Year: 2021

Categories : Skeletal SystemTags :

NASA Awards Grant for Bone Loss Research

On By ModernMedia


The US space agency NASA has awarded a US$750 000 grant to conduct research into how bone weakening in the absence of mechanical loading, as in zero gravity, can be reduced.

Dr Meghan E McGee-Lawrence, biomedical engineer in the Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy at the Medical College of Georgia, the recipient of the grant, will use the money to better understand how bone loss occurs in space from lack of gravity and also from disuse here on Earth.

“It’s a problem for the astronauts who are on the International Space Station for long periods of time, and it’s going to continue to be a problem for eventually trying to send astronauts to Mars,” Dr McGee-Lawrence said. It is also a problem in patients with spinal cord injuries, undergoing prolonged bedrest or physical inactivity.

“If we can find a way to make bone more sensitive to mechanical loading, then we would be able to increase bone mass with less effort. That is a long-term goal,” she says.

Her focus is the natural sensors of mechanical loading on the bone called osteocytes, and her lab found that tears, called plasma membrane disruptions, occur in osteocytes from mechanical loading, resulting in repair. They showed that these disruptions from loads happen in under a minute, and set off changes like letting in extra calcium, influencing osteoblast and osteoclast activity. If there are few tears from mechanical loading, osteoblasts are not needed and so osteoclasts will resorb some bone matrix. Even walking around has been shown to cause plasma membrane disruptions, something not possible for bedrest patients or astronauts in space.

With this in mind she posed the question, “can we do anything to reverse those processes. Can we do something to the osteocytes to make them either more likely to experience tears or more likely to repair those tears and then, accordingly, make it so there is less bone loss during disuse.”

Fewer tears seem to be not good, and she and her team want to further investigate what happens to the repair rate with disuse. They also want to know the best healing rate; slow for better osteocyte survival, or does osteocyte survival enable faster repair?

“The good news is we can dial it in either direction,” she says. However, they believe faster repair is not better because the calcium influx is linked to the cell’s response.

“Think of a membrane disruption as a doorway into the cell. If you slam the door too quickly, then there is not enough time for the cell to sense that tear and initiate the signaling to respond,” she explained.

She believes that proteins involved in repairing membrane tears, like PRKD1, are logical targets for genetic and pharmacological methods to either increase tears or speed up repair.

“The ultimate goal is can we come up with a way, whether it’s a drug therapy or a different type of regimen that can make these processes work better in astronauts and people on earth who are subjected to disuse as well,” she said.

Even with resistive exercises, astronauts lose bone mass in space. Bisphosphonates are only really effective with age-related bone loss and not loss from inactivity or lack of gravity. With the current most advanced exercise device on the International Space Station, astronauts come back to Earth fitter than when they left but still lose some bone mass. On a three-year voyage to Mars, many astronauts could return with osteoporosis. “That is really a problem. Not only are they losing bone actively while they are in space, at some point they have to come back to gravity… and then what happens?” she says. Recovering bone strength on Earth is a long and difficult process for astronauts. She and her research team are also finding that osteocytes are less likely to repair and survive tears after a long period of disuse.

There are effective therapies, like bisphosphonates, that can help age-related bone loss, but they have not been shown to be effective when disuse is the primary driver. “That is why we need to come up with better targets, more effective targets, to try to prevent disuse-induced bone loss,” she said. While it has long been clear that mechanical load also translates to stronger bones, just how remains a question, she says. She suspects the plasma membrane tears are key.

“We think the formation of these tears is important for how the bone cells know they are being exposed to that level of loading,” she said, with high-impact loading from running and jumping being particularly important. “Cells need a way to know what is going on outside their cell membrane. This is one way to do that.”

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

Confusion Results in Vaccine Priority for ‘6.2cm’ Tall UK Man

On By ModernMedia

As a result of an error at his GP surgery, a healthy man aged 32 was offered an early COVID vaccination because his height was recorded as 6.2cm – giving him a calculated Body Mass Index (BMI) of 28 000.

Liam Thorp, political editor at The Liverpool Echo’s, said he was left “really confused” after he was offered the vaccine ahead of the government’s rollout, sharing the “frankly surreal” experience in a Twitter thread.  Vaccinations are not expected to begin until later in the year for the UK’s under-50s without underlying health conditions, perhaps as soon as March.

Manchester Evening News politics and investigations editor, Jennifer Williams, replied: “Should they not have been in touch before to see how the man the size of a thumb was getting on?” And palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke said: “This, for me, is the single best tweet of the entire pandemic, Liam. And may I please commend your decency in not exploiting your remarkable BMI to jump the queue?”

Despite being “on the chunky side”, Thorp didn’t think of his himself as obese. He said he was “uneasy”, thinking that he still ought to accept the invitation for vaccination, he contacted his GP about the situation whereupon he learned of the error which resulted in his height being recorded as 6.2cm – a mixup of his height as 6ft 2in (188cm). This resulted in his bizarre BMI of 28 000.

“If I had been less stunned, I would have asked why no one was more concerned that a man of these remarkable dimensions was slithering around south Liverpool. But he was very apologetic and really nice and I think he was just relieved that I found it so funny,” recalled Thorp.

Dr Fiona Lemmens, chair of NHS Liverpool clinical commissioning group, said: “I can see the funny side of this story but also recognise there is an important issue for us to address.”

Source: The Guardian

Categories : UrogenitalTags :

Dialysis Crisis from Texas Ice Storm

On By ModernMedia

Widespread power outages and water supply issues have created a dialysis crisis in Texas, following an onslaught of snow, ice, and sub-freezing temperatures.

“To say we’re stressed is an understatement. Almost all outpatient dialysis units closed due to power outages. Trying desperately to do as many as we can inpatient. To make matters worse some of our hospitals lost water today (so no HD [haemodialysis]). Truly a nightmare,” tweeted Tessa Novick, MD, a nephrologist at the University of Texas at Austin.
Half of Texas’ dialysis centres, serving 54 000 people, were unable to operate in the wake of the severe ice storm that has caused widespread damage in Texas and other parts of the US. Some patients had been without dialysis for four to five days, causing risk of potentially life-threatening potassium and fluid problems.

The large storm system, unofficially called Winter Storm Uri, dropped snow and ice over Texas on February 14 and 15, resulting in widespread power failures as lines were damaged. Few clinics have generators. Water pipes have also frozen, and this is a further problem as dialysis needs clean water to prepare concentrates and dialysate, and to reprocess the machines for following patients.

Fresenius Kidney Care said that around half of its Houston area centres have been impacted by a lack of water, “with the other centres either fully operational or operating on generators.” Water truck deliveries will allow other centres to reopen.

Tiffany Jones-Smith, CEO of the Texas Kidney Foundation, pointed out that there were some bright spots, such as eight clinics in San Antonio that brought water in and have been day and night to dialyse patients from any closed clinic regardless of affiliation. Other clinics were following suit, and Jones-Smith said patients were being given Uber and Lyft coupons to reach their dialysis centres. “We’re just kind of banding together and figuring out what needs to be done,” she said.

Looking ahead to when the crisis had cleared, Jones-Smith said, “We can’t let this go, because we need to be prepared for the next time, not just reacting to chaos, which is what we’re doing right now. … There’s no getting around we’ve had an epic failure.”

Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and severity of such extreme events in the future, requiring better preparation.

Source: MedPage Today

Categories : COVIDTags :

COVID in Zambia More Widespread Than Believed

On By ModernMedia

A new study from Zambia has found almost a fifth of recently-deceased people in mid-2020 tested positive for COVID. 

The study, from the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study in Zambia, upends the notion that Africa somehow ‘dodged’ the worst of the COVID pandemic. Rather, the low reported rates are merely reflective of a lack of testing ability.

“Our findings cast doubt on the assumption that COVID-19 somehow skipped Africa or has not impacted the continent as heavily,” said study co-author Dr Lawrence Mwananyanda, a BUSPH adjunct research assistant professor of global health based in Lusaka. “This study shows that with proper diagnostics and testing, we can begin to identify the scale of COVID-19 in African countries such as Zambia. I hope this study will encourage African governments to look closer at the rollout of COVID-19 testing, as well as empower Africans to take proactive steps–such as wearing masks, physically distancing, and skipping handshakes–to protect themselves from COVID-19.”

The findings have important implications for global policy makers, who will need to ensure access to vaccines worldwide, along with monitoring.

The University Teaching Hospital morgue sees roughly 80% of people who die in Lusaka pass through it. From June to September, polymerase chain reaction tests detected COVID in 70 out of 364 recently-deceased people. A peak of 31% positive results was observed in July. Unlike the typical pattern of COVID deaths elsewhere, most of the deceased people who tested positive in this study were under 60 years old, including seven children. Given how rare paediatric COVID deaths are elsewhere, this is surprising, the researchers noted.

The researchers sought information about the symptoms of the 70 who tested positive. “In nearly all cases where we had those data, we found typical symptoms for COVID-19, yet only 6 had been tested before death,” Gill said. Of 75% of deaths outside hospital, none had been tested.

Monitoring COVID is not a simple task, especially in a country with limited resources. Zambia’s Ministry of Health has been very proactive and supportive of this and other COVID studies, the researchers said.

“They’re really grateful that we can provide them this data, and they can make informed decisions moving forward with this epidemic,” said Dr Mwananyanda.

The researchers were well-positioned to track COVID in Zambia, having conducted the ongoing Zambia Pertussis/RSV Infant Mortality Estimation Study (ZPRIME) at the morgue.

“Building studies such as this from scratch can take time and resources that can be difficult in the time needed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. We invested a lot of time and money and human resources to building infrastructure that allowed for that extensive surveillance,” said co-author Rachel Pieciak, a research fellow at BUSPH. “So, what we’ve done was repurpose ZPRIME study capacity to focus on enrolling all deaths across all ages and testing for COVID-19.”

The researchers expressed hope that similar studies could be repurposed for the COVID fight.

Source: News-Medical.Net

Journal information: Mwananyanda, L., et al. (2021) Covid-19 deaths in Africa: prospective systematic postmortem surveillance study. BMJ. doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n334.

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and Conditions Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

Novel Magnetic Technique Detects Malaria in Blood

On By ModernMedia

A new magnetic method has been developed that can detect malaria, leading to faster, accurate and cheap diagnosis of the deadly disease.

An international study field-tested this new tool in Papua New-Guinea, in the hopes of helping the fight against this disease, which had 229 million reported cases in 2019, with 700 000 deaths a year.

“Malaria is easily treated but it is actually hard to diagnose, and because of that there can be over-treatment, which we have seen can lead to the spread of drug-resistant malaria,” said Dr Stephan Karl, a Senior Research Fellow in Malaria and Vector Biology at James Cook University’s Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine.

“Improving malaria diagnosis, especially through the development of practical methods for resource-limited places, is important and timely,” he said.

An international team including the University of Augsburg’s Professor Istvan Kezsmarki, with the PNG Institute of Medical Research and the Burnet Institute, came up with the magnetic detection method, called rotating-crystal magneto-optical detection (RMOD).

When malaria parasites break down blood, the haeme molecules are aggregated by the parasites into biocrystals called haemezoin, which contain magnetic iron. This iron can is detectable by the RMOD method.

“I’ve studied the magnetic properties of malaria infected blood since 2006, and we engaged with Professor Kezsmarki’s team in 2013 to demonstrate the sensitivity of this test using human malaria parasites,” Dr Karl said.

A field study was successfully conducted, involving almost 1000 suspected malaria patients in a high-transmission area of Papua New-Guinea.

“After years of in-lab optimisation of the device, in collaboration with Dr. Karl we demonstrated the great potential of RMOD in fast and reliable malaria field tests performed in Papua New-Guinea,” Prof Kezsmarki said.

“We showed that RMOD performs well in comparison to the most reliable existing method..It’s very promising, as RMOD testing can be conducted after a short training session and provides test results within 10 minutes. From a funding perspective the cost is very low since no expensive reagents are used,” said Dr Karl.

Dr Karl said the aim was to refine the design until a test could be done by a simple button push.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: L. Arndt et al, Magneto-optical diagnosis of symptomatic malaria in Papua New Guinea, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21110-w

Categories : UrogenitalTags :

Relugolix Combination Therapy is Promising for Fibroid Symptom Relief

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A pair of clinical trials showed that combination therapy with relugolix reduced heavy bleeding and pain from uterine fibroids without the risk of side effects from low oestrogen levels.

Relugolix is an oral gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptor antagonist, currently approved for men with advanced prostate cancer.  Uterine fibroids are common in women, and a quarter of those who are affected by them experience symptoms such as heavy menstrual bleeding and pain.

Injectable long-acting GnRH agonists are effective treatments for uterine fibroids, but cause BMD loss and thus are not generally eligible for long term use.  
In the two trials done in North and South America, Africa, and Europe, 71% and 73% of patients, respectively, who received relugolix together with estradiol and norethindrone acetate had significantly lower blood loss, compared with 19% and 15% in the placebo group.
Similar bone mineral density (BMD) measures were seen in the placebo and relugolix combination therapy groups; but MD decreased among patients who received relugolix monotherapy.

“For the first time, we have an oral treatment that can effectively and safely improve the symptoms of uterine fibroids, particularly heavy menstrual bleeding,” Ayman Al-Hendy, MD, PhD, of the University of Chicago Medicine, stated in an interview. and added that relugolix may be a viable, long-term alternative to the current surgical treatments available for fibroids patients.

“The goal of this program from the beginning was to develop an effective and long-term treatment as a viable alternative to hysterectomy,” Dr Al-Hendy said. “Any patient with uterine fibroids would be a good candidate for this non-surgical treatment.”

Lauren Schiff, MD, associate professor of minimally invasive gynecologic surgery at the school of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that relugolix seems to be a good option for non-surgical treatment of fibroids.

Dr Schiff, who was not involved with the study, said that understanding bone mineral density (BMD) is key for using relugolix past six months. “If the bone density safety measure is maintained for long-term use, then this would be really ideal medication,” she told MedPage Today.

The trial’s primary endpoint was less than 80 ml blood loss, and >50% reduction in total blood loss from trial start. The investigators assessed several secondary outcomes, including amenorrhea, volume of menstrual blood loss, distress, pain, anaemia, fibroid volume, and uterine volume.

Around 388 participants were randomised in the first trial, and 382 in the second.

Around three-quarters of patients who received relugolix combination therapy reached the primary endpoint, with the treatment effects appearing similar baseline characteristics.

Amenorrhea over the last 35 days of the trial occurred in 52% and 50% of participants who received relugolix combination therapy in each trial, respectively. Pain was also reduced in the treatment groups.

Patients who received the combination therapy also had improvements in pain, distress from bleeding and pelvic discomfort, anaemia, and experienced reduced uterine volume. However, significant shrinkage in fibroid volume was not observed.

The prevalence of side effects was similar in the relugolix combination therapy group and the placebo cohort, with hot flashes being the most commonly reported side effect in the trial.

Strict assessment criteria for patients meant generalisability was limited. Additionally, study duration was only six months. The researchers plan to release data from a 28-week extension study, as well as a 52-week randomised-withdrawal trial, and these may shed more light on safety and efficacy in the long term.

Source: MedPage Today

Journal information: Al-Hendy A, et al “Treatment of Uterine Fibroid Symptoms with Relugolix Combination Therapy” N Engl Med 2021; DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2008283.

Categories : GeneticsTags :

Study Reveals How Thyroid Subtly Regulates Metabolism

On By ModernMedia

Thyroid hormone appears to regulate metabolism by acting as a ‘dimmer switch’ as opposed to an ‘on/off’ switch, as reported by a new study from the University of Pennsylvania.

The thyroid hormone has long been known to be an important controller of the body’s metabolism, as well development, but how exactly this is achieved remains something of a mystery. Part of this problem was that the thyroid hormone worked inside the nucleus, activating some genes and deactivating others. Being able to observe this process has been extremely challenging.

“We were able in this study to show that thyroid hormone doesn’t just turn things on or off, as the canonical model suggests, but instead more subtly shifts the balance between the repression and enhancement of gene activity,” said principal investigator Mitchell Lazar, MD, PhD, at Penn Medicine. “Yet, as people with hypothyroidism know, the lack of thyroid hormone can have profound effects on the body.”

Knowing how thyroid hormone regulates the body’s metabolism would be a great boon for new drug development, especially to tackle obesity. For four decades, scientists have known that thyroid hormone acts on thyroid hormone receptors, but these special proteins exist in small quantities and marking where they are on DNA has proven difficult.
In the new study, the researchers developed a mouse model in which a special tag was added to TRβ, the main thyroid hormone receptor in the liver, which is where important metabolic effects of thyroid hormone occur. With this tag, they marked the thousands of locations on DNA where TRβ binds, both in states when thyroid hormone was present and could bind to TRβ and also when no hormone was present. In this way, the team came up with strong evidence that shows the unexpectedly subtle manner in which thyroid hormone works with TRβ.

When it binds to a DNA site, TRβ will promote or suppress nearby gene activity by forming complexes with other proteins called co-activators and co-repressors. When thyroid hormone is bound to TRβ, it can alter the balance of these co-regulator proteins towards more gene activation at some sites, and more gene repression at others. Prior models of thyroid hormone / TRβ function in which thyroid hormone has a more absolute, switch-like effect on gene activity.

The researchers acknowledged that more work is needed to discover just how genes are activated or repressed at the sites. However, this is a significant advancement towards treatments which can directly influence the body’s metabolism.

Source: Medical Xpress

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and Conditions VaccinesTags :

TB Vaccine Shown to Protect Against Common Infections

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The tuberculosis (TB) vaccine Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) could protect newborns against a variety of common infections, such as upper respiratory tract infections, chest infections, and diarrhoea, according to a new study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

It has been known that BCG protects against diseases other than TB, offering protection against non-tuberculous mycobacteria infection like leprosy and Buruli ulcer. It is also used in the treatment of superficial carcinoma of the bladder.

However, this is the first research to rigorously investigate the full range. The results suggest that vaccinating all babies with BCG on their day of birth could save lives by reducing neonatal infections in areas with high rates of infectious disease.

The study involved a randomised control trial of 560 newborns in Uganda, who were monitored for a range of illnesses. After six weeks, infection rates from any disease were 25% lower in the group that received the vaccine at birth, compared to the group that had not yet received the vaccination. The most protected appeared to be vulnerable groups such as low birth weight babies, and boys. Importantly, BCG appeared to protect against even severe infections.

Sarah Prentice, the lead author from LSHTM, said: “Nearly a million babies die every year of common infections so we urgently need better ways to protect them. Our research suggests that ensuring that BCG is given at birth could make a big difference in low-income countries, potentially saving many lives.”

The newborns were randomly assigned to receive BCG either at birth or at six weeks of age. They were followed-up by doctors, blinded to the intervention, for 10 weeks, who looked for any type of illness or infection.

The research team then compared how often infants in the two groups presented to doctors with infections of any kind, except TB, to see whether having BCG made a difference. They also took blood samples from both groups, to look at differences in their innate immune system, the body’s first line of defense against infections.

Infants vaccinated with BCG at birth presented to doctors with any kind of infection 25% less often than infants who had not. BCG seemed to protect against all kinds of infections, such as common colds, chest infections, and skin infections.

After the delayed group had been vaccinated, the rates of infection were identical between the two groups: the delayed group’s immunity ‘brought up to speed’ when they received BCG.

Study co-author Prof Hazel Dockrell, LSHTM, said: “It’s very exciting to think that BCG vaccination might help keep newborns safe against other dangerous infections, in addition to providing protection against TB. Although BCG is recommended at birth in many countries, it is often delayed due to logistical difficulties. Ensuring that the vaccine is given on day one, in areas with high rates of infectious disease, could have a major impact on infections and deaths in the newborn period.”

Though the study could not definitely determine whether the BCG vaccine was responsible for the lowered rate of infections, there is nonetheless great interest in applying the vaccine as a protection for novel disease outbreaks, such as COVID or Ebola, before a specific vaccine can be developed.

Dr Prentice said, “Since the findings show that BCG seems to offer wider protection against a range of infections, our study also raises hopes it might be useful in protecting the general population against COVID-19 and future pandemics – though we will need to see the results of other, more specific studies to know for sure.”

Source: News-Medical.Net

Journal information: Prentice, S., et al. (2021) BCG-induced non-specific effects on heterologous infectious disease in Ugandan neonates: an investigator-blind randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30653-8.

Categories : Mental HealthTags :

Video Gamers Self-report Feelings of Wellbeing

On By ModernMedia

Volunteers playing video games reported feelings of wellbeing, and video games did not appear to negatively impact players’ wellbeing, a study by the University of Oxford has found.

The researchers sought to investigate the validity of a widespread perception that playing video games may result in addiction and poor mental health. There has been extensive prior research establishing the varying cognitive benefits of playing different types of video games.

The researchers obtained online gameplay statistics from game producers Electronic Arts and Nintendo, then surveyed over 3000 players of two popular games: Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville. These popular games are more ‘relaxed’ than the type of intense action-themed games that often come up in discussions about video games and mental health. 

The surveys queried players on their wellbeing, their motivations and need satisfaction as they played their video games. Each of the volunteers had their gameplay time recorded by the respective game producers. On analysis, the researchers found that players reported slightly more positive responses than expected, with a slight positive correlation between gameplay time and wellbeing.

The researchers stated that the game producers’ only involvement was providing anonymised telemetry data. They also noted that they did not suggest a causal relationship between subjective wellbeing and how much time a person plays video games, only that playing video games does not seem to negatively impact the wellbeing of players.

Instead of considering the amount of time playing, the researchers suggest that the focus should be on why people play games to begin with. The researchers suggest that people who monitor the playing time of others should rather consider if the game is meeting their needs.

A recent, separate study revealed that boys with low physical activity who regularly played video games at 11 had fewer depressive symptoms three years later.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Niklas Johannes et al. Video game play is positively correlated with well-being, Royal Society Open Science (2021). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.202049

Categories : NeurologyTags :

Long-term Anaesthesia Causes Changes in Neural Connections

On By ModernMedia

New research has shown that there may be neurological consequences after long-term anaesthesia.

Prolonged anesthesia, also known as medically induced coma, takes the brain to a state of deep unconsciousness beyond short-term anaesthesia for surgical procedures. It is used to treat refractory intracranial hypertension and status epilepticus.

Though they are life-saving practices performed in ICUs the world over, they are not without cognitive side effects. Family members often report that their loved ones are not quite the same when they are discharged from hospital following prolonged anaesthesia.

“It is long known that ICU survivors suffer lasting cognitive impairment, such as confusion and memory loss, that can languish for months and, in some cases, years,” said lead author Michael Wenzel, MD, a former postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University with experience as a physician in neuro-intensive care in Germany.

Dr Wenzel said cognitive dysfunction after hospitalisation will likely become more widespread in the wake of COVID, with large numbers of ventilated patients awakening from days to weeks of unconsciousness.

Senior author Rafael Yuste, a professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia and senior author of the paper said that to date there had been no research on the direct effects of anaesthesia on neural connections.

“This is because it is difficult to examine the brains of patients at a resolution high enough to monitor connections between individual neurons,” Yuste said.

Yuste and Wenzel sought to investigate the connections between neurons, or synapses, and related cognitive effects of prolonged anaesthesia, using mice. With a specially built miniature ‘ICU’ for mice, they performed continuous anaesthesia for up to 40 hours, much longer than the longest animal study so far.

The researchers used in vivo two-photon microscopy to observe cortical synapses in the sensory cortex, combined with repeated assessment of behaviour in the cortex.

They found that, contrary to the view that neural connections in adult brains are stable in short-term anaesthesia, in long-term anaesthesia there are significant changes in synaptic architecture at any age.

“Our results should ring an alarm bell in the medical community, as they document a physical link between cognitive impairment and prolonged medically induced coma,” Wenzel said.

Further study is needed, the researchers said, adding that it will be important to test a range of anesthetics, as well as the combination of anesthetics administered to patients. Anaesthetics are not tailored to patients in any systematic fashion.

“We are well aware that anaesthesia is a life-saving procedure,” Wenzel said. “Refining treatment plans for patients and developing supportive therapies that keep the brain in shape during prolonged anaesthesia would substantially improve clinical outcomes for those whose lives are saved, but whose quality of life has been compromised.”

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Michael Wenzel et al, Prolonged anesthesia alters brain synaptic architecture, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2023676118