Salon reporter Elizabeth Landau spotlights the work of researchers from MIT and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in uncovering how Covid-19 can affect the ear. Viruses such as Covid-19, “all have these tentacles that seem to touch the ear, but nobody’s been able to study them because the ear is so inaccessible,” says Prof. Lee Gehrke. “So that’s the part that I think I get most excited about. Now we have a way to look at these things in a way that we were not able to do before.”
USA Today reporter Karen Weintraub spotlights Prof. Li-Huei Tsai’s work studying a potential new approach to treating Alzheimer's disease and “whether certain tones of sound and frequencies of light can help regulate brain waves and help clear our cellular trash, including toxic proteins.” Tsai explains that: “The major difference between this approach and all other approaches is that this approach doesn’t just target one molecule or one pathway or one cell type. This is a holistic approach to take care of the whole system.”
Researchers from MIT and Massachusetts Eye and Ear have found that Covid-19 can cause long-term issues with a patient’s ear, reports Matthew Rozsa for Salon. The researchers found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is capable of infecting the hair cells of the inner ear, as well as (to a lesser extent) the Schwann cells,” Rozsa explains.
Forbes reporter William A. Haseltine spotlights an MIT and Massachusetts Eye and Ear study that finds the inner ear can be infected by Covid-19. “When exposed to SARS-CoV-2,” writes Haseltine, the researchers, "found that the vestibular hair cells on the inner ear, which helps us keep our balance and sense head movements, had an infection rate of 26%, making them particularly vulnerable."
Scientific American reporter Emily Sohn writes that MIT researchers have found that vision and hearing can be impacted by the virus that causes Covid-19. “The data are growing to suggest that there are more neural consequences of this infection than we originally thought,” says Prof. Lee Gehrke.
Scientific American reporter Dana G. Smith spotlights how Prof. Rebecca Saxe and her colleagues have found evidence that regions of the visual infant cortex show preferences for faces, bodies and scenes. “The big surprise of these results is that specialized area for seeing faces that some people speculated took years to develop: we see it in these babies who are, on average, five or six months old,” Saxe tells Smith.
Writing for the NIH Director’s Blog, Dr. Francis Collins highlights how Prof. Tyler Jacks and research scientist Megan Burger’s work exploring T cell exhaustion led to the creation of a “strategy for developing cancer vaccines that can ‘awaken’ T cells and reinvigorate the body’s natural cancer-fighting abilities.” Collins writes that “the researchers hope to learn if this approach to cancer vaccines might work even better when used in combination with immunotherapy drugs, which unleash the immune system against cancer in other ways.”
Reuters reporter Nancy Lapid writes that researchers from MIT and other institutions have found that Covid-19 can infect cells in the inner ear, which “may help explain the balance problems, hearing loss and tinnitus, or ringing in the ears experienced by some COVID-19 patients.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that Covid-19 may impact the inner ear, affecting hearing and balance, reports Robert Preidt for HealthDay News. “Their results suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect the inner ear, specifically hair cells that are crucial for hearing and balance,” writes Preidt. “To a lesser degree, the coronavirus can infect Schwann cells, which insulate neurons.”
Axios reporter Alison Snyder writes that a new study by MIT researchers demonstrates how AI algorithms could provide insight into the human brain’s processing abilities. The researchers found “Predicting the next word someone might say — like AI algorithms now do when you search the internet or text a friend — may be a key part of the human brain's ability to process language,” writes Snyder.
Using an integrative modeling technique, MIT researchers compared dozens of machine learning algorithms to brain scans as part of an effort to better understand how the brain processes language. The researchers found that “neural networks and computational science might, in fact, be critical tools in providing insight into the great mystery of how the brain processes information of all kinds,” writes Anna Blaustein for Scientific American.
A new amputation technique being developed by MIT researchers provides patients with more sensory feedback from prosthetic limbs, writes Anjana Ahuja for the Financial Times. “The technique could transform the way that amputation has long been viewed,” writes Ahuja, “not as a last-resort method that subtracts from the body but an act of rejuvenation with the potential to restore a sense of completeness.”
Here & Now’s Scott Tong speaks with Gideon Gil of STAT about a new technique for amputation surgery developed by researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital that recreates muscle connections and restore the brain’s ability to sense where and how one’s limbs are moving.
Professor Gio Traverso speaks with Irma D'Aria of La Repubblica about his work on a capsule that can deliver drugs orally that typically need to be injected. “This technological innovation could apply to chronic conditions that require regular dosing of drugs, but also to medical situations that require more sporadic interventions,” said Traverso. “Mass administration of an otherwise injectable drug also becomes much easier if it can be administered orally.”
MIT researchers are using magnets to help improve control of prosthetic limbs, reports Emmett Smith for Mashable. “The researchers inserted magnetic beads into muscle tissue to track the specific movements of each muscle,” reports Smith. “That information is then transferred to the bionic limb, giving the users direct control over it.”