Adolescent athletes’ cardiovascular system may adapt to increased cardiorespiratory fitness by increasing blood pressure, arterial stiffness and heart growth, a new study shows. The study was conducted in collaboration between the Technical University of Munich and the University of Eastern Finland, and the results were published in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

Long COVID is a chronic condition that causes cognitive problems known as “brain fog,” but its biological mechanisms remain largely unclear. Now, researchers from Japan used a novel imaging technique to visualize AMPA receptors—key molecules for memory and learning—in the living brain. They discovered that higher AMPA receptor density in patients with Long COVID was closely tied to the severity of their symptoms, highlighting these molecules as potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets.

The brains of beached bottlenose dolphins in Indian River Lagoon, Florida, show the presence of both cyanobacterial toxins and Alzheimer's-like neuropathology. The concentration of the cyanobacterial toxin 2,4-DAB is 2,900 times greater during cyanobacterial bloom season than other times of the year. During blooms, 536 different genes associated with Alzheimer's are expressed in the dolphin brains. Since dolphins are sentinels for marine toxic exposures, there may be implications of this discovery for human health.

People who have a cardiac arrest in their own homes have similar neurological outcomes regardless of socioeconomic background, according to research presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress. However, the study of 676 patients who received treatment in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna suggested that those who lived in lower-income areas may be less likely to receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) from bystanders compared to people suffering a cardiac arrest (when the heart stops pumping blood around the body) in higher-income areas – a finding that the researchers say requires further studies to see whether it is a real effect.