Lifeboat Foundation

A new study by researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) reveals the areas of the brain where the meanings of words are retrieved from memory and processed during language comprehension. Previous neuroimaging studies had indicated that large portions of the temporal, parietal, and frontal lobes participate in processing language meaning, but it was unknown which regions encoded information about individual word meanings.

“We found that word meaning information was represented in several high-level cortical areas (i.e., areas that are not closely connected to primary sensory or motor areas), including the classical ‘language areas’ known as Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area,” said Dr. Leonardo Fernandino, assistant professor of neurology and biomedical engineering at MCW. “Interestingly, however, some regions not previously considered as important for language processing were among those containing the most information about word meaning.”

Additionally, they also investigated whether the neural representations of word meaning in each of these areas contained information about phenomenological experience (i.e., related to different kinds of perceptual, emotional, and action-related experiences), as several researchers had previously proposed, or whether they contained primarily information about conceptual categories (i.e., natural kinds) or about word co-occurrence statistics, as other researchers have theorized.

A 2023 Review in Science Translational Medicine looks at the complex connections between astrocytes and other types of cells in the nervous system, including neurons, oligodendrocytes, and microglia.

We work to restore quality of life to those with debilitating conditions for which there are no treatment options.

The drug lorlatinib (Lorbrena) is superior to crizotinib (Xalkori) as an initial treatment for people with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has changes in the ALK gene, according to new results from a global clinical trial.

The findings are the latest from the CROWN study. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either lorlatinib or crizotinib as a treatment for advanced lung tumors with ALK gene mutations, a disease called ALK-positive lung cancer.

Several years ago, study investigators reported that participants who received lorlatinib went longer without the disease worsening, known as progression-free survival, than those who received crizotinib.

NYU Langone performs the world’s first fully robotic double lung transplant, marking a breakthrough in minimally invasive surgical care.

Researchers found that methamphetamine and PCP cause a phenomenon known as neurotransmitter switching, impairing memory. This change is reversible, pointing to potential treatments for drug-induced cognitive deficits and related neuropsychiatric conditions.

Stem cells are special in the way they can keep on replicating, and turn themselves into many other types of cell. Now scientists have discovered how their superpowers get a remarkable boost when they’re grown in space.

The microgravity environment increases some of the regenerative capacities of stem cells even further, researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Florida have found, based on experiments carried out on the International Space Station (ISS).

As stem cells play such a crucial role in the body’s repair process, with their ability to quickly replicate and differentiate, these findings could help in the study of disease prevention and treatment.

Lykke Sylow, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, presents at the 11th Aging Research and Drug Discovery meeting: Preserving muscle mass for healthy aging: Old tricks and new targets.