Astrocytes, once viewed mainly as support cells in the brain, are now emerging as central regulators of mood disorders. Recent review highlights how astrocyte subtype changes influence neuroinflammation, synaptic signaling, metabolism, and blood–brain barrier stability in depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. The researchers describe how inflammatory pathways, ion channels, and glial interactions shape astrocyte behavior and highlight astrocyte-targeted therapies as promising future strategies for preventing neurodegeneration, restoring neural plasticity, and improving long-term psychiatric outcomes.

A classic Chinese herbal formula has been found to be significantly effective in treating myeloproliferative neoplasms, and its mechanism of action has been shown to involve promoting aging and inhibiting inflammation.

A preclinical study published in Translational Exercise Biomedicine (ISSN: 2942-6812), an official partner journal of International Federation of Sports Medicine (FIMS), provides the first comprehensive map of how skeletal muscle adapts in the weeks and months following hemorrhagic stroke, revealing that different muscles remodel on different timelines (DOI: 10.1515/teb20260008). The findings suggest that rehabilitation programs may need to be timed to specific post-stroke windows to effectively leverage the muscle's natural plasticity for functional recovery.

CHANGWON, South Korea — Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), led by President Chul-jin Choi, announced that a research team led by Minyoung Lee and Sunggyu Park of the Bio & Health Materials Research Division has developed a plasmonic-based liquid biopsy platform capable of ultrasensitive detection of KRAS mutations in the blood and urine of patients with early-stage colorectal cancer. By analyzing matched tumor tissue, plasma, and urine samples from patients with Stage 0 and Stage I colorectal cancer, the researchers demonstrated over 90% concordance in KRAS mutation status across the three specimen types, supporting the platform's potential as a non-invasive precision cancer diagnostic technology.