium permeability of the receptor, can lead to intellectual disability and autism,” says senior author Huganir. “This suggests tight control of AMPA receptor calcium permeability is essential for human cognition.”

Specifically, the investigators focused on CP-AMPA receptors in two distinct areas of the brain, the visual cortex, where neurons process visual information, and the hippocampus, where neurons respond to “where you are, where you are headed, or where you have been,” Hong says.

To conduct their research, the scientists developed novel adeno-associated virus vectors to replace calcium permeable AMPA receptors with impermeable counterparts and express them in the mouse brain. They say they hope these vectors can help treat disorders that arise from AMPA receptor mutations in the future.

To map out PV neuron selectivity, the scientists used advanced imaging techniques to observe neuron structure and activity deep within genetically engineered mice brains while showing them video stimuli.

“In most cases, we found that these PV neurons, which are typically less selective, became more selective to visual stimuli as well as spatial location when we swapped out CP-AMPA receptors for impermeable molecules, making inhibitory neurons act more like excitatory neurons,” Hong says.

The researchers say the high amount of CP-AMPA receptors in PV neurons is well-conserved across many species of mammals, including humans.

“Making neuron inhibition less selective makes our neural circuits more efficient than species that don’t have this molecular feature,” Hong says. “It probably also means that our neural networks are more stable.”

Hong says the new research may also have implications for machine learning used in artificial intelligence.

“In machine learning, there are many computerized ‘artificial’ neurons that are trained to be very selective or less selective,” he says. “We’re trying to find how specific and less specific units can work together to give us smarter machines and smarter AI.”

Credit David Cheon and Ingie Hong

Posted on Diabetes, Patient Talk

Replacing ultra-processed foods in diet lowers type 2 diabetes risk

An Italian research by the I.R.C.C.S. Neuromed shows that the consumption of highly processed foods, often industrially manufactured, increases the risk of death for people with type 2 diabetes, regardless of the nutritional quality of their diet

A new study led by researchers at UCL finds that people who eat more ultra-processed foods (UPF) are at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but this risk can be lowered by consuming less processed foods instead.

The study, published in The Lancet Regional Health—Europe in collaboration with experts from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, examined the connection between the extent of food processing and the risk of type 2 diabetes. It also examined which types of ultra-processed foods (UPF) posed the highest risk.

The team analysed UPF intake and health outcomes for 311,892 individuals from eight European countries over an average of 10.9 years, during which time 14,236 people developed type 2 diabetes.

They discovered that a 10% increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with a 17% rise in the risk of type 2 diabetes, but this risk can be reduced by opting for less processed foods instead.

The highest-risk UPF groups were savoury snacks, animal-based products such as processed meats, ready meals, and sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages, suggesting that particular attention should be paid to these foods to help tackle ill health.

The degree of food processing is commonly evaluated using the Nova classification. This classification divides foods into four groups:

1. Unprocessed or minimally processed foods (MPF), such as eggs, milk, and fruit.

2. Processed culinary ingredients (PCI), such as salt, butter, and oil.

3. Processed foods (PF), including tinned fish, beer, and cheese

.4. Ultra-processed foods, such as ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat mixed dishes, savoury snacks, sweets, and desserts.

The specific reasons for the connection between UPF and type 2 diabetes are not confirmed, although several factors are believed to be involved, including overconsumption and weight gain. In a prior study, supported by new analysis in this study, it was found that increased body fat contributed to about half of the association.

Samuel Dicken, the first author of the study from the UCL Division of Medicine, stated, “We are aware that ultra-processed foods are linked to a higher risk of certain diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. As anticipated, our findings validate this connection and demonstrate that a 10% increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods significantly increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.”

“Most studies to date have only considered ultra-processed foods (UPF) as a whole. However, we suspect that there may be different health risks associated with different types of UPF, and the risks of other processing groups have not been well researched. Our analysis goes further than previous studies by examining all four processing groups in the Nova classification to assess the impact on type 2 diabetes risk when substituting UPF with less processed foods. Additionally, we are looking at nine subgroups of UPF to better understand their impact.”

Replacing UPF with less processed foods was linked to a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.

In the study, researchers from UCL analyzed data from the EPIC study, which investigated the relationship between diet, lifestyle, and environmental factors, and the incidence of chronic diseases in more than half a million Europeans over time.

Additional analysis was conducted to separate UPF into nine subgroups to better understand the impact of processing level on type 2 diabetes risk.

The researchers also performed substitution modelling on the data to see how replacing one Nova food group with another would affect type 2 diabetes risk, alongside analyzing how eating UPF affected a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The results showed that substituting 10% of UPF in the diet with 10% of MPF/PCI reduced type 2 diabetes risk by 14%.

When 10% of ultra-processed food (UPF) in the diet was replaced with 10% of processed food (PF), the risk of diabetes decreased by 18%. The authors suggest that this could be due to the fact that 30-50% of processed food intake in the study came from beer and wine, which have been linked to a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes in a previous EPIC study. Processed food also includes salted nuts, artisanal breads, and preserved fruits and vegetables.

Analysis of the nine UPF subgroups indicates that savoury snacks, animal-based products, ready meals, and sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened beverages are linked to a higher incidence of type 2 diabetes.

Consuming large amounts of these less healthy foods increases the overall risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Among the top 25% of highly processed food consumers, where highly processed foods made up 23.5% of their total diet, sweetened beverages alone contributed to almost 40% of their highly processed food intake and 9% of their overall diet.

However, UPF breads, biscuits, breakfast cereals, sweets, desserts, and plant-based alternatives were associated with a lower incidence of type 2 diabetes.

Professor Rachel Batterham, the senior author of the study from the UCL Division of Medicine, stated, “The subgroup analysis of ultra-processed foods (UPF) in this study has been revealing and confirms that not all foods classified as UPF pose the same health risks.”

“Breads and cereals, for example, are a staple of many people’s diets. Based on our results, I think we should treat them differently than savory snacks or sugary drinks in terms of the dietary advice we provide.”