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Physiology

Researchers decipher critical features of a protein behind ALS – American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The Sigma-1 receptor (S1R) is a transmembrane protein with important roles in stabilizing cellular functions in both normal physiology and disease. Especially in neurodegenerative diseases, S1R's activity has been shown to provide neuronal protection by stabilizing the cell environment (based on the movement of calcium ions), improving mitochondrial function and reducing a damaging cellular stress caused by the diseases, called endoplasmic reticulumstress. Drugs are now being developed to try to boost these cell protective S1R activities in several diseases.

S1R missense mutations are one of the causes of distal hereditary motor neuronopathies and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrigs disease). ALS is the ailment that afflicted renown late physicist Stephen Hawking. Yet, even though S1R has been studied intensively, basic aspects remained controversial, such as S1R topology and whether it reaches the cell membrane.

A new study led by Tel-Aviv University researcher Gerardo Lederkremer from the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research and Sagol School of Neuroscience, together with Nir Ben Tal from the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry and Biophysics, and students in their labs, sheds light on some of these important questions. The study was recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Proteins, much like a bipolar magnet, have two ends carboxy (-COOH group) and amino (-NH2 group)," said Lederkremer. "In one trial, we tagged the carboxy end (C-terminal tagging) and found that the protein is set in a specific orientation on internal membranes of the cell, where the amino end faces the cytoplasm. In another approach, we tagged the amino end and found equal probability for both possible orientations.

These findings provide an explanation for current contradictions in the literature regarding the favored orientation, as the tagging itself affects the receptors topology an act of observation which affects the observed system.Therefore, saidLederkremer, we applied other approaches, called protease protection assayand glycosylation mapping, which showed incontrovertibly that S1R assembles so that the amino end faces the cytoplasm. Moreover, using additional approaches we found that the receptor is retained in the ER and hardly exits to the cell surface. This finding explains how the S1R functions in the ER and reduces the pathogenic ER stress.

Lederkremer said he is optimistic about the new findings: Having deciphered a crucial mechanism in the receptor's function, we have no doubt that our new findings can affect therapeutic approaches based on S1R, and hopefully alleviate the suffering of neurodegenerative patients, especially those with ALS. In this field every small step is a significant advance.

This article was reprinted with permission from Tel Aviv University. Read the original.

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Researchers decipher critical features of a protein behind ALS - American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Physiology

Swedish Researchers Publish High-resolution Single-cell Transcriptomic Map of Human Tissues in Findings That May Advance Diagnostics and Medical…

Teams from multiple Swedish organizations are investigating the relationship of protein-coding genes to antibodies

Scientists in Sweden are discovering new ways to map the expression of genes in cells, tissues, and organs within the human body thanks to advances in molecular profiling. Their study has successfully combined the analysis of single-cell transcriptomics with spatial antibody-based protein profiling to produce a high-resolution, single-cell mapping of human tissues.

The data links protein-coding genes to antibodies, which could help researchers develop clinical laboratory tests that use specific antibodies to identify and target infectious disease. Might this also lead to a new menu of serology tests that could be used by medical laboratories?

This research is another example of how various databases of genetic and proteomic informationdifferent omicsare being combined to produce new understanding of human biology and physiology.

Scientists from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Uppsala University, Karolinska Institute, and the Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden, the Arctic University of Norway, and other institutions, used both RNA sequencing and antibody-based profiling to formulate a publicly-available map of 192 human cell types.

The researchers published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, titled, A SingleCell Type Transcriptomics Map of Human Tissues. They wrote, the marked improvements in massive parallel sequencing coupled with single-cell sample preparations and data deconvolution have allowed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-Seq) to become a powerful approach to characterize the gene expression profile in single cells.

In a Human Protein Atlas (HPA) project press release, Director of the HPA consortium and Professor of Microbiology at Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Mathias Uhln, PhD, said, The [Science Advances] paper describes an important addition to the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) which has become one of the worlds most visited biological databases, harboring millions of web pages with information about all the human protein coding genes.

Distinct Expression Clusters Consistent to Similar Cell Types

To perform their research, the scientists mapped the gene expression profile of all protein-coding genes across different cell types. Their analysis showed that there are distinct expression clusters which are consistent to cell types sharing similar functions within the same organs and between organs of the human body.

The scientists examined data from non-diseased human tissues and organs using three main criteria:

According to the HPA press release, across all analyzed cell types, almost 14,000 genes showed an elevated expression in particular cell types, out of which approximately 2,000 genes were found to be specific for only one of the cell types.

The press release also states, cell types in testis showed the highest numbers of cell type elevated genes, followed by ciliated cells. Interestingly, only 11% of the genes were detected in all analyzed cell types suggesting that the number of essential genes (house-keeping) are surprisingly few.

Omics-based Biomarkers for Accurate Diagnosis of Disease

The goal of this venture is to map all the human proteins in cells, tissues, and organs through various omics technologies. As Dark Daily wrote in Spatial Transcriptomics Provide a New and Innovative Way to Analyze Tissue Biology, May Have Value in Surgical Pathology, omics have the potential to deliver biomarkers which can be used for earlier and more accurate diagnoses of diseases and health conditions. Omics, such as genomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, and transcriptomics, are taking greater roles in precision medicine diagnostics as well.

The Human Protein Atlas is the largest and most comprehensive database for spatial distribution of proteins in human tissues and cells. It provides a valuable tool for researchers who study and analyze protein localization and expression in human tissues and cells.

Ongoing improvements in gene sequencing technologies are making research of genes more accurate, faster, and more economical. Advances in gene sequencing also could help medical professionals discover more personalized care for patients leading to improved outcomes. A key goal of precision medicine.

One of the conclusions to be drawn from this work is that clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups will need to be able to handle immense amounts of data, while at the same time having the capabilities to analyze that data and identify useful patterns that can help diagnose patients earlier and more accurately.

It is another example of how and why those medical laboratories that succeed going forward will have robust laboratory information management systems (LIMS). Forward-looking lab leaders may want to make larger investments in their labs health information technology (HIT).

JP Schlingman

Related Information:

A Single Cell Type Map of Human Tissues

A Single-cell Type Transcriptomics Map of Human Tissues

The Human Protein Atlas Press Release A Single Cell Type Map of Human Tissues

The Human Protein Atlas: A Spatial Map of the Human Proteome

Spatial Transcriptomics Provide a New and Innovative Way to Analyze Tissue Biology, May Have Value in Surgical Pathology

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Swedish Researchers Publish High-resolution Single-cell Transcriptomic Map of Human Tissues in Findings That May Advance Diagnostics and Medical...

Physiology

Opening markets and mindsets: What to expect from Indias femtech sector in 2022 and beyond – YourStory

Although healthcare has evolved, it has remained largely biased towards men, with most solutions and diagnosis designed for the standard male body.

In Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, author Caroline Criado Perez highlights how the healthcare system does not account for the differences in womens physiology, cells, and hormones. It is not surprising then that women are more likely to be misdiagnosed than men.

A new crop of entrepreneurs is addressing these blindspots by leveraging technology infrastructure to cater to womens health and wellness needs.

Notably, for most entrepreneurs, working on a femtech startup remains a personal journey more than a commercial pursuit even as it caters to crores of women who make up nearly half of Indias population.

Pioneers like Geetha Manjunath began exploring and innovating artificial intelligence (AI)-based, radiation-free breast cancer screening solutions when two of her close family members discovered they had breast cancer and eventually lost their lives to the disease. Founder and CEO of Bengaluru-based Niramai, she now holds over 17 patents for innovative tech solutions.

Vikas Bagaria, Founder and CEO, Pee Safestarted the women's hygiene and wellness brand with his wife Srijana when she was once diagnosed with UTI, possibly from using public toilets.

With more and more entrepreneurs solving women's health and wellness problems, Herstory caught up with entrepreneurs and investors in the space to uncover trends that will shape the growth of femtech.

Geetha emphasises that entrepreneurs embark on their journey in the healthtech, especially femtech space, if they truly feel for the problem.

But there is nothing like a bankable innovation to win over investors. While not every investors said yes to Niramai in its initial days, the considerable interest they secured was mainly because there was innovation in the way we were solving it (breast cancer diagnosis).

Surabhi Purwar, Senior Investment Associate at Titan Capital says not only are there few startups in the space but innovation has been far and few in between and a lot can be done femtech sector.

Women are also not very comfortable with their (often judgemental) gynaecologist and need someone trustworthy and comfortable to open up and that is where we feel femtech startups can fill a gap, says Surabhi.

Rachana Gupta had pitched Gynovedas idea of combining Ayurveda and technology to solve womens wellness problems to about 25 to 30 investors including institutional investors, family offices, and HNIs in India and US between June and October 2019.

The general feeling was of very high excitement towards femtech as a space, she says. The entrepreneur believes success stories in the west like those of New York-based Maven, the worlds first femtech unicorn is further fuelling the enthusiasm among the investor community in India as well.

Titan Capital which has funded two femtech startups says they are bullish on the sector.

YourStory data reveals that funding in the femtech sector is increasing, but at a slow pace: there have been a total of 40 funding deals amounting $98 million in the last seven years. The year 2021 saw the highest number of funding deals so far, pegged at 11.

A male-dominated investor community that would not be able to understand products for females is often considered a roadblock. However, Geetha says investors are putting in the effort.

At the end of the day, Geetha affirms investors are happy to support as long as there is good market potential, innovative product idea, and the passion to solve a real problem.

Running a Series A-funded startup, Vikas emphasises now is the right time to invest in the sector because markets and mindsets are opening up and people are getting bolder.

Surabhi has observed more and more startups taking up one chronic disease common among women and building a range of products and services around that.

Weve been actually seeing this trend recently where startups are trying to take one chronic disease at a time and then going full-stack in that, Surabhi says.

Aarti Gill, co-founder of Oziva believes the focus will be especially on preventive healthcare in the coming years. However, the femtech startups will have to educate the customers and solutions need to be customised to individual needs.

With increasing innovation, Vikas says female hygiene and wellness is no longer just restricted to sanitary pads. He credits the Gen Z and millennial population between the ages of 18 and 35 who are more of explorers and researchers and do not shy away from trying out brands and products that are new or leave behind unlike their parents generation.

Not just as consumers but Gen Z and millennial content creators and influencers are comfortably tackling the taboo surrounding womens health on social media which directly impacts how femtech offerings are received. For them, the age of skirting around topics like menstruation, period pain and products, and other womens hygiene concerns is gone.

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Opening markets and mindsets: What to expect from Indias femtech sector in 2022 and beyond - YourStory

Physiology

The body has its own traffic light system, and it’s been stuck on red for too long – The Spinoff

Our in-built survival mode is designed to switch on in times of crisis, but its not helpful or sustainable to live in a heightened state of alert for a long time. Heres how to use your body and mind to return to the green zone.

You wake inside a burning house. This is not a dream or a movie. Your house is on fire. Before you know it, you roll to the floor to escape smoke, shout to wake everyone, crawl to your children, haul them into your arms, run for the best escape route, and get to the street in seconds. Your heart is pounding, youre breathing fast, but youre safe. Youve never done this before and youre surprised at your own speed and strength. Welcome to the red zone.

Everyone is alive and safe. Understandably, you remain on high alert for a while after the house fire. You notice that you jump easily, you worry about the future, its hard to concentrate, youre not laughing much, and little challenges frustrate you. You feel tense. This is the orange zone. Your body is recovering from the red zone activation and starting to return to a calm state.

Insurance paid out quickly, youre in a new house and your family is back at work and school. Youre grateful. Life returns to normal and feels easy. Theres a pervading sense of contentment. Theres very little that rattles you. Challenges are tackled with enthusiasm. You make decisions in a split second. You see the humour in everyday things. You feel relaxed and healthy. Wouldnt it be great to live like this? Well yes, because this is the green zone that were designed to be in most of the time.

Red, orange, green this is the traffic light system of the body. Its run by the nervous system a network of over 80 billion neurons that receives information from the outside world, communicates with the brain to decide what to do, and transmits messages to glands, organs and muscles that need to take action. When our senses see, hear, and smell the house fire, electrochemical signals travel through the nervous system at speeds of up to 360km per hour so that within seconds weve transformed from a relaxed, sleeping human to an alert, strong, fast machine.

This is an impressive ability. Our whole physiology flips to optimise our chances of survival. Stress hormones are released, leading to increased heart rate, breathing pace, thickening of the blood to prepare for injury, greater availability of glucose to fuel our muscles, and sharper vision and hearing. We cannot remain in this fight or flight mode indefinitely. Once the threat is over, we need to return to the green zone because thats the only state in which we can sleep soundly, digest properly, reproduce, fight disease, repair damage and think deeply. Extended time in the red or orange zones ultimately leads to exhaustion, poor health and disease.

If only a pandemic were as simple as a house fire which, although devastating, requires only a short time in the red zone, a transition time in orange, and back to living in the green zone. But no, keeping humanity safe from Covid-19 is proving to be a drawn-out, unpredictable process. The loss of life, sickness, isolation, restrictions, and substantial changes to lives and livelihoods are more than enough to put us into orange or red. It is seriously challenging to deal with. But from a physiological perspective, it is not helpful or sustainable to live in a heightened state of alert for a long time. A little adrenaline is great for motivating us to prepare, get vaccinated and pivot quickly to change routines, look after others, or save our businesses, but we do not need to be in full-blown attack or run-in-fear mode. It is simply not healthy.

With the introduction of the traffic light system for managing Covid-19 in Aotearoa, the opening of Aucklands border, and the arrival of the omicron strain, there is more uncertainty on the way. If this is a daunting prospect, its worth remembering to look after the traffic light system we have a little more control over.

From another time of crisis comes the wisdom that humans can influence our internal settings regardless of external circumstances. Neurologist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl put it like this: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way. We all share a human physiology. We have the ability to return to the calm, relaxed, flexible state of the green zone amid crisis this may require effort and asking for help.

Given our internal traffic light system is automatic and run by the subconscious brain, how can we control what zone were in? Research from the fields of neuroscience, psychology and physiology shows there are myriad ways we can influence our nervous system. The interconnected workings of our body, mind and soul mean we can approach a reset from multiple angles.

To start with the body: we all know what it wants most is for us to take it outside and move it! And to fuel it with nutritious food. But more specifically, many health practitioners agree that the fastest way out of the red zone is deep belly breathing. As physiotherapist Tania Clifton-Smith explains in her new book, The breath acts as a switch with the ability to transition between the green and red zones. Consciously breathing through your nose, slowly and deeply, making your tummy move instead of your chest, is a pathway via the body to show the brain you are safe. There is no way you would be breathing like this if you were in imminent danger.

The mind can be our greatest asset or an absolute hindrance. Ensure your mind is an asset by recognising that, via thoughts, it plays a powerful role in balancing and integrating the different jobs of the brain. When our thoughts frequently come from a place of fear and worry what if I dont meet the deadline, say something stupid, cant pay my bills, catch Covid our body will start responding as though theres an immediate threat. And yet, for these hypothetical concerns, theres nothing to fight or run from so we dont need to mount a full physiological response. Our senses and subconscious brain do a good job of detecting immediate threat to life. We dont need the thinking mind to get involved.

Using the mind to keep you in the green zone is as simple as purposely making good use of your thoughts. Talk to yourself like a supportive coach, a funny friend, or a trusted kaumtua. Think things that make you feel good. Just picturing yourself at your favourite holiday spot with all the sights and sounds and smells of the place can calm your nervous system and put you back into rest and digest mode. And neuroplasticity tells us that if we practise this enough, we actually change the brain to make it easier to remain in the green zone.

The soul may be a shining, slippery, amorphous presence but it can still be guided. It doesnt need taming, it needs encouraging, and it needs a purpose. In his advice for teenagers, psychologist Ben Sedley says, Figure out what you care about and then care about it. And from the perspective of being in the green zone during challenging times, its very helpful to have a positive goal to focus our attention on.

Some days our purpose might be to cook a delicious meal thats enough. Other days we might have the capacity to solve climate change. And theres the bigger picture purpose of this self-care when we get ourselves in a good place, we can help others more effectively and make the world a better place.

Finding the green zone isnt all hard work. Random outbursts of laughter, hugging, singing, dancing and gratitude do a heap of good. I feel glad to be alive Im glad Im not dead! sometimes bursts out of me when the weather is perfect, wrote Oliver Sacks in his book Gratitude. But if this sounds too hard right now, seek professional help.

The traffic light system is here and we will witness many government-imposed red lights before were through, so its time to choose your inner green light as often as possible. Give yourself a ticket to the green zone. Permission to seriously relax! Consciously and consistently put yourself into calm waters, green pastures, a tree-hut hideaway, under your maunga, beside your awa or whatever metaphorical form your inner peace takes. This is not a luxury your health depends on it.

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The body has its own traffic light system, and it's been stuck on red for too long - The Spinoff

Neuroscience

Neuroscience Graduate Group

Application Deadline

Prospective graduate students may apply for admission to ourPh.D. program.

Applications are accepted for fall quarter admission onlyand should be submitted as early as possible.

The Neuroscience program application deadline is December 1st. The application system for this graduate group will shut down at midnight on this date, US Pacific Standard Time. Admissions review will start promptly after the deadline, and incomplete applications will not be considered. Please ensure that all supporting materials (transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation) are submitted by the deadline as well.

The Neuroscience graduate group evaluates applicants using holistic review. Many criteria are considered when reviewing individual applications for admission into the Neuroscience graduate group:

Visit Grad Studies website to begin theapplicationprocess

The graduate group cannot review an application until all of the above components are received. Inquiries concerning application procedures or any other aspects of the program should be directed to:neurogradgroup@ucdavis.edu

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Neuroscience Graduate Group

Neuroscience

University of California, Davis – UC Davis Neuroscience …

By Evan White

Discovering how infections during pregnancy, such as COVID-19 and influenza, can lead to psychiatric illness and developmental disorders in offspring years later, and how to detect, prevent or treat these disorders, is the subject of a $15.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to the Conte Center at the University of California, Davis.

The UC Davis Conte Center, organized through the Center for Neuroscience, was originally established with an NIH grant in 2016. This grant renews the centers funding for another five years.

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University of California, Davis - UC Davis Neuroscience ...

Neuroscience

Changes in brain hinder addiction recovery in those HIV positive: Study – Devdiscourse

A study by the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester studied how the brain puts the 'brakes' on behaviour in individuals recovering from cocaine addiction and who are also HIV-positive. The research has been published in the 'Neuropharmacology Journal'.

"Scientists have long known that drug abuse can cause damage to the brain. We also know HIV infection can cause brain changes," said John Foxe, PhD, director of the Del Monte Institute for Neurosciences and senior author of the study. "Since drug use is common in individuals with HIV, an important question is how brain deficits associated with both conditions might add up," he added.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain responses of cocaine addicts and patients with HIV while participants played a game that involved purposefully withholding responses to target stimuli. "The challenging thing about the game we asked participants to play isn't exactly playing it, per se," said Kathryn Mary Wakim, PhD, a recent graduate from the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Rochester and the first author of the study.

"What's really hard is not playing the game. What we wanted to measure was how the brain holds back a response under certain task conditions," she added. Difficulty withholding inappropriate responses are thought to be a central issue in addiction. Researchers found that participants diagnosed with both HIV and cocaine dependence had a difficult time holding back behavioural responses while playing the game, changes which were also reflected in brain activity. A companion study also found similar results while brain activity was measured using electroencephalography (EEG). Brain activity during response withholding in HIV+ participants in recovery from cocaine dependence was different than brain activity in HIV- participants in recovery.

"Currently, when someone who is HIV positive enters a recovery program they are treated in much the same fashion as any other person with an addiction issue," said Foxe. "But our findings show that they, very likely, need to be treated differently or more intensively. HIV and drug addiction should be a dual diagnosis when it comes to recovery, and we will need to design specific targeted intervention approaches for this population, given their unique vulnerability," Foxe added.

"When people with HIV relapse, it's a big deal. The majority of participants in our study contracted HIV - not by injecting cocaine - but by having unprotected sex," Wakim said. "Relapse is an outcome that should be minimized in this population because cocaine use is strongly associated with risky sexual behaviour, which makes the spread of HIV more likely when a relapse occurs," she added.

Additional co-authors are Edward Freedman, Ciara Molloy, Madalina Tivarus, Nicole Vieyto, and Zhewei Cao with the University of Rochester, and Armin Heinecke at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The research was supported with funding from Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and by the University of Rochester Center for AIDS Research, which is funded through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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Changes in brain hinder addiction recovery in those HIV positive: Study - Devdiscourse

Neuroscience

UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief States: ‘After Careful Examination of These Original Material, Neuroscience [Journal] Found No Evidence of Manipulation of the…

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UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief States: 'After Careful Examination of These Original Material, Neuroscience [Journal] Found No Evidence of Manipulation of the...

Neuroscience

Social cognitive abilities are associated with objective isolation but not perceived loneliness – PsyPost

New research provides evidence that social isolation is associated with reduced social perception and emotion recognition skills. The findings, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, suggest that social cognitive capacity predicts objective isolation but not feelings of loneliness.

Loneliness has been increasingly recognized as a major societal problem population studies have shown that it has a higher impact on mortality rates than hypertension and obesity, explained study author ukasz Okruszek, the head of the Social Neuroscience Lab at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Importantly, it has been emphasized that the feeling of loneliness is driven mostly by ones perception of social relationships rather than by objective qualities of social relationships per se. The same relationship (e.g. marriage) may be perceived as either loving and caring or detached and unaffectionate, depending on ones personal experiences, attitudes, and needs.

Thus, while loneliness can be linked to objective social isolation, the former does not implicate the latter, Okruszek explained. People may often report feeling lonely even despite maintaining numerous social ties. Given the important role that cognitive processes play in our appraisals of social relationships, we decided to examine the association between both subjective and objective social isolation and cognitive processes that underlie processing and interpretation of social information.

In the study, 252 individuals (aged 1850) with no history of psychiatric or neurological disorders completed assessments of subjective loneliness and objective social isolation. Objective social isolation was measured by asking the participants the number of relatives with whom they were in regular contact, could seek help from, and could confide in. Subjective loneliness, on the other hand, was measured by asking the participants the extent to which they agreed with statements such as No one really knows me well and I feel isolated from others.

The participants also completed several validated tests of social cognitive capacity, such as the ability to recognize others emotional states and infer someone elses state of mind.

The researchers found that those with a higher level of objective social isolation tended to exhibit worse social cognitive capacity. However, this was not the case for subjective feelings of loneliness.

Contrary to our hypotheses, we observed that social perception and emotion recognition were associated with objective social isolation, but not loneliness, Okruszek told PsyPost. In contrast, a tendency to attribute hostile intentions in ambiguous social situations (a hostility bias) was associated with both objective social isolation and loneliness. This finding suggests that social cognitive biases may be among the targets for interventions that are aimed at reducing loneliness.

But more research is needed on the longitudinal associations between social cognitive abilities and social isolation.

While we have shown which cognitive mechanisms are linked with loneliness and objective social isolation, the trajectories linking these findings with health outcomes observed in lonely and isolated individuals are still to be explored, Okruszek said. Previous studies have found that structural and functional abnormalities may be observed in lonely individuals in key brain structures that are involved in the processing of social information.

In addition, the feeling of loneliness may negatively impact heart rate variability, which can serve as an indicator of the ability to regulate activity in response to unknown and potentially threatening stimuli in the environment. Thus, the goal of our further studies is to examine the relationship between cognitive mechanisms, activity of brain networks during social information processing and physiological (reduced heart rate variability) markers in lonely individuals.

As noted above, loneliness is a major public health challenge, and its prevalence and importance is even more pronounced given the global pandemic, the consequences of which will likely be felt for years if not decades, Okruszek added. We believe it is critically important to understand how loneliness influences health and quality of life, and hope that this work, along with that of others, will ultimately benefit society.

The study, Owner of a lonely mind? Social cognitive capacity is associated with objective, but not perceived social isolation in healthy individuals, was authored by . Okruszek, A. Piejka, M. Krawczyk, A. Schudy, M. Wisniewska, K. Zurek, and A. Pinkham.

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Social cognitive abilities are associated with objective isolation but not perceived loneliness - PsyPost

Neuroscience

NESTRE Believes Sport Performance Is From the Neck Up and Aims to Train the Mind and Brain Accordingly – SportTechie

Our Startups series looks at companies and founders who are innovating in the fields of athlete performance, fan engagement, team/league operations and other high-impact areas in sports. If youd like to be considered for this series, tell us about your mission.

* * * * *

Worlds shortest elevator pitch: NESTRE combines neuroscience, performance and AI machine learning to help people get mentally and cognitively better.

Company: NESTRE

Location: Orlando, Florida

Year founded: 2018

Website/App: https://nestreperformance.com/Funding round to date: Pre-Seed. We will be going into a Seed Round probably in Q2, but we're currently in Pre-Seed funding. Were in a bridge funding round right now.

Who are your investors? Weve raised $1.6 million. Investors include Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Calvin Johnson Jr. and former Lions teammate Rob Sims. Toby Redshaw, former VP of Verizon 5G and Infoworld Top 25 Global CTO and Information Week Top 50 Global CIO. The Minority Entrepreneur Institute. Florcy Morisset, former strategy lead at Netflix and Dell Technologies. Moaz Hamid, formerly with Palm Inc., Microsoft and Google, now Founder and Managing Partner of mvm Ventures. Former Nike executive Mark Hochgesang, of Oregon Sports Angels, as well as global sports and health tech accelerator, leAD Sports, and global real estate developer and owners of Tottenham, Tavistock.

Are you looking for more investment? Yes.

Tell us about yourself, CEO & Founder Dr. Tommy Shavers: I was born in Niagara Falls, N.Y., raised in South Florida. Igrew up loving sports and loving learning. I played college football at the University of Central Florida, was ateamcaptain.Had the unfortunate experience of suffering several head injuries that ended my playing career, and also experienced, as a result, severe cognitive impairment and decline for several years. I was told by my doctor those things don't get better--they only get worse. This was around the time when conversations around CTE were becoming apparent. I chose not to give in to that narrative and created a model for self-recovery. I started with the premise: If the brain can be injured, it serves to reason that it functions like a muscle. And if it functions like a muscle, it serves to reason it could be rehabbed. I created my own cognitive conversion model and self-recovered, I had the opportunity to share this at a global health catalyst summit at Harvard. That became the seed and catalyst for NESTRE, my vision and dedication to help people know they can get better. And not just from mental and cognitive challenges, but the opportunities to increase the mental and cognitive performance. I really got inspired by the neuroscience of neuroplasticity and connected with some of the world's top experts and formed NESTRE. That's our focus, mission and passionto help build a better world with the human in mind. We've yet to tap into our human wellness and performance potential.

Who are your co-founders/partners? Right now, Julius Thomas is a partner but hes about to take on the role as co-founder. Julius [former NFL tight end] has an incredible story. Retired from the game, really still somewhat in his prime, to pursue his personal passion of helping people get better and increase quality of life from mental and cognitive perspectives. He pursued a Doctorate in psychology with a focus on mental health and neuroscience, and he's been an incredible partner along the way in the work we've done.

Former Pro Bowl tight end Julius Thomas is a NESTRE partner who has pursued a doctorate in psychology with a focus on mental health and neuroscience.

How does your product/service work? The NESTRE app, the vision is: we want it to essentially create the first digital environment for people to better both their mind and braingiving users access to the world of neuroscience and AI machine learning to help them get better, perform better and feel better. As I said, the purpose of the app is creating a digital experience to better both the mind and the brain. From the sports perspective, its understanding how mental wellness and cognitive performance are core aspects of the sports and performance world. We're really leveraging our experience and expertise in the sports world, mental wellness and neuroscience, really to take it to the next level, as mental health and cognitive performance are becoming core focuses in the performance space.

What problem is your company solving? If you look around the sports world, the mental health challenges that have been apparent, some of the athletes weve seen, the narrative has typically been either a fatalistic or stigmatized narrative or it's been a siloed narrative. Performance-based has typically been focusing on the neck down. What we're looking to do is really to change the narrative and shift the paradigm when it comes to mental and cognitive strength training. That mental health and cognitive performance are really integrated, and we all need the opportunity to get better and be stronger in these areas. Our first and most important workout really starts with the neck up. We really want to change this narrative about mental and cognitive capacity, performance, wellness, and really say, This is the first strength training that is a value to everyone when it comes to development, wellness, performance and desired outcomes.

What does your product cost and who is your target customer? We have a freemium subscription, and a B2B, B2C model from $9.99 to $79.99 annually. We also have a B2B partnership service model. We break our customers into three segments: the required performer, the desired performer and the everyday performing population. For us, its being able to target all three of these groups, whether it's someone wanting to recover their mental and cognitive dynamics or enhance their ability to perform better or just everyday performance sports individuals. The piece that's important for us is we really see life. Sports are performance. Everyday life is a performance. We're also leveraging the core aspects of sports, not just at the highest level, but at every level. That's how we break the world down into the world of performers because we're all performing on an everyday basis.

How are you marketing your product? We spent a lot of time over the last couple of years really building a strategic network. As we look at our go-to-market strategy, really leveraging our network relationships in the wellness, sports and performance world with Calvin Johnson and our other athletes that are investors. And, really, the halo effect of the relationships we have, with professional athletes to professional organizations, combined with strategic performance marketing and an organic growth strategy, is really how we're looking to get our product to market. We've been building that over the last couple of years, as we look to move that forward with some of these partnerships we have.

NFL Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson, the former Detroit Lion known as 'Megatron,' is a key investor in NESTRE.

How do you scale, and what is your targeted level of growth? Were looking at 200,000 downloads by the end of 2022. We have a B2B, B2C hybrid approach, really scaling through our relationships in the sports industry, athletic programs, sports organizations, and then also with sports performance wellness clubs. There are opportunities for us to complement the values of where fitness, wellness and performance reside, in bringing this next level of wellness performance and fitness from the neck up.

Who are your competitors, and what makes you different? This may sound clich, but it's not. Were looking to leverage, educate and advance the science of neuroplasticitythat the mind and the brain can change. In one sense, we're rooting for everyone that's showing we can make a difference in bettering people's mental and cognitive ability. That's one thing. On the other hand, I'd say from a user journey, user-cost perspective, the siloed space typically is when you have Calm or Headspace that are typically in the mindfulness or the cognitive training aspects of it. In general, the wellness and cognitive training apps would really be considered where the level of competition would be at.

Whats the unfair advantage that separates your company? There are a couple of things we think really separates us in a unique way. The expertise and lived experience aspects of what we have. Our chief scientific officer is Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg. He's one of the foremost leaders in the areas of brain function, one of the early pioneers of neuroplasticity in cognitive fitness. Also, to the uniqueness of what we're doing in really personalizing the betterment experience, we believe that's what neuroplasticity is really telling us is there's an opportunity to truly personalize how an individual can get better. We've created our mindset profile, which we really believe separates us in a really unique way in that we're discovering users unique mental framework as they come into the app. Then, we're customizing their in-app experience. Think about going to a high-end or elite training facility or a personal trainer. The whole goal is how to train in a way that best fits your unique makeup to get the best outcomes. We're building that into the app experience. We really believe this is a differentiator for us, and as we help people get better, it allows us to get smarter and to continue to personalize better at scale.

After Dr. Tommy Shavers suffered severe cognitive decline from football head injuries, he developed NESTRE as a model for self-recovery.

What milestone have you recently hit or will soon hit? We'll soon have our first live Neuro-Strength training rooms up in the market in mid-to-late January in Orlando in the Lake Nona Performance Club. The app will be in-market in late February, early March. So, Im really excited about getting really close to launch.

In what ways have you adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic? Our original go-to-market was with our NESTRE Neuro-Strength training facilities, and with the vision of being the first to scale mental and cognitive fitness and strength training facilities across the country. We're still looking to do that. We were literally coming back from finalizing one of our partnerships with a professional sports organization in March 2020 when the world shut down. Our vision and roadmap really pivoted, and it gave us an opportunity to look at the world differently in the sense of, How can we add this value in the landscape that isnt limited to face-to-face interaction? Our digital solution was further down on our roadmap, and so it allowed us to really reverse that and to bring our digital solution to the forefront to allow us to move forward. As weve gotten a little more stable, it's really given us an incredible opportunity to actually bring all of our solutions to market our NESTRE mindset profile, our NESTRE app and our NESTRE Neuro-Strength training facilities, and market in an integrative and standalone way. COVID presented some really unique challenges, but it's also given us unique opportunities to really think about how we help people get better, considering the landscape of the mental and cognitive challenges people are dealing with either from COVID or the pandemic. In general, we really see that mental and cognitive health is and will continue to be a premium moving forward.

Beyond the pandemic, what obstacles has your company had to overcome? Just being a startup. One of the things that can't be overlooked is the data shows less than 3% of all funding goes to founders of color or female founders. The challenge of raising capital, we've been fortunate to have a great opportunity to do that. But also, the uniqueness of combining the things we're doing at a really high level. We're taking serious science, innovation and technology in the sports place, both live and digital. Your typical startup is taking one thing to market in a really concise way. We believe being able to have three stand-alone and integrated solutions has been a challenge on the front-end, but will give us incredible positioning, leverage and strength as we get in the market and move forward.

What are the values that are core to your brand? The first is people. Our vision is to help build a better world with humans in mind. Everything we do is about people, it's people centric. It's built off my own personal lived experience. We know if we're helping people get better and increase quality of life, then we're being true to our mission and core values. The second is integrity with everything we do. This is a personal value that has become an organizational value. It really means to be sound. We really want to be true to who we are, true to what we do, sound in every way possible as we move forward. The third is what we refer to as confident humility. What we mean by confident humility is its this interplay between having the ability and the confidence to see the future before it happens. Being unafraid of risks. Really having an entrepreneur and innovative spirit, in the sense that just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there, right? We're really looking to move things forward in ways that traditionally have waited for solutions that take years, when people are saying, How can you help me now? Were really anchoring in this. We're confident in doing things that haven't been done before and unafraid of taking those types of approaches. At the same time, having the humility to understand we don't know what we don't know. There's constant room for growth. We really want to be a smart company, with this vision of having applied solutions, that as we're helping people get better we're getting smarter as we grow. We always want to have this learners spirit and mindset in the balance between the two of those things. We're fearless and we're mindful at the same time.

What does success ultimately look like for your company? I go back to our vision. Our vision is to help build a better world with the human in mind. We look down the line, three, four, five years, really being entrenched as a pioneer leader in the space of human development, human potential and mental health performance. Being a known company, an organization that's on the forefront of moving forward the science and the solutions to help people get better. If we're doing those things, we're heading in the right direction.

What should investors or customers know about youthe person, your life experiencesthat shows they can believe in you? First and foremost, this is personal. It's been a lived experience for me. I know what it's like to suffer and experience mental and cognitive challenges. I also know what its like to perform at the highest level, both mentally and cognitively. This is a space that not only is near and dear to me. I also have a personal passion, and I'm uniquely suited to navigate this space and at a high level. Also, just the ability to lead, inspire and to work with incredible people, with the team we've developed and brought around us. It's important to know the kind of leadership and the kind of team you have that can move a company like NESTRE forward and do it at a high level. I love what I do. There was a point in which I was told I wouldn't be able to function in the way I do now. Defying odds is built into my DNA, and I look forward to taking on this challenge.

As Dr. Tommy Shavers puts it, NESTRE is a performance, not a pathology, company, committed to 'change the narrative and the stigma' about mental health.

How does NESTRE help with mental health? Its a core part of our work. I had six to seven concussive blows within a three-week span that ended my career. The mental health and cognitive health challenges I experienced and suffered, along with the impairment decline, is really the core foundation of why we built this. The reason why we refer to ourselves as a strength company is because what neuroplasticity is saying is, whether it's pathology or performance, there's an ability to move toward better and that comes from the ability to strengthen what's there. What we've said is were a performance--not a pathology-company. Were training, not a treatment company. Were really trying to change the narrative and the stigma around this idea of mental health, as opposed to mental strength, mental strength training, or cognitive health and cognitive strength and cognitive sprint training. What it's doing is it's bringing us all together in saying no matter where you are, we all have an opportunity to get better and placing the person struggling with anxiety or stress and the person that's in the top 1% of the performance in the same community really helps us all to realize the human side of who we are. It really begins to destigmatize the narrative around it. We stay in this training space by saying, We're here for everyone as an opportunity to be able to get better. Mental health is a huge part of that for us, from a day-to-day basis, understanding the challenges in the sports world, but also an everyday lived experience. Its unfortunate that the current narrative is typically said that in order to embrace this, you have to embrace being broken in some way. What we're saying is: That's not the case. Mental health and mental strength is a part of all of our lived experiences. Everyone deals with mental and cognitive load on a daily basis. We really wanted to place all those individuals in the same community moving toward the same goal of getting better.

Do you have a favorite quote about leadership? Everything starts with being a CEO of self. I use that a lot with our team and individuals. That means everything: Leadership, accountability, wellness, self-care values. Another one is not taking for granted the privilege and power of influence.

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NESTRE Believes Sport Performance Is From the Neck Up and Aims to Train the Mind and Brain Accordingly - SportTechie