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A brain scan of a person with Huntington’s disease, which causes a loss of brain volume as neurons are killed off by the accumulation of a mutant protein.Credit: Zephyr/SPL
A small trial of a one-time gene therapy for Huntington’s disease has shown that the treatment can markedly slow the inherited brain disorder’s progression. Of 29 people in the early stages of Huntington’s, those who received a high dose of the therapy directly into their brains saw the disease slow by 75% over three years, compared with those in a control group. The unpublished trial results look promising, but should be viewed as preliminary in such a small group of participants, says neurologist Sandra Kostyk.
Nature | 5 min read
Reference: uniQure press release
A fresh supply of immune cells called microglia in the brain could one day treat conditions from ultra-rare genetic disorders to Alzheimer’s. These cells clear out harmful substances and foreign invaders, and prune unneeded neuronal connections during development. Malfunctioning microglia have been implicated in disease. As such, replacing them with healthy cells might make an effective treatment. Some trials in mice have shown that the swap can work, but doing so is tricky — most microglia reside in the inaccessible central nervous system, and the faulty cells must be cleared out to make way for healthy cells.
Nature | 6 min read
The future of higher education
Credit: Señor Salme
Universities are facing fundamental questions about what education is for, how it should be delivered and how it should be funded. This week, in a special issue, Nature probes the challenges faced by higher education — drawing on examples from across the world to assess how the sector can adapt to survive. (Nature | Full collection)
Features & opinion
As the last survivors of the Holocaust approach the end of their lives, a growing number of museums are trying to maintain the urgency of survivors’ testimony using artificial-intelligence (AI) systems that give visitors the chance to converse with digital approximations of real people. AI researcher Benjamin Charles Germain Lee explores how such systems resonate with his own memories of his grandmother, who survived the Birkenau concentration camp, and whether they can do justice to the complex narratives of people’s lives.
An AI chatbot shakes things up at a research institute in A press release from just before the singularity.
Nature | 6 min read
Tick-borne encephalitis virus can infect the nervous system and cause life-threatening illness — but it wasn’t known how the virus enters the brain. Now, researchers have found that it attaches to a receptor called LRP8, which is common on the surface of brain cells. Binding to this receptor causes the cell to take in the protein, and with it, the virus. In mice, blocking this receptor prevented infection, which the team say could lead to a viable drug for the currently untreatable disease.
Nature Podcast | 33 min listen
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US President Donald Trump and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr have claimed that autism is an “epidemic” and is linked to mothers taking Tylenol (paracetamol) while pregnant. Nature reporter Helen Pearson spoke to researchers, autism groups and autistic people who say Trump and his team’s statements ignore what’s already known about the condition. She explains the nuanced reality behind the well-documented rise in autism diagnoses and the causes of the condition.
Nature | 4 min watch
Today Leif Penguinson is having a go at white-water rafting in a gorge on the River Kaveri in Mekedatu, India. Can you find the penguin?
The answer will be in Monday’s e-mail, all thanks to Briefing photo editor and penguin wrangler Tom Houghton.
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