Springer Nature

The question of whether neurogenesis persists in humans and for how long — that is, whether and where humans grow new neurons in their brains, and how long into our lives — is one that has engaged neuroscientists for decades. Some papers showed that humans did retain neurogenesis into adulthood, but the issue has been debated. That debate was reignited just recently with the publication of two new studies. The first one, published in Nature, is titled "Human hippocampal neurogenesis drops sharply in children to undetectable levels in adults." Not long after, a second paper was published in Cell Stem Cell, titled, "Human hipoocampal neurogenesis persists throughout aging." To discuss the seemingly contradictory results of these two papers on Neuropsychopharmacology's BrainPod are Dr. Lisa Monteggia, professor of neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and Dr. Christoph Anacker, assistant professor in clinical neurobiology at Columbia University.

Welcome to the first episode of the newly revamped Heredity podcast! What is the journal Heredity? How conserved is the molecular basis of spider silk? And what effect does the creation of human-made river barriers have on the genetic diversity of low-mobility fish populations? Tune in to hear discussions with the editors behind the journal and the people behind the research in June's edition of Heredity.

Featured articles:

Conservation of a pH-sensitive structure in the C-terminal region of spider silk extends across the entire silk gene family

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-018-0050-9

Artificial barriers prevent genetic recovery of small isolated populations of a low-mobility freshwater fish

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-017-0008-3

A major source of second hand smoke (SHS) exposure in infants is the home. Some parents are aware of this risk and make efforts to minimise the exposure by employing a total ban on smoking in the home. However many families opt for a partial smoking ban, only smoking in certain rooms, at certain times, or at certain distances from the child and practice avoidance behaviours like opening windows.

In order to better understand how parents' smoking behaviours affected SHS exposure in children, Dr Yi Nam Suen from the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and her team developed a questionnaire for non-smoking mothers with young infants, and measured salivary cotinine levels in their infants.

Related article - https://www.nature.com/articles/pr2017279

There are approximately 130,000 infants hospitalised each year in the US due to bronchiolitis. The majority of these cases are caused by either rhinovirus or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Rhinovirus is associated with increased risks of acute and chronic respiratory outcomes compared with RSV, however the underlying mechanisms remain unclear.

In this episode, Kohei Hasegawa from the department of emergency medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses his recent experiment aimed at unravelling the underlying mechanisms between the two viruses' different outcomes by comparing the nasal airway microRNA profiles of infants infected with either virus.

Related article - https://www.nature.com/pr/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/pr2017309a.html

Related article:

Representing a “revolution”: how the popular press has portrayed personalized medicine

https://www.nature.com/articles/gim2017217

Related article -

Hereditary cancer gene panel test reports: wide heterogeneity suggests need for standardization

https://www.nature.com/articles/gim201823

There's a technology that's proven to be increasingly useful in the past decade — it's called DREADD, or "designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs." The current approach is to create a designer receptor that is unlocked by the drug, clozapine-n-oxide, or CNO. Researchers have used it to study the function of populations of neurons or of particular pathways in the brains in rodents, by using the DREADD technique to turn on and off these neurons or pathways. However, last year, a paper published in the journal Science called the use of DREADDs into question. Some people interpreted the paper as an overall indictment of the DREADD technology, though this wasn't the original intent of the authors. Listen to Neuropsychopharmacology's latest podcast to learn more!

Article link:

https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2017299

Over the past twenty years, new sciences have developed around the delivery of high quality, safe healthcare, and Pediatric Research has recognized these developments with the creation of a new section dedicated to research in these areas. In this episode, we discuss the Quality and Patient Safety section with newly-appointed editor, Peter Lachman.

Related article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/pr2017282

Related articles:

CLAPO syndrome: identification of somatic activating PIK3CA mutations and delineation of the natural history and phenotype

https://www.nature.com/articles/gim2017200

Mosaic disorders and the Taxonomy of Human Disease

https://www.nature.com/articles/gim2017213

Relating to article:

Cherchez la femme: maternal incidental findings can explain discordant prenatal cell-free DNA sequencing results

https://www.nature.com/articles/gim2017219