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The kissing bug is the popular name for the triatomine bug, a blood sucking insect that tends to attach to the faces of sleeping victims. This insect carries the parasite Trypanososma cruzi which causes Chagas’ disease. Normally found predominately in Central and South American as well as Mexico, now this bug and its potentially deadly baggage is spreading across the United States. As of this date, cases of Chagas’ disease have occurred in 8 states: Texas, California, Arizona, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas. The bad news is that these kissing bugs have been seen in 32 states.

If the bug bites you on the face and you rub the bite, you are likely to rub some of the bug debris containing the Trypanosoma parasite into your skin. As the parasite sets up shop, you will develop Chagas disease, acute phase, with fever, eyelid swelling, fatigue, body aches, rashes, swollen glands, appetite loss, diarrhea, and vomiting. This acute phase and demands immediate diagnosis and treatment with antibiotics.

Should you fail to recognize the signs and symptoms and the parasite persists untreated, , the Chageas disease moves into the chronic phase. It invades your heart and esophageal tissues. Years later, you develop heart failure, arrhythmias, cardiac arrest, difficulty swallowing, and severe constipation. At this point, the parasite cannot be eliminated and only the symptoms can be treated.

As usual, the best treatment is prevention. Since there is no vaccine for Chagas’ disease, you must take precautions to avoid the kissing bugs. That includes use of insect repellent, wearing clothes that cover, staying in bug-free rooms with screening and/or air conditioning, and avoiding of possibly contaminated raw fruits and vegetables.

https://www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com/news/kissing-bug-disease-spreading-in-us-cdc-report-says/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/chagas-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20356212

#kissingbugs #chagas #parasite #trypanosomiasis #triatomine

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Stanford neuroscientists have tagged the reticular thalamic nucleus (RT) as a likely trigger for characteristic autistic behaviors in mammals. This neuronal plexus carries signals from the thalmus, the brain’s sensory relay station, to the cerebral cortex, the center for conscious thought, sensory, and motor activity.

Using autistic mice, the Cntnap2 knockout line, they observed heightened neural firing and seizure-like electrical activity in the reticular thalamic nucleus when animals received stimuli that triggered characteristic autistic behaviors. By suppressing this abnormal neural firing with the experimental anti-seizure medication Z944, the researchers reversed the animals’ hypersensitivity to stimuli, increased motor activity, repetitive behaviors, and lack of social interactions. In short, they suppressed the animals’ autistic tendencies.

This research now puts a focus on the reticular thalamic nucleus as a treatment target for autism spectrum disorder. Expect to hear more about this ..…someday soon.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw4682

#autism #asd #reticularthalamicnucleus #seizures #antiepileptics

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwf2u9FNvx/

When a woman’s eggs are harvested from her ovaries in preparation for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), they are covered by so-called cumulus cells. These cells must be removed after IVF and before ICSI in order to obtain viable fertilized eggs for implantation. The traditional method for cumulus removal, CR, involves vortexing using manual pipetting. This process often damages some of the eggs, the oocytes.

Enter biologists at Cornell University with a microfluidic chip through which eggs can pass and be cleansed of cumulus cells with vibration-induced flow. The chip has a spiral array of micro-pillars that separate the smaller cumulus cells from the larger oocytes and flush them out of the chip.

Pre-clinical studies using a mouse model showed the process to be fast, efficient, and gentle for the eggs. As many as 23 oocytes were simultaneously cleaned successfully with the potential for fertilization and embryo initiation similar to those for manual pipette cleaning. Hopefully, after this method undergoes additional testing, it will be ready for the clinic……someday soon.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2025/lc/d5lc00414d

#oocytes #cumulus #ivf #icsi #microchip #cleansing