New research published in the journal Nature shows that a cocktail of drugs already approved to treat high blood pressure quickly reduces brain swelling and improves outcomes in animal models of brain injury.

“Our research shows that cerebral edema is the consequence of impaired fluid flow through the glymphatic system and its associated lymphatic drainage,” says Maiken Nedergaard, co-director of the University’s Center for Translational Neuromedicine and senior author of the study. “This impairment is under adrenergic control and can therefore be rescued pharmacologically by broadly inhibiting adrenergic receptors. Because these drugs are already being used clinically and have observed neurological benefits, there is the potential to move quickly to clinical studies to confirm these findings.”

In the brain, edema is dangerous.

(Unsplash photo / Ray Hennessy)

In a new paper published in PRX Life, Rochester physicists and their coauthors have, for the first time, applied the theory of semantic information to a well-known model of living systems in biology and ecology: an organism or agent foraging for resources.

Using a mathematical model, the researchers simulated how a foraging agent moves in an environment and collects information about resources. The simulations revealed what the researchers have called a semantic threshold: the critical point where information matters for the agent’s survival. Above this threshold, removing some information doesn’t affect survival, but below it, every bit of information is crucial.

By quantifying the correlations or connections between an agent and its environment, the researchers are helping to reveal the role of information in that agent’s ability to maintain its own existence.

For example, imagine a bird in the forest.

In the quest to build powerful quantum computers, one type of qubit has shown exceptional promise: silicon spin qubits. However, the material used in silicon spin qubits creates recurring challenges for researchers, including charge noise, valley splitting, and spatial variations in electron g-factor.

To overcome these challenges, the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) has awarded more than $6.7 million to a multidisciplinary team of experts in materials characterization and modeling, silicon fabrication, and quantum experiments.

“We are taking a materials-first approach to discovering the underlying causes of the challenges with silicon spin qubits,” says Rochester physicist John Nichol, the primary investigator on the project.

Find out more about the challenges they’ll address.

Wednesday, December 20, noon–1 p.m.
Virtual

Barbara Bierer, Nichelle Cobb, and Polly Goodman will provide a summary of proposed changes to the SMART IRB Agreement, including how public comments are submitted; an overview of the process, timeline, and requirements for signing and re-signing the SMART IRB Agreement version 3.0; and new and existing SMART IRB resources and educational tools. Register to attend.