Spatiotemporal profile of altered neural reactivity to food images in obesity: Reward system is altered automatically and predicts efficacy of weight loss intervention.

Introduction: Obesity presents a significant public health problem. Brain plays a central role in etiology and maintenance of obesity. Prior neuroimaging studies have found that individuals with obesity exhibit altered neural responses to images of food within the brain reward system and related brain networks.

Similarities between the effect of SARS-CoV-2 and HCV on the cellular level, and the possible role of ion channels in COVID19 progression: a review of potential targets for diagnosis and treatment.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has prompted an urgent need to identify effective medicines for the prevention and treatment of the disease. A comparative analysis between SARS-CoV-2 and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) can expand the available knowledge regarding the virology and potential drug targets against these viruses. Interestingly, comparing HCV with SARS-CoV-2 reveals major similarities between them, ranging from the ion channels that are utilized, to the symptoms that are exhibited by patients.

The expression of SMN1, MART3, GLE1 and FUS genes in spinal muscular atrophy.

Introduction: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is one of the most common genetic causes of death in infants due to a mutation of the motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene. The SMN1 gene encodes for the multifunctional SMN protein. SMN has been shown to be implicated in pre-mRNA splicing, mRNA transport and translational control.

Oxidative Glial Cell Damage Associated with White Matter Lesions in the Aging Human Brain.

White matter lesions (WML) are common in brain aging and are associated with dementia. We aimed to investigate whether oxidative DNA damage and occur in WML and in apparently normal white matter in cases with lesions. Tissue from WML and control white matter from brains with lesions (controls lesional) and without lesions (controls non-lesional) were obtained, using post-mortem magnetic resonance imaging-guided sampling, from the Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study.