A new study led by Newcastle University and the University of Birmingham has revealed that a new ten-minute brain scan could reduce diagnosis waiting times for paediatrics living with brain cancer.

The study was funded by Children with Cancer UK and Cancer Research UK. Affecting around 52 children every year in the UK, medulloblastoma is the second most common brain tumour in children and the most common malignant children’s brain tumour. It begins in the cerebellum, which plays a role in muscle coordination, balance and movement.

The four subgroups of medulloblastoma include classical medulloblastoma, anaplastic or large cell medulloblastoma, nodular or desmoplastic medulloblastoma and medulloblastoma with extensive nodularity.

Utilising MRI scanning and artificial intelligence, researchers took cell samples from 86 tumours and used a ten-minute laboratory test to accurately identify metabolic markers, including chemicals specific to different medulloblastoma tumour groups.

In addition, the study found that glutamate, a metabolite present across all of the tumour cells, was linked with tumour prognosis.

Furthermore, the findings could pave the way for using MRI scanning combined with machine learning to assess medulloblastomas for signature metabolic profiles without requiring invasive biopsies, rapidly reducing the current three- to four-week wait from presentation to full diagnosis.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, University College London’s UK Dementia Research Institute and the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain and Disease Research have revealed how brain cell communication is linked to Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Using mouse models with AD, the study shows how communication between support cells in the brain can disrupt signals between nerve cells.

Currently the most common cause of dementia, AD is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease that causes the brain to shrink and brain cells to die.
Scientists investigated the role of two support cells known as astrocytes, which help neurons carry out their functions, and microglia, the immune cells in the brain, which have both been shown in previous research to be involved in the development of AD.

Using a technique called spatial transcriptomics, researchers mapped genetic signals to different cell types and their location in the brain and found that microglia built up near amyloid plaques all across the mouse brain, while astrocytes accumulated next to plaques in certain regions, such as the hippocampus.

Playing a central role in AD, amyloid plaques are aggregates of misfolded proteins that form in the spaces between nerve cells.

The team then found that the microglia and astrocytes were communicating with each other.