exercise

Helping Aging Hearts Get Their Groove Back

IRP Researchers Discover ‘Coupled-Clock’ That Controls Heart Rhythms

heart rate monitor

Like so much about our lives, our hearts slow down as we age. While this slowing is natural, a heartbeat that is too sluggish can lead to heart failure, irregular heartbeats known as arrhythmias, and other problems. IRP senior investigator Edward G. Lakatta, M.D., has changed the paradigm in our understanding of how our hearts keep the beat across our life spans — and what happens when they don’t.

Exercise Energizes Patients With Autoimmune Disease

IRP Study Points to the Biological Roots of Physical Activity’s Benefits

woman exercising on treadmill

British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” While not exactly a “technology,” exercise has such wide-ranging health benefits that it could understandably be mistaken for magic. Still, scientists persist in investigating precisely why physical activity is so good for us. Recently, a small IRP study showed that exercise training can help reduce the debilitating fatigue that often accompanies the autoimmune disease known as lupus, and also illuminated some of the underlying mechanisms that may lead to those benefits.

Postdoc Profile: Going the Extra Mile

Dr. Ayland Letsinger examines the effects of exercise on the brain

Dr. Ayland Letsinger

Every January, gyms are flooded with new members using the beginning of a new year as a burst of motivation to get fit. When many of these new exercise enthusiasts abandon their new healthy habit within a couple months, they shouldn’t feel guilty, according to IRP postdoctoral fellow Ayland Letsinger, Ph.D. He believes there’s a genetic component behind our fluctuating interest in exercise, and he spends his days in his IRP lab investigating such biological factors behind the motivation to move.

“More people would rather binge-watch 'Stranger Things’ for three hours than do 30 minutes of moderate physical activity, and there may be a biological basis behind it,” he explains.

Poster Sessions Celebrate Summer Science

Annual Event Brandishes the Next Generation of Clinicians and Scientists

Andrés Gorbea, Sarah Bengtson, Lietsel Jones, Michaella Bono, and Joseph Grech

A year after hundreds of high school, undergraduate, and graduate students were only able to participate from afar in NIH’s 2021 Summer Internship Program, IRP researchers were excited to welcome some of the program’s 2022 participants to campus. Regardless of whether they were working in the lab or remotely, these budding scientists received a full-time immersion into the world of IRP science and, surely, learned a great deal from the mentorship of NIH’s many world-renowned researchers.

To celebrate the interns’ hard work, NIH’s Summer Poster Days on August 3 and 4 gave more than 600 of them the opportunity to virtually present posters explaining their projects. With so many bright young men and women displaying the fruits of their scientific labors, it was difficult to select just a handful to highlight in this blog. Read on to learn about how five of NIH’s 2022 summer interns shed light on topics from the microbes living on our skin to the blood-clotting platelets that flow through our veins.

Three-Minute Talks Showcase Smooth-Talking Scientists

IRP Researchers Engage and Educate at Competition Finals

Three-Minute Talks poster

English is generally considered the ‘international language of science,’ since nearly all scientific papers are published in English. Yet, even to a native English speaker, scientists seem to be using another language entirely to talk about their research. Most Americans, after all, don’t know an ‘autophagosome’ from a ‘lysosome’ and would be hard-pressed to explain the difference between an ‘oocyst’ and a ’sporozoite.’

Fortunately, efforts like NIH’s annual Three-Minute Talks (TmT) competition are helping scientists learn how to communicate about their research in a manner that is much easier to understand. On June 30, after months spent whittling down dozens of competitors from across the IRP, 10 finalists raced against the clock to explain their work and its importance in a clear and compelling way.

Languishing Cellular Batteries Foretell Movement Problems

Prediction Method Could Help Prevent Age-Related Physical Decline

burned out lightbulb

Throughout human history, people have sought insight into their fates from self-proclaimed psychics and other dubious fortune tellers. Fortunately, scientists are increasingly developing more reliable, data-driven ways to predict the future. For instance, IRP researchers recently showed that an assessment of the cellular batteries that power our muscles can predict the deterioration of physical abilities in older adults.

IRP’s Shannon Zenk Elected to the National Academy of Medicine

Nursing Research Leader Sheds Light on How Neighborhoods Influence Health

Dr. Shannon Zenk

When you think about public health, city planning might not be the first thing that comes to mind. Yet where we live — the quality of the buildings, the availability of places to walk and play safely, and the types of schools and stores in the neighborhood — can profoundly affect our health. This relationship has been emphasized by the COVID-19 pandemic, as close, stuffy living conditions, the need to take public transportation to essential jobs, and inequities in access to testing and vaccination sites all contributed to the larger reduction in life expectancy for Black and Latino Americans compared to Caucasians over the last two years.

Shannon N. Zenk, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., F.A.A.N., Director of the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021 for her research into how neighborhood characteristics affect the health of residents and contribute to the health disparities seen between communities with different racial and ethnic makeups and different levels of income.

A New View of How Muscles Move

IRP Research Challenges Long-Held Ideas About Muscle Structure

sprinter starting to run

It’s not every day an accidental observation overturns 100 years of biological knowledge. But that’s what happened when IRP Stadtman Investigator Brian Glancy, Ph.D., noticed something funny while reviewing high-definition 3D videos of muscle cells.

“To be honest, you could almost call this study an accident,” he says.

Dr. Glancy, who leads the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)’s Muscle Energetics Lab, often uses the high-powered microscopes available through the NHLBI Electron Microscopy Core to study how energy is distributed through skeletal muscle cells — the ones that control voluntary movement — when they expand and contract.

Although he was focused on examining the cells’ energy-producing mitochondria, he could also see the other structures inside them, including the long, tube-like structures called myofibrils that are involved in muscle contraction. As he advanced the video and traveled down the length of the muscle, it looked to him like the myofibrils were changing shape.

Wearable Tech Tracks Ebbs and Flows of Bipolar Disorder

Research Suggests Sleep- and Activity-Based Approaches to Treatment

women wearing a fitness tracker

Mental Illness Awareness Week, observed this year from October 3 through 9, brings attention and support to the many patients and families who are coping with a variety of psychological conditions. Although an estimated 20 percent of U.S. adults and nearly 17 percent of youth have some type of mental health ailment, these conditions are still not well understood. However, research conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is transforming our knowledge of one such mental health condition that affects more than two million Americans: bipolar disorder.

Postbac Poster Day Showcases Young Scientific Talent

Scientists-in-Training Impress at Virtual Event

Malcolm Udeozor

Despite the challenges of working during a global pandemic, IRP scientists continue to make groundbreaking discoveries and mentor the next generation of researchers. This includes the hundreds of recent college graduates conducting research in NIH labs through the Postbaccalaureate IRTA program. On April 28, 29, and 30, many of these budding scientists presented the fruits of their efforts at this year’s virtual Postbac Poster Day. Read on to learn about a small sampling of the scientific strides NIH’s postbacs are making.