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Carphology
Carphology
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  1. A Fo Ben

https://doi.org/10.1136/pn-2024-004128

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    What a waste

    I suspect most PN readers have long enough memories to remember the BSE crisis in the UK and even John Gummer the MP who was pictured feeding his 4 year-old daughter a hamburger at the height of the panic. Therefore any endemic prion based disorder which may jump species to species (particularly in a post-COVID world) is alarming. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has a predilection the cervid family: deer, elk, moose, caribou and reindeer. It is a fatal neurological disorder that produces drooling, lethargy, with animals emaciated, stumbling and with a blank stare that earned CWD the monicker ‘zombie deer disease’. Yellowstone national park, a byword for unspoiled beauty, has had its first confirmed case of CWD in a deer. How long before there is a spillover event from venison that could be costing us dear?

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/22/zombie-deer-disease-yellowstone-scientists-fears-fatal-chronic-wasting-disease-cwd-jump-species-barrier-humans-aoe

    No sex please, we’re robots

    Whoever had ‘what can sex robots teach us about consent in the context of serious assault?’ as their most important unanswered research question were treated to an odyssey of artificial intelligence (AI) and morality. The aim was to explore what factors explained people’s appraisal of assault using the aforementioned AI humanoid social robots as a blank canvas. The conclusion from four studies was that the victim’s intellectual capacity, and the transactional relationship were important. Knowing that AI-powered robots are now a model for the worst crimes imaginable, we can perhaps line them up to see whether the surgeon’s wounding words are indeed bullying, or just banter as he attests…

    Cognition. 2023; 244: 105687.

    Essays on the shaking palsy

    A special edition on Parkinson’s disease (PD) graces the Lancet, with many ABN members as co-authors. The epidemiology review aims to ‘highlight what we know with confidence, what is less certain, and what we still do not know.’ The review explains the evidence behind the legion of factors that contribute to pathogenesis not least of which is advancing age, which makes preventing PD a public health priority. If you want to know, for example, why The Netherlands predicts a 7·5% decline in prevalence between 1990 to 2016, whereas Norway predicts a 87·1% increase over the same time period, treat yourself and read the whole paper.

    Lancet. 2024; 403 (10423): 283–292.

    An ultra-sound principle

    The integrity of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) sounds like something with which we should not be looking to interfere, except with great caution. The Pandora’s box of the brain box perhaps. So why are people studying ultrasound as a tool for ‘opening’ the BBB? With great desperation comes great innovation and disease modifying strategies for dementia may need us to break down some, ahem, barriers. Authors used PET scans to look at the impact anti-amyloid strategies, here with aducanumab. As a proof of principle, amyloid-beta reduction was greater in regions treated with focused ultrasound than the contralateral side.

    N Engl J Med. 2024; 390(1): 55–62.

    Figure

    Brain City from Francesco Fidani, accompanies an article ‘machine civilization’ describing the relationship between democracy and social empathy, the scientific studies of the brain areas associated with empathic response.

    Footnotes

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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