In the News

Research advances from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program (IRP) often make headlines. Read the news releases that describe our most recent findings:

Featured Article

Yes, Cooking Can Help Improve Your Mental Health — Here’s What Health Professionals Have to Say About It

Food & Wine
November 7, 2024

The act of cooking offers the chance to unwind and create something special, whether you’re planning to feed a crowd or just yourself. And while you may have noticed feeling good after whipping up that perfect pie or braise, there’s actually a lot of scientific data to suggest that cooking can have a positive impact on mental health. 

One meta-analysis (a report of pre-existing research) from the National Institutes of Health looked at 11 studies and found that “cooking interventions” — encouraging people to follow certain recipes or giving people cooking classes — can improve a person’s mental well-being. It specifically found that people who participated in cooking interventions reported having better self-esteem and quality of life, as well as a more positive emotional state after the fact. Another study even discovered that baking can help raise a person’s confidence level. 

‘Sticky’ gene may help Valium calm nerves

IRP mouse study could prompt scientists to rethink how benzodiazepines work

Between 1999 and 2017, the United States experienced a 10-fold increase in the number of people who died from overdoses of Valium and other benzodiazepines. For years, scientists thought that these powerful sedatives, which are used to treat anxiety, muscle spasms, and sleeping disorders, worked alone to calm nerves. Now, in an article published in Science, researchers from the National Institutes of Health show that this view of the drugs and the neural circuits they affect may have to change. In a study of mice, scientists discovered that both may need the assistance of a ‘sticky’ gene, named after a mythological figure, called Shisa7.

“We found that Shisa7 plays a critical role in the regulation of inhibitory neural circuits and the sedative effects some benzodiazepines have on circuit activity,” said Wei Lu, Ph.D., a Stadtman Investigator at NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the senior author of the study. “We hope the results will help researchers design more effective treatments for a variety of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders that are caused by problems with these circuits.”

Dr. Lu’s lab studies the genes and molecules used to control synapses; the trillions of communications points made between neurons throughout the nervous system. In this study, his team worked with researchers led by Chris J. McBain, Ph.D., senior investigator at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), to look at synapses that rely on the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) to calm nerves. Communication at these synapses happens when one neuron fires off packets of GABA molecules that are then quickly detected by proteins called GABA type A (GABAA) receptors on neighboring neurons.

product of the Shia7 gene (green) stick to GABA type A neurotransmitter receptors (red)

In a study of mice, NIH researchers showed that a protein encoded by a gene called Shisa7 (green) may boost the nerve calming effects of valium and other benzodiazepines by sticking to GABA type A neurotransmitter receptors (red).

Household Bleach Inactivates Chronic Wasting Disease Prions

Strategy appears feasible for decontaminating hunting, meat processing equipment

A 5-minute soak in a 40% solution of household bleach decontaminated stainless steel wires coated with chronic wasting disease (CWD) prions, according to a new study by National Institutes of Health scientists. The scientists used the wires to model knives and saws that hunters and meat processors use when handling deer, elk and moose — all of which are susceptible to CWD. The research was conducted at Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Montana. RML is a component of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The findings are published in the open-access journal PLOS One.

CWD is a brain-damaging and fatal prion disease in cervids, members of the deer family. To date CWD has never been found in people. However, other prion diseases can affect people, therefore scientists, wildlife managers and public health agencies have suggested handling CWD cervid tissues with caution. CWD is spreading in North America, increasing the potential for human exposure. The disease has been found in cervids in 26 states and three Canadian provinces, as well as in Norway, Finland and South Korea. Not all animals infected with CWD will show signs of disease, but those that do appear weak and thin.

Infectious prions — types of proteins found in mammals that when misfolded can cause disease — are extremely difficult to inactivate, which led the scientists to seek a practical, low-cost CWD decontamination method. Bleach has been proven as a decontaminant against other types of prions but had never been tested against CWD.

IRP researchers create new viral vector for improved gene therapy in sickle cell disease

‘Forward-oriented’ design might boost treatment effectiveness and broaden use

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have developed a new and improved viral vector — a virus-based vehicle that delivers therapeutic genes — for use in gene therapy for sickle cell disease. In advanced lab tests using animal models, the new vector was up to 10 times more efficient at incorporating corrective genes into bone marrow stem cells than the conventional vectors currently used, and it had a carrying capacity of up to six times higher, the researchers report.

The development of the vector could make gene therapy for sickle cell disease much more effective and pave the way for wider use of it as a curative approach for the painful, life-threatening blood disorder. Sickle cell disease affects about 100,000 people in the United States and millions worldwide.

“Our new vector is an important breakthrough in the field of gene therapy for sickle cell disease,” said study senior author John Tisdale, M.D., chief of the Cellular and Molecular Therapeutic Branch at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). “It’s the new kid on the block and represents a substantial improvement in our ability to produce high capacity, high efficiency vectors for treating this devastating disorder.”

Diagram shows steps involved in conducting gene therapy for sickle cell disease

Diagram shows steps involved in conducting gene therapy for sickle cell disease.

Emerging parasitic disease mimics the symptoms of visceral leishmaniasis in people

A new study published this week online in Emerging Infectious Diseases suggests that transmission of a protozoan parasite from insects may also cause leishmaniasis-like symptoms in people. The parasite, however, does not respond to treatment with standard leishmaniasis drugs. The research was conducted by scientists at the Federal Universities of Sergipe and São Carlos, the University of São Paulo, and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, all in Brazil, along with investigators at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease found in parts of the tropics, subtropics, and southern Europe. It is classified as a neglected tropical disease and is often transmitted by the bite of some sand flies. The most common forms of leishmaniasis are cutaneous, which causes skin sores, and visceral, which affects several internal organs (usually spleen, liver, and bone marrow). According to the World Health Organization, each year between 50,000 and 90,000 people become sick with visceral leishmaniasis (kala-azar), a form of the disease that attacks the internal organs and is fatal in more than 95 percent of cases left untreated. During the last several decades, researchers have described rare cases of patients co-infected with both Leishmania and other groups of protozoan parasites that usually infect insects, including Crithidia. The current study of parasites isolated from a Brazilian patient confirms that Crithidia parasites also can infect people.

mosquito biting a person

A female Anopheles albimanus mosquito taking a blood meal. Some Crithidia parasites are known to parasitize anopheline mosquitoes. Photo credit: CDC/James Gathany.

IRP researchers develop MRI with lower magnetic field for cardiac and lung imaging

Redesigned MRI holds promise for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases

National Institutes of Health researchers, along with researchers at Siemens, have developed a high-performance, low magnetic-field MRI system that vastly improves image quality of the lungs and other internal structures of the human body. The new system is more compatible with interventional devices that could greatly enhance image-guided procedures that diagnose and treat disease, and the system makes medical imaging more affordable and accessible for patients.

The low-field MRI system may also be safer for patients with pacemakers or defibrillators, quieter, and easier to maintain and install. The study, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, appears today in the journal Radiology.

The trend in recent years has been to develop MRI systems with higher magnetic field strengths to produce clearer images of the brain. But, researchers calculated that using those same state-of-the-art systems — at a modified strength — might offer high quality imaging of the heart and lungs. They found that metal devices such as interventional cardiology tools that were once at risk of heating with the high-field system were now safe for real-time, image-guided procedures such as heart catherization.

“We continue to explore how MRI can be optimized for diagnostic and therapeutic applications,” said Robert Balaban, Ph.D., scientific director of the Division of Intramural Research and chief of the Laboratory of Cardiac Energetics at NHLBI. “The system reduces the risk of heating — a major barrier to the use of MRI-guided therapeutic approaches that have hampered the imaging field for decades.”

MRI image of lung cysts and surrounding tissues in a patient with lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM)

Lung cysts and surrounding tissues in a patient with lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) seen more clearly using high-performance low field MRI compared to standard MRI. Photo credit: Campbell-Washburn A E, Ramasawmy R, Restivo M C, et al. Used by permission.

IRP study suggests higher air pollution exposure during second pregnancy may increase preterm birth risk

Pregnant women who are exposed to higher air pollution levels during their second pregnancy, compared to their first one, may be at greater risk of preterm birth, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. Their study appears in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Preterm birth, or the birth of a baby before 37 weeks, is one of the leading causes of infant mortality in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although previous studies have found an association between air pollution exposure and preterm birth risk, the authors believe their study is the first to link this risk to changes in exposure levels between a first and second pregnancy.

“What surprised us was that among low-risk women, including women who had not delivered preterm before, the risk during the second pregnancy increased significantly when air pollution stayed high or increased,” said Pauline Mendola, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and a senior investigator in the Epidemiology Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

IRP, Cincinnati Children’s scientists develop potential strategy against leukemia drug resistance

Two-pronged approach stymies AML escape plan, could have applications to many cancers

Scientists from the National Institutes of Health and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have devised a potential treatment against a common type of leukemia that could have implications for many other types of cancer. The new approach takes aim at a way that cancer cells evade the effects of drugs, a process called adaptive resistance.

The researchers, in a range of studies, identified a cellular pathway that allows a form of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a deadly blood and bone marrow cancer, to elude the activity of a promising class of drugs. They then engineered a compound that appears to launch a two-pronged attack against the cancer. In several experiments, the compound blocked a mutant protein that causes the AML. At the same time, it halted the cancer cells’ ability to sidestep the compound’s effects. The results, reported Sept. 4 in Science Translational Medicine, could lead to the development of new therapies against AML and cancers that act in similar ways.

Co-corresponding authors Daniel Starczynowski, Ph.D., at Cincinnati Children’s, Craig Thomas, Ph.D., at NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and their colleagues wanted to better understand drug resistance in a form of AML caused by a mutant protein called FLT3. This form of AML accounts for roughly 25% of all newly diagnosed AML cases, and patients often have a poor prognosis. A more thorough understanding of the drug resistance process could help them find ways to improve therapy options.

The chemical structure of a prospective drug sitting inside the protein kinase IRAK4

The chemical structure of a prospective drug sitting inside the protein kinase IRAK4.

Memory T cells shelter in bone marrow, boosting immunity in mice with restricted diets

IRP findings suggest how immune system evolved to withstand food scarcity

Even when taking in fewer calories and nutrients, humans and other mammals usually remain protected against infectious diseases they have already encountered. This may be because memory T cells, which are located throughout the body and required to maintain immune responses to infectious agents, according to scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. Their study in mice, published online today in Cell, also found that animals undergoing dietary restriction were better protected against tumors and bacterial infections than animals with unrestricted diets.

Researchers led by Yasmine Belkaid, Ph.D., chief of the Metaorganism Immunity Section in NIAID’s Division of Intramural Research, previously observed that fat tissue harbors memory T cells in mice. They investigated whether this phenomenon helped preserve immune memory when calorie intake was reduced. To investigate, they restricted the diet of mice previously given full access to food. While receiving less food, mice had fewer memory T cells in their lymphoid tissues, where they normally linger, and more of the T cells in bone marrow that became enriched with fat tissue.

Investigators then evaluated how well memory T cells performed when mice ate less. While eating freely, mice were infected with the bacterium Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. After the mice developed immunological memory, researchers restricted the diets of some of the mice for up to four weeks before again exposing all the mice to Y. pseudotuberculosis. Mice with restricted diets had more robust memory T cell responses and were better protected from illness. The researchers repeated this experiment using a vaccine that trains immune cells to fight melanomas and found that memory T cells were more protective against tumors in mice receiving less food.

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a T cell

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a T cell.

IRP study in mice identifies type of brain cell involved in stuttering

Discovery could lead to targets for new therapies

Researchers believe that stuttering — a potentially lifelong and debilitating speech disorder — stems from problems with the circuits in the brain that control speech, but precisely how and where these problems occur is unknown. Using a mouse model of stuttering, scientists report that a loss of cells in the brain called astrocytes are associated with stuttering. The mice had been engineered with a human gene mutation previously linked to stuttering. The study, which appeared online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers insights into the neurological deficits associated with stuttering.

The loss of astrocytes, a supporting cell in the brain, was most prominent in the corpus callosum, a part of the brain that bridges the two hemispheres. Previous imaging studies have identified differences in the brains of people who stutter compared to those who do not. Furthermore, some of these studies in people have revealed structural and functional problems in the same brain region as the new mouse study.

The study was led by Dennis Drayna, Ph.D., of the Section on Genetics of Communication Disorders, at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of Health. Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and from NIH’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and National Institute of Mental Health collaborated on the research.

“The identification of genetic, molecular, and cellular changes that underlie stuttering has led us to understand persistent stuttering as a brain disorder,” said Andrew Griffith, M.D., Ph.D., NIDCD scientific director. “Perhaps even more importantly, pinpointing the brain region and cells that are involved opens opportunities for novel interventions for stuttering — and possibly other speech disorders.”

comparison of the number of brain cells called astrocytes in the brain's corpus callosum in normal mice vs a mouse model of stuttering

In a mouse model of stuttering (lower panel), there are fewer astrocytes, shown in green, compared to controls (upper panel) in the corpus callosum, the area of the brain that enables the left and right hemispheres to communicate.

Smoldering spots in the brain may signal severe MS

IRP study provides hope for diagnosing and testing effectiveness of new treatments for more disabling forms of multiple sclerosis

Aided by a high-powered brain scanner and a 3D printer, NIH researchers peered inside the brains of hundreds of multiple sclerosis patients and found that dark rimmed spots representing ongoing, “smoldering” inflammation, called chronic active lesions, may be a hallmark of more aggressive and disabling forms of the disease.

“We found that it is possible to use brain scans to detect which patients are highly susceptible to the more aggressive forms of multiple sclerosis. The more chronic active lesions a patient has the greater the chances they will experience this type of MS,” said Daniel S. Reich, M.D., Ph.D., senior investigator at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the senior author of the paper published in JAMA Neurology. “We hope these results will help test the effectiveness of new therapies for this form of MS and reduce the suffering patients experience.”

Affecting more than 2 million people worldwide, multiple sclerosis is a disease for which there is no cure. The disease starts when the immune system attacks myelin, a protective coating that forms around nerve cells in a person’s brain and spinal cord, to produce a variety of initial symptoms, including blurred or double vision, problems with muscle strength, balance and coordination, and abnormal sensations. Treatment with anti-inflammatory medications designed to quiet the immune system has helped some patients fully or partially recover. Nevertheless, a significant subset of patients will eventually suffer from a longer lasting, progressive form of the disease, which can cause further problems including paralysis, loss of bladder control and problems with attention, thinking, and memory.

MRI image of a brain showing dark rimmed spots representing ongoing, “smoldering” inflammation

NIH researchers found that dark rimmed spots representing ongoing, “smoldering” inflammation, may be a hallmark of more disabling forms of multiple sclerosis.

Continue Exploring the IRP

This page was last updated on Thursday, December 26, 2024