A Communicative Intervention to Improve the Psychoemotional State of Critical Care Patients Transported by Ambulance.

Background: Communication is key to understanding the emotional state of critical care patients.

Objective: To analyze the effectiveness of the communicative intervention known as CONECTEM, which incorporates basic communication skills and augmentative alternative communication, in improving pain, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in critical care patients transported by ambulance.

Methods: This study had a quasi-experimental design with intervention and control groups.

Scientists in education: A biomedical research institute's perspective.

The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) is a world-class research center devoted to understanding fundamental questions about human health and disease. In addition to conducting multidisciplinary research of excellence, IRB Barcelona is committed to maintaining an open dialogue with the public about its work, fostering scientific vocations and promoting scientific culture in society. In this regard, the institute has several public engagement and science education initiatives to reach these goals.

Identification of the novel activity-driven interaction between synaptotagmin 1 and presenilin 1 links calcium, synapse, and amyloid beta.

Background: Synaptic loss strongly correlates with memory deterioration. Local accumulation of amyloid β (Aβ) peptide, and neurotoxic Aβ42 in particular, due to abnormal neuronal activity may underlie synaptic dysfunction, neurodegeneration, and memory impairments. To gain an insight into molecular events underlying neuronal activity-regulated Aβ production at the synapse, we explored functional outcomes of the newly discovered calcium-dependent interaction between Alzheimer's disease-associated presenilin 1 (PS1)/γ-secretase and synaptic vesicle proteins.

Oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation are upstream of amyloid pathology.

Oxidative stress is a common feature of the aging process and of many neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. Understanding the direct causative relationship between oxidative stress and amyloid pathology, and determining the underlying molecular mechanisms is crucial for the development of more effective therapeutics for the disease. By employing microdialysis technique, we report local increase in the amyloid-β42 levels and elevated amyloid-β42/40 ratio in the interstitial fluid within 6h of direct infusion of oxidizing agents into the hippocampus of living and awake wild type mice.

The dynamic conformational landscape of gamma-secretase.

The structure and function of the gamma-secretase proteases are of great interest because of their crucial roles in cellular and disease processes. We established a novel purification protocol for the gamma-secretase complex that involves a conformation- and complex-specific nanobody, yielding highly pure and active enzyme. Using single particle electron microscopy, we analyzed the gamma-secretase structure and its conformational variability.