Attempts to modernize the conceptual framework of brain function and dysfunction are one prerequisite for brain disorders to benefit from precision medicine. For the circuit-based insights that are slowly emerging to benefit patients, though, better targeting methods are needed.

Habituation to repeatedly presented stimuli is a prerequisite to adapting to the environment and is, often, reduced in patients with autism spectrum disorder, which may account for social impairments. However, the brain circuitry, regulators and the molecular mechanisms involved in habituation are poorly understood.

Brain disorders have not yet profited from advances in precision medicine to the same extent that other disorders have. With the advent of magnetic resonance imaging and other technologies, watching the brain at work has made great strides in recent decades. But those data have often been shoehorned into the categories of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Researchers are working to bring diagnostic categories in line with a modern understanding the brain.

Researchers from Monash University in Melbourne have developed a method for determining which genes are "in play" in causing cardiac abnormalities, and the technique not only confirmed well-known congenital heart disease genes, but also discovered 35 new genes not previously suspected in the disease.

An international collaborative study led by Chinese researchers at Wuhan University is the first to have discovered a new small molecule, termed IMA-1, and shown it to be safe and effective for the treatment of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in mouse and macaque models.

Modulation of a single amino acid in the reprogramming factor Kruppel-like factor 4 (KLF4) has been demonstrated to markedly improve natural transcription factor function and to result in faster and more effective reprogramming of somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells.

Immunotherapeutic targeting of stage-specific embryonic antigen-4 has been shown to inhibit pancreatic cancer growth in animal models and cancer cell lines, indicating that this approach has promise for treating pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and possibly other SSEA-4-positive cancers, according to new a Taiwan/U.S. collaborative study.

Australian researchers have developed a new single-cell expressed barcoding strategy termed SPLINTR (Single-cell Profiling and LINeage TRacing), to investigate the key basic nongenetic transcriptional processes underlying malignant clonal fitness in mouse models of leukemia.

Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) was associated with a 35% reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in studies presented at the plenary session of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting on Sunday.

A group of scientists at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital has used separate lines of human induced pluripotent stem cells to create stomach organoids with a three-layered structure and gastric function such as smooth muscle contraction and glandular secretion. The team reported its results in the December 2021, issue of Cell Stem Cell.