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This cancer drug might also treat an ischemic stroke

A study by the Institut de Neurociències of the UAB (INc-UAB) in Barceloma demonstrates in animal models that a cancer drug can also be used to treat a stroke.

Ischemic stroke, the second leading cause of death worldwide, occurs when blood flow cannot reach the brain due to an obstruction. The brain does not receive oxygen and this causes damage and functional impairment. Hypertension is the most frequent modifiable risk factor for stroke and is associated with the worse recoveries.

Cancer drug vorinostat can also treat brain lesions

Currently, there is only one pharmacological treatment to attenuate the effects of stroke, but it does not work for all patients and is associated with some important adverse effects. Now, researchers at the Institut de Neurociències of the UAB (INc-UAB) in Barceloma were able to demonstrate that the drug vorinostat—used to treat cutaneous T-cell lymphoma cancer— has great potential in treating brain lesions derived from strokes.

In an article published in the journal Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy, the research group demonstrates, in a model of stroke in hypertensive rats, how the use of the drug improves neurological deficits, reduces brain damage and attenuates the inflammatory response, among other effects.

Future clinical trials

The researchers demonstrated that the treatment also protects the surrounding vessels, even a few hours after the stroke occurs.

“These findings would pave the way for the correct design of future clinical trials to test its efficacy and safety in patients who have suffered a stroke,” says study coordinator Francesc Jiménez-Altayó, a researcher from the Department of Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Toxicology at the UAB and the Cardiovascular Diseases Area of the Centre for Biomedical Research Network (CIBERCV).

Citation: Díaz-Pérez A, Pérez B, Manich G, García-Aranda J, Navarro X, Penas C, Jiménez-Altayó F. Histone deacetylase inhibition by suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid during reperfusion promotes multifaceted brain and vascular protection in spontaneously hypertensive rats with transient ischaemic stroke. Biomed Pharmacother. 2024 Feb 20;172:116287. 10.1016/j.biopha.2024.116287. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38382328. (open-access)

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Wearable sticker sensor turns hand, face movements into communications

A new type of thin wearable sensor for people with disabilities could turn a hand, finger, or facial movement into a communication—no voice or touchscreen required.

The sensor could open new possibilities for rehabilitation applications and helping those with disabilities communicate more easily, say researchers in Beijing Normal University in China. The sensor was designed to be comfortable for long-term wear and detecting movements with high accuracy.

Communicating via gestures or facial expression

“For someone recovering from a stroke, these sensors could monitor wrist, finger or even facial movements to monitor their rehabilitation progression,” said researcher Kun Xiao. “For individuals with severe mobility or speech impairments, the sensors could translate gestures or facial expressions into words or commands, enabling them to communicate with others or interact with technology more easily.”

The sensors combine a soft, flexible material called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and an optical fiber Bragg grating (FBG). According to a cross-disciplinary team of researchers in optical, biomedical, software and electrical engineering from Beijing Normal University, the sensors showed a high level of sensitivity and accuracy during tests involving gesture recognition and communication assistance.

Fitness, athletics, health uses

The researchers note that the sensors could [also] be tailored for applications such as monitoring other health indicators like respiratory or heart rate by detecting subtle body movements, and for athletes or fitness enthusiasts to monitor and improve their form or technique in real time or be integrated into gaming systems for more immersive and interactive experiences.

Personalized assistive technologies

This new work is part of a larger project aimed at developing innovative assistive technologies and was inspired by the challenges faced by people with disabilities and those recovering from conditions like strokes, who often struggle with basic movements and communication.

“Traditional methods are either too cumbersome, lacked accuracy or weren’t versatile enough to cater to individual needs,” said Zhuo Wang from Beijing Normal University. “Our goal was to develop a wearable solution that was both precise in detecting gestures and comfortable for everyday use, offering a more personalized and adaptive approach to rehabilitation and assistance.”

Flexible, skin-friendly materials

To do this, the researchers created patches made from PDMS, a type of silicone elastomer that is very flexible and skin friendly. This allows people to wear them for long periods without irritation or discomfort. To give the patch its movement-sensing capability, the researchers embedded the PDMS with FBGs, a type of reflector that is etched into a short segment of optical fiber to reflect specific light wavelengths while transmitting all the others.

“We found that using a thicker PDMS patch caused a more pronounced wavelength shift. Leveraging this sensitivity-enhancing effect of PDMS allows these optical sensors to detect even the slightest bend of a finger or twist of a wrist,” said Chuanxin Teng from Guilin University of Electronic Technology.

The sensors can be applied to various parts of the body for a wide range of applications. A precise calibration method allows the sensors to be tailored to each user, making them adaptable to various applications.

Transforming movement into communication

To demonstrate the capabilities of their PDMS-embedded wearable FBG sensors, the researchers conducted a series of tests focusing on gesture recognition and communication assistance. After calibrating the sensors for individual participants, they attached the sensors to different parts of the body, such as the wrist and fingers, to detect various movements.

They also developed a system that enabled the sensors to translate simple gestures into commands or messages. For example, they used finger movements to spell out words based on Morse code.

For both tests, the sensors demonstrated a high level of sensitivity and accuracy in recognizing a wide range of gestures and translated them into words, showing their potential as an assistive technology for individuals with speech or mobility impairments.

Improvements

The researchers plan to make the sensor system smaller and more integrated so that it can be easily worn, as well as enhance the sensors’ ability to communicate wirelessly with smartphones, computers or medical devices, and to make sure they can withstand daily wear and tear, including exposure to moisture, heat and stretching.

This will allow users to interact with the technology and help caregivers or medical professionals monitor progress or data in real-time.

Citation: K. Xiao, Z. Wang, Y. Ye, C. Teng, R. Min, “PDMS-embedded wearable FBG sensors for gesture recognition and communication assistance,” Biomed. Opt. Express, Vol. 15, Issue 3, pp. 1892-1909 (2024). (open-access) https://doi.org/10.1364/BOE.517104

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Ultrasound brain stimulation technique treats brain disorders more deeply and safely

Researchers in Korea have developed a new non-invasive brain-stimulation method with “tremendous potential for inducing ‘neural plasticity’ [the ability to change and adapt brain functions].”

Traditional noninvasive electrical and magnetic brain stimulation methods [such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)] are limited in spatial resolution and penetration depth, whlle deep-brain stimulation [such as Neuralink] has risks, such as tissue damage, inflammation and infection,” says Dr. Park Joo Min of the Center for Cognition and Sociality within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), senior author of an open-access paper in Science Advances.

Penetrating deeply and safely in the brain

The team used the “Patterned Low-Intensity Low-Frequency Ultrasound (LILFUS)” method to mimic the brain’s conventional patterns of theta (5 Hz) and gamma (30 Hz) oscillations observed during learning and memory processes.

The researchers delivered this ultrasound stimulation to the cerebral motor cortex in mice and observed significant improvements in motor (muscle movement), skill learning and the ability to retrieve food.

The research suggests new rehabilitation therapies for stroke survivors and individuals with motor impairments. The method could also be used to treat conditions such as depression, sensory impairments and cognitive disorders.

“The study has developed a new and safe neural regulation technology with long-lasting effects, but has also uncovered the molecular mechanism changes involved in brainwave-patterned ultrasound neural regulation,” Min said. “We plan to continue follow-up studies to apply this technology to the treatment of brain disorders related to abnormal brain excitation and inhibition and for the enhancement of cognitive functions.”

Citation: Kim, J., Phan, T. T., Lee, K., Kim, J. S., Lee, Y., Lee, J. M., Do, J., Lee, D., Kim, P., Lee, K. P., Park, J., Lee, C. J., & Park, J. M. (2024). Long-lasting forms of plasticity through patterned ultrasound-induced brainwave entrainment. Science Advances. https://doi.org/adk3198 (open access)

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Dual-energy harvesting device could power future wireless medical implants

Implantable biomedical devices—like pacemakers, insulin pumps and neurostimulators—are becoming smaller, but hurdles remain for powering them. A new wireless charging device developed by Penn State scientists could improve powering capability for implants while still being safe for our bodies, according to the researchers.

The new device can harvest energy from magnetic fields and ultrasound sources simultaneously, converting this energy to electricity to power implants within safety limits for human tissue, the scientists reported in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

Higher power miniaturized device

“Our device may unlock next-generation biomedical applications because it can generate 300% higher power than the current state-of-the-art devices,” said Bed Poudel, research professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State and co-author of the study. “By combining two energy sources in a single generator, power generated from a given volume of the device can be significantly improved, which can unlock many applications that were not possible before.”

Using this technology, battery-free bioelectronic devices could be miniaturized to millimeter-sized dimensions, making them easily implantable and allowing distributed networks of sensors and actuators to measure and manipulate physiological activity throughout the body. This would enable precise and adaptive bioelectronic therapies with minimal risks or interference with daily activities, according to the scientists.

Problems with current implants

Traditional implants like pacemakers are typically powered by batteries and charged using cables, with limited battery lifespan and required surgery to replace them—posing a risk of infection or other medical complications.

Charging or directly powering implants wirelessly could extend their lifespan, but conventional wireless charging technology (used for cell phones and electric vehicles, for example) may not be safe as implants continue to shrink. This requires increased power, which could be harmful to the body, say the researchers.

Converting a magnetic field and piezoelectric layer into a safe electric current

The new devices use a two-layer process for converting energy to electricity. One layer is magnetostrictive, which converts a magnetic field into stress. And the other is piezoelectric, which converts ultrasound energy (vibrations) into an electric field. The combination allows the device to generate an electric current without damaging tissue.

The technology also has implications for powering things like wireless sensor networks in smart buildings to monitor energy and operational patterns, and to use that information for remotely adjusting control systems, the scientists noted.

The National Science Foundation supported this work. Some of the researchers on this study received support from the DARPA MATRIX program and the Army RIF program.

Citation: Schneider, S., Lee, J.H. & Mathis, M.W. Learnable latent embeddings for joint behavioural and neural analysis. Nature 617, 360–368 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06031-6 (open-access)

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A wake-up call to establish regular healthy sleeping patterns

Getting the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep a night is currently out of reach for almost one-third of the population, according to Australia-based Flinders University researchers. They found that 31% of adults had average sleep durations outside this recommended range.

The researchers used sleep tracker data collected by an under-mattress sensor to examine sleep durations over a nine-month period of almost 68,000 adults worldwide. Published in Sleep Health, the research found that only 15% of people slept the recommended 7-9 hours for five or more nights per week. And among those who did achieve an average of 7-9 hours of sleep, about 40% of the nights fell outside the ideal range.

Consequences of irregular sleep

“This is crucial because regularly not sleeping enough—or possibly too much—are associated with ill effects and we are only just realizing the consequences of irregular sleep,” says Flinders University researcher Dr Hannah Scott.

Sleeping less than six hours on average per night is associated with increased mortality risk and multiple health conditions, including hypertension, obesity and heart disease. Less than 7 hours and more than 9 hours of sleep a day have been linked to adverse health and wellbeing, including digestive and neuro-behavioural deficits. 

Sleep tips

The Flinders sleep researchers’ tips to achieve a better sleep regime include:

  • In the short term, people are advised to try and maintain a sleep schedule that is sufficient for them to feel rested enough, as often as they possibly can. Keeping a fixed wake-up time, even on weekends, and going to bed when you feel sleepy will help ensure you frequently get enough restorative sleep.
  • If people can’t keep a consistent sleep schedule due to unavoidable commitments (e.g. shift work), catch-up sleep is recommended.
  • Watch for the symptoms of insufficient sleep such as daytime drowsiness, fatigue, struggling to maintain concentration, poor memory, and potentially making errors while driving. This may be due to not sleeping enough, or the sleep not being restorative enough due to poor sleep quality—as occurs with obstructive sleep apnoea, for example.
  • People who feel like they might not be sleeping enough, especially those currently sleeping less than seven hours, could test whether allowing a longer sleep schedule or naps helps them sleep longer and results in them feeling more rested.
  • For those without a sleep disorder, following good sleep hygiene may be beneficial. Avoiding caffeine and alcohol in the afternoon/reducing their caffeine and alcohol consumption across the day, and/or avoiding a heavy meal close to bedtime may help people fall asleep faster and sleep for longer. Others may not see much benefit from following sleep hygiene advice, but it is worth trying, as it may be a relatively simple fix to their sleep problems.
  • People should consult their general practioner in the first instance if they are concerned about their sleep. Treatment options are available through referrals to sleep specialists for a variety of sleep disorders, such as sleep apnoea and insomnia.

Citation: Hannah Scott et al. Dec. 2023. Are we getting enough sleep? Frequent irregular sleep found in an analysis of over 11 million nights of objective in-home sleep data. Sleep Health (Elsevier) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2023.10.016 (open access)

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How to harness 2D magnetic materials for high-speed, energy-efficient computing

Two-dimensional magnetic materials, composed of layers only a few atoms thick, have incredible properties that could one day allow magnetic-based devices to achieve unprecedented speed, efficiency, and scalability while using far less energy.

The problem: these materials require extremely cold temperatures. But now MIT researchers have demonstrated switching a “van der Waals” magnet at room temperature, using pulses of electrical current. This is similar to how a transistor switches between open and closed to represent 0s and 1s.

Making electrons behave like tiny magnets

To do that, the team fired bursts of electrons at a magnet made of a new material that can sustain its magnetism at higher temperatures. The experiment used spin, which makes electrons behave like tiny magnets.

“The heterostructure device we have developed requires an order of magnitude lower electrical current to switch the van der Waals magnet, compared to that required for bulk magnetic devices,” says Deblina Sarkar, the AT&T Career Development Assistant Professor in the MIT Media Lab and Center for Neurobiological Engineering, head of the Nano-Cybernetic Biotrek Lab, and the senior author of a paper on this technique in the journal Nature Communications.

In the future, such a magnet could be used to build faster computers that consume less electricity and make complex AI algorithms more energy-efficient.

An atomically thin advantage

To operate the magnet at room temperature, the researchers used a material called iron gallium telluride. This atomically thin material has all the properties needed for effective room temperature magnetism and uses spin (up or down) to switch its magnetization at room temperature.

“Our next milestone is to achieve switching without the need for any external magnetic fields. Our aim is to enhance our technology and scale up to bring the versatility of van der Waals magnet to commercial applications,” Sarkar says.

Citation: Kajale, S.N., Nguyen, T., Chao, C.A. et al. Current-induced switching of a van der Waals ferromagnet at room temperature. Nat Commun 15, 1485 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45586-4 (open-access)

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‘Movies’ with color and music visualize brain activity data

Neuroimaging produces large quantities of data that can be difficult to intuitively explore and gain insights into the biological mechanisms behind brain activity patterns. 

So David Thibodeaux and colleagues at Columbia University have now developed a toolkit to explore this data by translating it into a video, with accompanying musical sound track in real time. The goal is to help interpret what happens in the brain when the subject is performing certain behaviors.

How it works

The toolkit was applied to previously collected WFOM data. It detected both neural activity and brain blood flow changes in mice engaging in different behaviors, such as running or grooming.

Neuronal data is represented in the recording by piano sounds. The volume of each note indicates magnitude of activity, pitch indicates the location in the brain where the activity occurred, and blood flow data is represented by violin sounds. The relationship between neuronal activity and blood flow is represented by piano and violin sounds, played in real time.

Experiments

The researchers have demonstrated the new technique in three different experimental settings, showing how audiovisual representations can be prepared with data from various brain imaging approaches. These include “2D wide-field optical mapping (WFOM)” and “3D swept confocally aligned planar excitation (SCAPE) microscopy.”

They present this technique in the open-access journal PLOS ONE today (Feb. 21, 2024).

Immersive audio experience

“It is almost impossible to watch and focus on both the time-varying [brain activity] data and the behavior video at the same time. Our eyes would need to flick back and forth to see things that happen together.

“Listening to and seeing representations of [brain activity] data is an immersive experience that can tap into this capacity of ours to recognize and interpret patterns.”

Funding: National Institutes of Health grants, Columbia ROADS grant, and the Simons Collaboration on Global Brain.

Citation: Thibodeaux, D. N., Shaik, M. A., Kim, S. H., Voleti, V., Zhao, H. T., Benezra, S. E., Nwokeabia, C. J., & C. Hillman, E. M. (2024). Audiovisualization of real-time neuroimaging data. PLOS ONE, 19(2), e0297435. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297435

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Machine-learning algorithm indentifies drugs that shouldn’t be prescribed together

Using a machine-learning algorithm, researchers can now predict interactions that could interfere with a drug’s effectiveness, according to a study by researchers at MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Duke University.

Any drug taken orally must pass through the lining of the digestive tract. Proteins called “transporters,” found on cells that line the GI tract, help with this process. But for many drugs, it’s unknown which of those transporters the drugs use to exit the digestive tract. So they can interfere with each other and should not be prescribed together.

Identifying transporters

The researchers have developed a way to identify the transporters used by different drugs, using tissue models and machine-learning algorithms, according to Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. He is also a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the senior author of the study, which appears in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Learning more about which transporters help drugs pass through the digestive tract could also help drug developers improve the absorbability of new drugs by adding excipients that enhance their interactions with transporters.

Model training

For this study, Traverso and his colleagues adapted a tissue model they had developed in 2020 to measure a given drug’s absorbability. This experimental setup, based on pig intestinal tissue grown in the laboratory, can be used to systematically expose tissue to different drug formulations and measure how well they are absorbed.

The researchers tested 23 commonly used drugs using this system, allowing them to identify transporters used by each of those drugs. Then they trained a machine-learning model on that data, as well as data from several drug databases. The model learned to make predictions of which drugs would interact with which transporters, based on similarities between the chemical structures of the drugs.

Two million predictions of potential drug interactions

Using this model, the researchers analyzed a new set of 28 currently used drugs, as well as 1,595 experimental drugs. This screen yielded nearly 2 million predictions of potential drug interactions. Among them was the prediction that doxycycline, an antibiotic, could interact with warfarin, a commonly prescribed blood-thinner. and with digoxin (which is used to treat heart failure), levetiracetam, an antiseizure medication, and tacrolimus, an immunosuppressant.

That data confirmed the model’s predictions that the absorption of doxycycline is affected by digoxin, levetiracetam, and tacrolimus. Only one of those drugs, tacrolimus, had been previously suspected to interact with doxycycline.

Helping drug development

This approach could also be applied to drugs now in development. Drug developers could tune the formulation of new drug molecules to prevent interactions with other drugs or improve their absorbability. Vivtex, a biotech company co-founded in 2018 by former MIT postdoc Thomas von Erlach, MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer, and Traverso to develop new oral drug delivery systems, is now pursuing that kind of drug-tuning.

The research was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and the Division of Gastroenterology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Citation: Shi, Y., Reker, D., Byrne, J.D. et al. Screening oral drugs for their interactions with the intestinal transportome via porcine tissue explants and machine learning. Nat. Biomed. Eng (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-023-01128-9

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Radical new light-wave chip design enables AI computing at speed of light

University of Pennsylvania engineers have developed a new chip that radically accelerates processing by using light waves rather than electricity to perform the complex math essential to training AI.

The silicon-photonic (SiPh) chip has the potential to accelerate the processing speed of computers while also reducing their energy consumption, according to the researchers.

Vector-matrix math at speed of light

The innovation, based on Professor Nader Engheta’s pioneering research in manipulating materials at the nanoscale to perform mathematical computations using light, is a platform for performing vector-matrix multiplication. This is a core mathematical operation in the development and function of neural networks, the computer architecture that powers today’s AI tools.

In a paper in Nature Photonics, Engheta’s group, together with that of Firooz Aflatouni, Associate Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering, describe the development of the new chip. They explain that instead of using a silicon wafer of uniform height, the chip uses variations in height to control the propagation of light through the chip. That causes light to scatter in specific patterns, allowing the chip to perform mathematical calculations at the speed of light.

Potential use in GPUs

The design could potentially be adapted for use in graphics processing units (GPUs), the demand for which has skyrocketed with the widespread interest in developing new AI systems.

In addition to faster speed and less energy consumption, many computations can happen simultaneously, so there will be no need to store sensitive information in a computer’s working memory, rendering a future computer powered by such technology virtually unhackable.

This study was conducted at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied science and supported in part by a grant from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s (AFOSR) Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) and a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR).

Citation: Nikkhah, V., Pirmoradi, A., Ashtiani, F. et al. Inverse-designed low-index-contrast structures on a silicon photonics platform for vector–matrix multiplication. Nat. Photon. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-024-01394-2

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How can humans protect the Earth from devastating asteroid and comet impacts?

Currently, we depend on early warning by NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar. Located in the desert near Barstow, California, it is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) (also used to explore other planets).

“Next generation RADAR” on Green Bank Telescope

However, to expand on these capabilities, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has developed a new instrument concept called the “next generation RADAR” (ngRADAR) system. It will use the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and other current and future facilities for planetary defense.

Today (Saturday, February 17) scientists will showcase recent results obtained with ground-based radar systems at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference in Denver, Colorado.

The future of space radar

“There are many applications for the future of radar, from substantially advancing our knowledge of the Solar System, to informing future robotic and crewed spaceflight, and characterizing hazardous objects that stray too close to Earth,” says Tony Beasley, NRAO’s director.

Most recently, the GBT helped confirm the success of NASA’s DART mission (also see Mindplex Nuke That Asteroid! Is That A Good Idea?), the first test to see if humans could successfully alter the trajectory of an asteroid, “ says NRAO scientist and ngRADAR project director Patrick Taylor.

“With the support of Raytheon Technologies, ngRADAR pilot tests on the GBT—using a low-power transmitter with less output than a standard microwave oven—have produced the highest-resolution images of the Moon ever taken from Earth. Imagine what we could do with a more powerful transmitter,” he said.

The GBT is the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope. The maneuverability of its 100-meter dish enables it to observe 85 percent of the celestial sphere, allowing it to quickly track objects across its field of view.

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