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'Pure soul man !!! you can tell kai love what does, just want bring people together smile'

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Alcohol addiction ruins millions of lives every year, but scientists may have found a cure for this terrible affliction. A new treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been trialled in monkeys with impressive results and, if these translate to human trials, the impact could be monumental. A team of neuroscientists and physiologists from across the US tested a new type of gene therapy to see if they could directly target the underlying brain circuitry associated with sustained heavy drinking. As they noted, in the journal Nature Medicine, people suffering from AUD commonly return to alcohol use even if they attempt to quit. This is largely to do with what’s known as mesolimbic dopamine (DA) signalling – meaning how the central nervous system circuit communicates the feelgood neurotransmitter dopamine. A protein called glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is key to keeping these neurons in this reward circuitry functioning. However, experts have found that levels of GDNF are reduced in people with AUD during periods of alcohol abstinence, most notably in a region of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA), as IFLScience notes. Therefore, the researchers decided to test whether using gene therapy to deliver more GDNF to the VTA could help reinforce this crucial dopaminergic signalling and prevent patients from suffering an alcoholic relapse. The team of scientists explained how alcohol consumption in non-addicts prompts the release of dopamine, creating a pleasurable buzz feeling, but chronic alcohol use causes the brain to adapt and stop releasing so much dopamine. “So when people are addicted to alcohol, they don’t really feel more pleasure in drinking,” Dr Kathleen Grant, a senior co-author of the study, said in a statement. “It seems that they’re drinking more because they feel a need to maintain an intoxicated state.” For their research, Dr Grant and her colleagues used eight rhesus macaque monkeys, who were exposed to increasing concentrations of alcohol over four 30-day “induction” periods. The monkeys then had free access to alcohol and water for 21 hours a day for six months, during which they developed heavy drinking behaviours. This was then followed by a 12-week abstinence phase, with the GDNF treatment performed four weeks in for half of the subjects. The gene therapy was delivered using a a viral vector containing a copy of the human GDNF gene injected directly into the primate’s VTA, according to IFLScience. And the results were truly jaw-dropping. “Drinking went down to almost zero,” Dr Grant said. “For months on end, these animals would choose to drink water and just avoid drinking alcohol altogether. They decreased their drinking to the point that it was so low we didn’t record a blood-alcohol level.” The most exciting aspect of their findings is the suggestion that gene therapy could offer a permanent solution for people with the most severe cases of AUD. This will be a welcome glimmer of hope to many, given that some 29.5 million people were diagnosed with AUD in the US alone in 2021, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Of these 29.5 million sufferers, almost a million (894,000) were aged between 12 and 17. It’ll likely be some time before we know for sure whether the gene therapy can be rolled out in humans, but it’s an important first step in tackling this devastating disorder. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

For now, the limited tests will be conducted solely in the Philippines, with only a few users participating

By Hyunjoo Jin and Trevor Hunnicutt (Reuters) -Tesla's electric-vehicle charging technology is being put on a fast track to become

Google is set to unveil its latest artificial intelligence offerings at its annual developers conference on Wednesday, alongside new products ranging from Pixel phones to the Android 14 operating system. Google I/O 2023 will offer Alphabet the chance to show what its massive investments into AI have delivered, as it seeks to take on OpenAI’s hugely popular ChatGPT chatbot. Integration of its Bard AI in to its Maps, Gmail and search is expected, while various leaks have hinted that the company will also launch a large language model (LLM) called PaLM 2, capable of operating in more than 100 languages. This AI tool is rumoured to be able to pass exams in everything from computer coding and mathematics, to creative writing and critical thinking. A live stream of the keynote will be available when it begins at 10am local time (6pm BST), which you can watch right here. Until then, you can follow all the latest news, updates and analysis in our build-up coverage below.

Elon Musk’s X has been ordered by a judge to pay $1.1m in legal fees to its laid off former executives. Since Mr Musk’s takeover of X, the company formerly known as Twitter, the multibillionaire and X have faced a number of lawsuits. These include suits over the firm’s failure to pay its vendors and delays in paying rent for its office premises, as well as former employees suing Twitter alleging they were laid off without adequate notice. On Tuesday, Delaware Chancery Court judge Kathaleen St J McCormick ruled in favour of the company’s ex-chief Parag Agrawal and said X must pay $1.1m in legal fees linked with probes of the platform during Mr Musk’s 2022 takeover, Bloomberg first reported. After buying out the microblogging platform in November last year, the Tesla titan fired Mr Agrawal and Twitter’s then-lead policy officer Vijaya Gadde as well as a number of other executives. Mr Agrawal and Ms Gadde then sued Twitter/X for failing to pay for their legal bills, including for the latter’s appearance before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. The lawsuit filing alleged the company paid only about $600,000 of what it owes, withholding $1.1m in fees for its lawyers’ work representing the former executives in an inquiry on the role played by social media on US elections. The filing alleged Twitter/X “breached the agreements and contravened the bylaws” by not paying the former staff. The latest ruling by the Delaware court judge observed that X “violated its duties to cover legal expenses generated by their work for the company”. While acknowledging that $1.1m is a lot of money, the judge still ruled in favour of the former Twitter executives. “I have reviewed the amount in question, and although it is high and probably higher than most humans would like to pay, it’s not unreasonable,” judge McCormick was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. X did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment. The company is also being sued over its rebrand to X by an ad agency also named X, alleging the social media platform’s new name violates Florida common law because of “unfair competition and trademark and service mark infringement”. Read More Elon Musk’s mockery of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky ‘unhelpful’ Elon Musk’s X Corp sued by another social network company named X ‘Reckless’ Elon Musk hit with $1m lawsuit for accusing student of being in Proud Boys ‘false flag’ attack Elon Musk’s X Corp sued by another social network company named X Elon Musk to live stream himself gaming on X in ‘everything app’ bid Musk confirms he is cutting election integrity staff from X/Twitter ahead of 2024

SAN DIEGO & ALISO VIEJO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 31, 2023--

SOUTHFIELD, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 3, 2023--

A former executive at ByteDance, the Chinese company which owns the popular short-video app TikTok, says in a legal filing that some members of the ruling Communist Party used data held by the company to identify and locate protesters in Hong Kong