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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
When Sierra Simpson was in college, she was sick for a year with recurring fevers and vomiting. Her doctors couldn't figure out what she had. Suspecting a bacterial infection, they tried treating her with high doses of antibiotics.
"It turned out I had malaria and needed a different treatment," Simpson said. "But by then the antibiotics had messed with my stomach and I felt more anxious than I had before."
Antibiotics kill disease-causing bacteria, but they also destroy many of the beneficial bacteria living in our guts, a side effect that has been linked to a number of long-term health issues. That experience was the impetus for Simpson's interest in microbiome science and the gut-brain axis -- studies of the many ways that bacteria, viruses and other microbes living in our bodies influence our physical and mental well-being.
As a now-healthy graduate student, Simpson first worked on techniques to visualize molecules in the brain. But she couldn't shake her interest in the gut microbiome and its connections to the brain.
"So one day, Sierra just walks into my lab and asks me if I'd be interested in exploring potential connections between the gut microbiome and what my lab typically studies -- drug abuse and addiction," said Olivier George, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at University of California San Diego School of Medicine. "I was reluctant at first. After all, I figured if there was something there, someone would've discovered it by now. But we decided to give it a try."
In a study published April 27, 2020 in eNeuro, Simpson, George and team discovered that the gut microbiome influences the pattern of activation in a rat's brain during opioid addiction and withdrawal.
[...] As for Simpson, she earned her PhD just a week and a half ago, after successfully defending her thesis virtually -- presenting her research findings to her advisory committee, family and friends while sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, Simpson will turn her attentions to a startup company she is launching to further advance and commercialize her research findings.
Additional co-authors of this study include: Kokila Shankar, UC San Diego and Scripps Research; Adam Kimbrough, Brent Boomhower, Rio McLellan, Marcella Hughes, and Giordano de Guglielmo, UC San Diego.
-- submitted from IRC
Journal Reference
Sierra Simpson, Adam Kimbrough, Brent Boomhower, et al. Depletion of the Microbiome Alters the Recruitment of Neuronal Ensembles of Oxycodone Intoxication and Withdrawal [open], eNeuro (DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0312-19.2020)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @12:07PM
Well, it certainly looks like Simpson is turning her attentions to a startup company she is launching to further advance and commercialize her research findings.
Only 1 missing step: ???
(Score: 0, Troll) by Occam_s_blade_runner on Monday May 04 2020, @01:37PM (9 children)
Macronutrients and micronutrients intake, distribution in the meals, co-occurence in meals, digestion and absorption have tremendous effects on the overall biology of the body and namely on the brain. The role of bacteria in the gut have a critical role in digestion and absorption of food.
And we are not even talking about substances that are created by gut bacteria that can be absorbed and that have a modulation effect of the biology of the body and the brain (for example ethanol).
So, it is a no brainer that any change in diet and/or gut bacteria can be measured on activity of population of cells (like neurons) in the body.
The question is: Can one produce any useful science in this context? The very likely answer is no.
This is just once again crap science based on the fact that scientists are looking for ways to make a living using the following flow:
1) Identify a subject where grant money is funnelled because of a current "crisis".
2) Elaborate a crafty research project that tests if you-name-it variable may have a link with the subject identified in point 1.
3) Get a first grant and do the "research" and get published rather easily.
4) Get more grants for years to come and keep publishing on the subject and send humanity on a wild goose chase hiding the fact that no new science is actually created.
5) Optionally, create a startup based on your papers, get money and live from it until either there is no money left or a dubious drug is identified that have some sort of weak benefit without too much side effects, this weak benefit being totally minor compared to changes in diet, exercise level, sleep pattern, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @02:07PM
Somewhere in the mix, set up a Leadership Panel or Executive Team. Under no circumstances should you get your hands dirty with things that might not work - experiments, data, computer modeling - but focus on driving the Optionality using Chesterton's Fence. Award yourself outlandish titles and bonuses on the 100% success you achieve daily.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @02:23PM (2 children)
We want more women in STEM but you've basically labelled her research as junk science.
Folk remedies abound concerning hangover cures, insulin resistance, cancer prevention, fertility and mental health - what if drinking combucha and eating sauerkraut could be scientifically proven to benefit humanity without big pharma nor eating covid-infested bats?
Excuse me while I chow down on my probiotic yoghurt.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @02:32PM
Simpson is turning her attentions to a startup company she is launching to further advance and commercialize her research findings.
(Score: 0) by Occam_s_blade_runner on Tuesday May 05 2020, @10:25AM
> We want more women in STEM but you've basically labelled her research as junk science.
Don't you worry, all the blame goes to the principal investigator and none at all to her.
If all principal investigators were female, science and humanity would benefit immensely.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 04 2020, @02:57PM (1 child)
> Can one produce any useful science in this context? The very likely answer is no.
You're sure of yourself. Why are you so sure? Studied this area extensively, have you? No? Then, is it the Dunning-Kruger effect?
The likely answer is "yes". There's a great deal we still don't know, as well as much that we got wrong. Sadly, seems a lot of people really would rather not know, even if that means a lifetime of being miserable thanks to conditions such as obesity, compounded by smug, self-righteous jerks telling them it's all their own fault.
I grant that there has been a great deal of medical fraud. But in this case, I trust that the school is honest. The simple fact is, that fraud in science is very hard to conceal. If the school routinely let fraud pass, they would soon be found out, and their reputation damaged. Everyone who ever earned a degree from them would suddenly find their degrees were suspect. If you think the alumni or the professors want that, you are very much mistaken. Way too many people have a stake in the endeavor being honest to let dishonesty slide. UC San Diego is not some new, private, for-profit university created by a rich hack, this is a state supported institution that must undergo constant inspection to make sure they are staying honest.
(Score: 0) by Occam_s_blade_runner on Monday May 04 2020, @05:52PM
> You're sure of yourself. Why are you so sure? Studied this area extensively, have you? No? Then, is it the Dunning-Kruger effect?
I am a lapsed neuroscientist. Lapsed for I was surrounded by people with a total lack of honesty and/or critical thinking. Sorry but I do not belong to the Dunning-Kruger club.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 04 2020, @04:22PM (1 child)
Apart from the platitudes sprinkled with superlatives (ummm... 'tremendous'... where did I hear it?) and the trolling inferences, this is one point you are right.
It is literally the science of crap. To be more specific, the rat crap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Occam_s_blade_runner on Tuesday May 05 2020, @12:38PM
I thought the play on words was quite quite lame but I posted it anyway for total lack of inspiration.
Great, I won a troll award. This was just food for thought people.
There might be a glimpse of a hint of truth in I what I wrote but now based on the comments I generated I no longer even care. Power to the people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2020, @11:45PM
Did you bother to read the paper? Easy to make an opinion from reading an impression of a paper without understanding the science.
You sound like a failed academic.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday May 04 2020, @06:11PM
Simpson [imdb.com] and Boomhower [imdb.com]? I smell a dopey cross-over.