This month’s “Insights” & Outcomes” throws its gaze at every corner of the scientific community where Yale conducts basic science research that could lead to dramatic and practical applications in the coming years.
Items are found in the inner workings of nanowires, photosynthesis, and Tourette’s disorder. It also includes topics relating to the use of artificial intelligence in scientific writing, efforts to expand the availability of cardiac imaging, and research into the brain’s response to specific sounds.
As always, you can find more science and medical research news on Yale News’ science & Technology and health & Medicine page.
Nanowires – Some assembly required
Almost all living things breathe oxygen to remove excess electrons when converting nutrients into energy. However, without access to oxygen, soil bacteria that live deep in the ocean for billions of years or are buried underground for billions of years have developed ways to eliminate electrons through small protein filaments called nanowires through snorkeling-like “respiratory minerals.”
In previous research, a team led by Nikyl Malvankar, an associate professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at the Yale Institute of Microbiology, showed that nanowires consist of chains of heme molecules, like hemoglobin in our blood, and move into the environment to move into the environment. However, up until now, no one has explained how individual bacteria made nanowires.
A new study by researchers at Malvankar Lab identifies unique genetic groups that can help assemble nanowires. The team led by Lab Member Cong Shen systematically analyzed the roles of the key proteins that make up the Nanowire Assembly Machinery and identified a single machine responsible for creating the wire. By changing the amount of critical proteins in the machine, the team has made the bacteria produce more nanowires and breathe faster.
Findings published in the journal Cell Chemical Biology illustrate important next steps to understand the potential applications of bacterial nanowires in bioenergy, bioremediation and bioelectronics to sense environmental pollutants and mitigate climate change.
Other authors are along with lab members Aldo Salazar-Morales, Joey Erwin, Yangqi Gu, Anthony Coelho, Sibel Ebru Yalcin and Fadel Samatey, as well as Yale collaborators Kallol Gupta and Wonhyeuk Jung.
Selective hearing
It sounds like you’re consciously aware that it affects your brain, and unlike sounds you don’t, a recent Yale study discovered.
In this study, the researchers played a series of tones to participants – ranging from undetectable to fully audible, exceeding the background of white noise. Participants were also patients undergoing seizure monitoring and therefore had electrodes implanted on the surface of the brain, allowing researchers to record detailed brain activity while participants were listening to the tone.
“When sound is consciously perceived, we found that there is a wave of activity flowing through a wide range of areas of the brain,” said Hal Blumenfeld, professor of neurology at Yale School of Medicine, Mark Luffridge and Michele Williams, and senior author of the study published in Neuroimage. “However, when the same sound was not consciously recognized, brain activity was confined to small areas around the auditory cortex.”
This activity is similar to that observed in visual perception, suggesting that there is a shared neural mechanism between the two systems. The findings advance researchers’ understanding of what happens in the brain during sensory perception, shedding light on the neurological foundations of human consciousness.
ai – Summary judgment
As researchers in the field continue to explore the potential benefits and applications of artificial intelligenceai), Yale physicist Chiara MF Mingarelli recently tested the use of ai In scientific writing, I found both the pros and cons.
While attending a two-week meeting on the background of gravitational waves and discovering its large amplitude, Mingarelli, assistant professor of physics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (fas) I decided to use it ai Create a summary of the meeting. She uploaded her meeting transcript to an ai We reviewed new summary iterations of the platform and colleagues.
Mingarelli said that with each new iteration the summary has become more detailed. But the flaw was “glare,” she pointed out. Sometimes, complex arguments were misinterpreted and lacked consistency and depth.
“At best, this document resembles an unwritten conference procedure,” Mingarelli wrote in an op-ed describing his experiences in journal Nature and Astronomy. “In the worst case, the tabloid version of our meeting.”
Differences in cells in Tourette patients
The biological roots of Tourette’s disorder occur in the basal ganglia and are structured deep within the brain that is involved in controlling movement. However, the role of individual cells in triggering involuntary body and vocal tics that characterize disorders is poorly understood.
The new single-cell analysis, led by researchers at Yale University School of Medicine and Mayo Clinic, is published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, which involves several potential causes related to disability disorders, affecting as many as 150 children.
The team led by corresponding author Flora Vaccarino, Professor Harris of the Yale Children’s Research Center and Professor of Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine, analyzed basal ganglia from six individuals comparing severe cells from six individuals without disabilities.
They found that there were 50% fewer interneurons in the group with Tourette’s disorder. These interneurons are brain cells that suppress electrical activity within the basal ganglia to accurately regulate movement, and may explain motor hyperactivity in Tourette patients.
The researchers also found that moderately thorny neurons (brain cells that make up 90% of the cells in the basal ganglia) exhibit signs of metabolic stress in people with Tourette’s disorder. Finally, we observed that a type of immune system cell known as microglia showed increased inflammatory activity in basal ganglion tissues in impaired patients. They found that this inflammatory response was directly correlated with metabolic stress in moderately thorny neurons.
“These factors create patterns that may explain why people with Tourette’s disorder experience involuntary movements and vocalizations,” Vaccarino said.
Vaccalino also noted that the differences in these cells in Tourette patients appear to be caused by changes in gene expression rather than changes in genes themselves.
“This insight opens up new directions for future research,” she said.
E-Fun Wang at Mayo Clinic and Liana Fassing at Yale Children’s Research Center are the lead authors of this study.
With a heartbeat
Imaging is an important tool for assessing heart health and strength. In two recent studies, Yale researchers explored ways to bring important imaging to more people and how to expand its application.
First, researchers and collaborators at Yale University at the National Institutes of Health assessed whether it was a lower, more affordable type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) Scanners can be used effectively for cardiovascular imaging. The strength of MRI Magnets are measured with Teslas
