Publications by authors named "M Springer"

Nutrient sensors allow cells to adapt their metabolisms to match nutrient availability by regulating metabolic pathway expression. Many such sensors are cytosolic receptors that measure intracellular nutrient concentrations. One might expect that inducing the metabolic pathway that degrades a nutrient would reduce intracellular nutrient levels, destabilizing induction.

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Background And Objective: Overweight and obesity affects millions of individuals worldwide and consequently represents a major public health concern. Individuals living with overweight and obesity have difficulty maintaining a low body weight due to known physiological mechanisms which prevent further weight loss and drive weight regain. In contrast, mechanisms which promote low body weight maintenance receive less attention and are largely unknown.

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Early life stress (ELS) can negatively impact health, increasing the risk of stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Importantly, PTSD disproportionately affects women, emphasizing the critical need to explore how sex differences influence the genetic and metabolic neurobiological pathways underlying trauma-related behaviors. This study uses the limited bedding and nesting (LBN) paradigm to model ELS and investigate its sex-specific effects on fear memory formation.

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Article Synopsis
  • Households are key locations for the spread of SARS-CoV-2, yet there's limited understanding of how the virus transmits, especially with different variants and prior immunity.
  • A study in the Boston area from March to July 2022 tracked 33 households, revealing that 58% of them reported a secondary case of COVID-19, with a secondary attack rate (SAR) of 39%.
  • Results showed that household contacts are at significant risk of infection within two weeks of exposure, influenced not only by the original infected person but also by higher community transmission rates.
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Article Synopsis
  • The co-chaperone FKBP51, linked to the FKBP5 gene, is a significant psychiatric risk factor for anxiety and depression, particularly affecting the stress response.
  • Corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) is also important in regulating stress, and both FKBP51 and CRH work together to influence the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.
  • Research shows that mice lacking FKBP51 in CRH-expressing neurons display increased stress effects, emphasizing the need for specific research on different cell types to develop personalized approaches for improving stress resilience and mental health.
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