Skip to main content

Home/ Honors Scientific Research 2023-2024/ Group items tagged driving

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Sean Nash

Race car drivers tend to blink at the same places in each lap - 4 views

  • The world goes dark for about one-fifth of a second every time you blink, a fraction of an instant that’s hardly noticeable to most people. But for a Formula One race car driver traveling up to 354 kilometers per hour, that one-fifth means almost 20 meters of lost vision
  • People are often thought to blink at random intervals, but researchers found that wasn’t the case for three Formula drivers.
  • the drivers tended to blink at the same parts of the course during each lap, cognitive neuroscientist Ryota Nishizono and colleagues report in the May 19 iScience
    • Sean Nash
       
      Interesting. So, do we do the same thing while driving around town? Could you design a method to record eye blinks as people drive known routes around town? We could simultaneously use the Arduino Science Journal app on the iPhone to also correlate physical data in a moving car like acceleration/deceleration, motion in X, Y, Z directions, etc. I wonder if we could find a correlation in everyday driving that could help from a safety perspective?
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • He was surprised to find almost no literature on blinking behavior in active humans even though under extreme conditions like motor racing or cycling
    • Sean Nash
       
      OK, now this SCREAMS: "potential research idea."
  • Nishizono and colleagues mounted eye trackers on the helmets of three drivers and had them drive three Formula circuits
  • Where the drivers blinked was surprisingly predictable, the team found. The drivers had a shared pattern of blinking that had a strong connection with acceleration, such that drivers tended not to blink while changing speed or direction — like while on a curve in the track — but did blink while on relatively safer straightaways.
    • Sean Nash
       
      What sort of implications does this have for driving in key, known, busy interchanges in KC? Could we potentially provide data to show certain stretches of highway need more signage, etc? That could have civil engineering implications.
  • “We think of blinking as this nothing behavior,” he says, “but it’s not just wiping the eyes. Blinking is a part of our visual system.”
  • Nishizono next wants to explore what processes in the brain allow or inhibit blinking in a given moment, he says, and is also interested in how blinking behavior varies among the general population.
    • Sean Nash
       
      While the "brain" part might move beyond our feasibility, the potential of finding real correlations to driving patterns or routes is a completely different spin-off and one that could have really practical suggestive applications for city planners, etc.
katherine-medina

IJMS | Free Full-Text | Antioxidant Versus Pro-Apoptotic Effects of Mushroom-Enriched D... - 0 views

  • In addition, the gut microbiota has also been described to be modulated by mushroom bioactive molecules, with implications in reducing liver inflammation during NAFLD progression.
  • non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)
    • katherine-medina
       
      I like the abbreviation
  • NASH is currently the third most common indication for liver transplantation in the United States and accounts for 10% of all HCC cases in Europe
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • The increase in nutrient availability causes systemic metabolic alterations that lead to an increase in hepatic mitochondrial respiration as well as changes in the mitochondrial lipid membrane composition.
  • They are also rich in phenolic acids, such as hydroxybenzoic and hydroxycinnamic acid, flavonoids, tocopherols, ascorbic acid and carotenoids that are known for their antioxidant activity
    • katherine-medina
       
      They are high in polyphenols, just like I had thought, I do wonder if they have tried to single out a certain flavonoid or stilbene in order to determine whether or not it was the mechanism that caused the positive reaction.
  • Of note, indeed NAFLD patients present a “metabolic inflexibility”, that is, a reduced capacity to switch back from
    • katherine-medina
       
      I did not know that
  • The increased levels of β-oxidation seem to result in an increase in citrate within the mitochondrial matrix that can be transported to the cytosol via the citrate-malate shuttle and converted to acetyl-CoA and oxaloacetate by the enzyme ATP-citrate lyase [90,106]. Indeed, NAFLD patients present increased citrate levels in plasma
  • An alternative explanation for the deficient mitochondrial respiration might be the alterations in the mitochondria lipid composition, which are already present in steatosis.
  • As defined by mitohormesis, ROS production is physiological at low levels, acting as a crucial effector in proliferation, expression of antioxidant enzymes and insulin signalling. However, high levels of ROS formation causes oxidative stress and cell damage by reacting with its different components [90,114,115]. Oxidative stress occurs when the antioxidant capacity of the cell is not sufficient to neutralize the overproduction of ROS. ROS generation causes the peroxidation of phospholipids and cardiolipin at the mitochondrial membrane
  • All these mechanisms seem to be involved in the progression from NAFL to NASH. Indeed, NASH patients present increased ROS production, DNA damage, as measured by 8-Oxo-2’-deoxyguanosine (8OHdG) levels, and hepatic lipid peroxidation coupled with decreased expression of ETC Com
    • katherine-medina
       
      So essentially NASH patients have a higher level of ROS which damages their DNA. increase of ROS = DNA damage
  • In parallel, the negative regulation on the inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs) mediated by the translocation of a series of IAP antagonists such as Smac, HTRA2/Omi and apoptosis-related protein in the TGF-ß signalling pathway (ARTS) to the cytosol, results in the release and activation of caspases
  • Aiming at weight loss, calorie-restricted diets and regular physical activity can improve hepatic mitochondria dysfunction by decreasing FFA liver input and alleviating oxidative stress.
  • New therapies need to be developed to target NAFLD and NASH,
    • katherine-medina
       
      Are there any new therapies to treat NASH and NAFLD
  • showed lipid metabolism-modulating properties in the liver
  • This may lead to a decrease in lipogenesis and a concomitant increase in β-oxidation that could explain the reduction in IHTG content [203]. Similarly, the supplementation with a 1% aqueous extract of A. cinnamomea for 8 weeks reduced the expression of leptin and increased the expression of adiponectin, which was accompanied by an increase of AMPK and PGC-1α and a reduced expression of ACC, FAS and SREBP
  • IHTG content that was similar to the positive control group, treated with rosiglitazone, a PPAR-agonist antidiabetic drug
    • katherine-medina
       
      Interesting, I wonder if there is more that can be done with this extract with these types of effects.
  • herefore, these studies suggest a pivotal capacity of mushroom extracts to counteract the detrimental oxidative damage of mitochondria in NAFLD.
  • which seems to exacerbate NASH. H2O2 over-production may open the mPTP, while its transmembrane diffusion to the cytoplasm may even result in highly detrimental OH• formation. [93,131,132]. In contrast, the capacity of mushroom extracts from species such as Pleurotus ostreatus (Jacq.) P. Kumm. (oyster mushroom) or G. lucidum to elevate the entire antioxidant defence system of hepatocytes, seems a more promising therapeutic effect against the oxidative stress in NASH.
  • . Such evidence further supports the potential of G. lucidum extracts in reversing mitochondrial dysfunction in NAFLD.
  • In this line of research, novel therapies aim to target apoptosis via mitochondria, using molecules that mimic BH3 proteins and disrupt the interactions of pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic proteins.
  • Both aqueous and ethanol extracts, or isolated compounds (GL22 from Ganoderma leucocontextum T.H Li, W.Q. Deng, Dong M. Wang & H.P. Hu) increased the pro-apoptotic Bax to anti-apoptotic Bcl-2/Bcl-xL ratio
  • The antitumorigenic effects of mushroom extracts and isolated compounds have also been demonstrated in in-vivo xenograft models, resulting in tumour size reduction and increased animal survival rates (Table 2). Furthermore, in the HCC Huh7 xenograft mice model, fatty acid binding proteins
  • Therefore, the mechanisms by which mushroom extracts or isolated compounds induce mitochondrial-related apoptosis pathways are diverse and may be related with specific bioactive compounds. Modulation of pathways crucial for cell survival and alterations in lipid homeostasis seem to be related with the pro-apoptotic effects observed in HCC cell lines and in in-vivo xenograft models.
    • katherine-medina
       
      Cool
  • To sum up, mitochondria play a central role in the pathophysiology and progression of NAFLD as well as in the development of HCC, which can be a late-stage consequence of NASH. Hepatic mitochondria undergo bioenergetic remodelling to face the metabolic burden imposed by the increased FFAs load secondary to systemic IR. In turn, a decompensation of these processes may result in ROS formation and mitochondrial dysfunction, contributing to the development of NASH. Lastly, hepatic mitochondria also seem to be involved in anti-apoptotic oncogenic processes driving HCC. Targeting mitochondrial dysfunction is thus a promising approach for the treatment of the NAFLD continuum. The following section describes some of the in-vitro and in-vivo studies on the beneficial effects of mushroom-enriched diets or mushroom-derived compounds/extracts (Box 2) in preventing/reverting such liver damage.
  • This distinct property of mushroom-based therapy or -containing diet is especially relevant in the multifactorial context of NAFLD and especially NASH, where systemic synergistic metabolic alterations need to be addressed.
  •  
    An article detailing a bit of the effects that mushrooms can have on the liver's mitochondrial cells.
1 - 3 of 3
Showing 20 items per page