Physiology News

Study: Flavanol-Rich Foods Protect Vascular Health in Men from Harmful Effects of Prolonged Sitting

Consuming high-flavanol foods during sedentary periods may be used alone or in combination with other strategies (e.g. breaking up sitting) to reduce the impact of inactivity on the vascular system. Image credit: Daniele et al., doi: 10.1113/JP289038.
Nov 3, 2025 by News Staff

Prolonged sitting temporarily impairs vascular function and blood pressure. Dietary strategies during sitting may ameliorate or aggravate the effects of sitting on vascular health. In a new study, dietary cocoa flavanols consumed just before 2 hours of uninterrupted sitting were effective at preventing sitting-induced reductions in vascular function in young healthy men. Flavanols were equally effective at preserving vascular function in individuals...

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Sleep is known to promote tissue growth and regulate metabolism, partly by enhancing growth hormone (GH) release, but the underlying circuit mechanism is unknown. Ding et al. demonstrate how GH release, which is enhanced during both rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM) sleep, is regulated by sleep-wake-dependent activity of distinct hypothalamic neurons expressing GH-releasing hormone (GHRH) and somatostatin (SST). SST neurons in the arcuate nucleus suppress GH release by inhibiting nearby GHRH neurons that stimulate GH release, whereas periventricular SST neurons inhibit GH release by projecting to the median eminence. GH release is associated with strong surges of both GHRH and SST activity during REM sleep but moderately increased GHRH and decreased SST activity during NREM sleep. Furthermore, Ding et al. identified a negative feedback pathway in which GH enhances the excitability of locus coeruleus neurons and increases wakefulness. Image credit: Ding et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.05.039.

Animal Study Sheds New Light on How Sleep and Growth Hormone Regulation Interact

Sep 9, 2025 by News Staff

Neuroscientists from the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University have explored brain circuits that control growth hormone release during...

People who walk a lot have less back pain than people who do not walk much -- and the volume is what matters most, not the intensity. Image credit: Tung Lam.

Regular Walking May Reduce Risk of Chronic Low Back Pain

Sep 5, 2025 by News Staff

In a new study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, daily walking volume and walking intensity were inversely associated with the risk of chronic...

Kartar et al. suggest that circuitries supporting the integration of interoceptive representations and processing of affective memories are putative neurobiological substrates of HVB-induced ASCs. Image credit: Ram Jain.

Study: Breathwork While Listening to Music May Induce Blissful State in Practitioners

Sep 1, 2025 by News Staff

In a new study, high ventilation breathwork while listening to music was associated with reports of blissful states and reduced negative emotions, accompanied...

Liu et al. found that compared to non-coffee drinkers, adults who drank moderate amounts (1.5 to 3.5 cups per day) of unsweetened coffee or sugar-sweetened coffee were less likely to die during a 7-year follow up period. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Caffeine in the Morning Boosts Mood, New Study Suggests

Aug 18, 2025 by Natali Anderson

New research indicates that caffeine consumption is associated with subsequent increases in positive affect, and this association is strongest within the...

Velazquez-Arcelay et al. found that genetic material from Neanderthal ancestors may have contributed to the propensity of some people today to be early risers, the sort of people who are more comfortable getting up and going to bed earlier. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Study: Genetic Variant Inherited from Neanderthals Reduces Activity of Key Muscle Enzyme

Aug 12, 2025 by News Staff

The Neanderthal variant in AMPD1 decreases its enzymatic activity by 25% in lab-produced proteins and by up to 80% in the muscles of genetically engineered...

Berry et al. demonstrate that erythritol -- at a concentration typically contained in a standard-size commercially available artificially sweetened beverage -- adversely affects brain microvascular endothelial cell oxidative stress, eNOS activation and NO production, ET-1 expression, and t-PA release in vitro. Image credit: Tafilah Yusof.

Study: Common Sweetener Erythritol Can Impact Brain Cells, Boost Stroke Risk

Jul 16, 2025 by News Staff

Erythritol, a common non-nutritive sweetener, is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events, according to new research...

Kim et al. hypothesize that the vast interindividual differences in shift work adaptation -- critical for shift worker health -- can in part be explained by biological mechanisms for seasonal timing. Image credit: Sasin Tipchai.

Humans are Seasonal Creatures, New Research Reveals

May 29, 2025 by News Staff

Daily biological functions such as sleep, heart rate and metabolism are timed by intracellular circadian clocks which exist within almost all cells throughout...

The wearable patch can simultaneously and accurately track multiple emotional signals. Image credit: Yangbo Yuan / Penn State.

Newly-Developed Stretchable, Rechargeable Device Can Detect Real Emotions

Apr 23, 2025 by News Staff

The new hybrid device combines decoupled sensors with a flexible wireless powering and transmitting module for emotion recognition, according to a research...

Resistance or muscle strengthening exercise, using weights or the body itself, may be the best type of exercise for tackling insomnia in older age. Image credit: Engin Akyurt.

Exercise that Strengthens Muscles is Most Effective Way to Enhance Sleep Quality in Older Age

Mar 5, 2025 by News Staff

A new systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials shows that exercise, particularly strengthening exercise and aerobic...

Anauralia is the phenomenon of an absence of auditory sensory imagery -- not hearing anything in one’s inner ear. Image credit: Vat Loai.

Some People Can’t Imagine Sounds: Anauralia

Dec 19, 2024 by News Staff

Some people can’t imagine a dog barking or a police siren; songs can’t get stuck in their heads; they have no inner voices. Anauralia was proposed...

Jörges et al. tackled the question of whether body posture influences human perception of self-motion and distance; they found some evidence that the same amount of optic flow can elicit the sensation of having traveled further when supine versus when sitting upright, that is, optic flow is more effective at eliciting a sense of self-motion when supine; this constitutes evidence that visual and non-visual cues are at least partially integrated even when self-motion is presented only visually; however, they did not find any significant differences between performance on Earth and in the microgravity of the ISS, suggesting that vestibular cues play a minor role, if any, in the estimation of visually presented self-motion.

Astronauts Have Surprising Ability to Orient Themselves and Gauge Distance Traveled in Space: Study

Mar 28, 2024 by News Staff

New research has implications for crew safety in space and could potentially give clues to how aging affects people’s balance systems here on Earth. Jörges...

Cranberry supplementation for 28 days appeared to improve running speed as well as aerobic performance in trained runners. Image credit: Michael Reichelt.

Study: Cranberry Consumption Improves Physiological Markers of Performance in Trained Runners

Mar 19, 2024 by Natali Anderson

Cranberries have the highest polyphenol and antioxidant capacity among fruits and vegetables and may protect against exercise-induced free radical production,...

Lovich et al. show that eye movement-related eardrum oscillations contain parametric information about horizontal and vertical eye displacement as well as initial/final eye position with respect to the head. Image credit: Lovich et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2303562120.

Eye Movements Can Be Decoded by Sounds They Generate in Ears, Study Shows

Nov 27, 2023 by News Staff

New research shows that the small sounds generated within the ear by the brain contain accurate information about contemporaneous eye movements in the...

Ward et al. suggest that the presence of an odor can bias an observer’s decision of what their perceived version of a neutral gray is. Image credit: Kerstin Herrmann.

Study: Presence of Different Odors Influences How We Perceive Colors

Oct 11, 2023 by News Staff

Human brain constantly combines multisensory information from our surrounding environment. Odors for instance are often perceived with visual cues; these...

University of Bath Ph.D. student Alexz Farrall with a PAWS ‘breathing’ ball. Image credit: University of Bath.

Shape-Changing Biofeedback-Based Ball May Help Improve Mental Health

Aug 31, 2023 by News Staff

University of Bath Ph.D. student Alexz Farrall has invented a soft ball that ‘personifies’ breath, expanding and contracting as a person breathes in...

Various exercise training modes improve resting blood pressure, particularly isometric exercise. Image credit: Viktor Ristic.

Planks and Wall Sits are Best for Lowering Blood Pressure, New Review Says

Jul 30, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

According to a large-scale systematic review and meta-analysis of 270 previous studies, aerobic exercise training, dynamic resistance training, combined...

Habitual coffee consumers justify their life choices by arguing that they become more alert and increase motor and cognitive performance and efficiency; however, these subjective impressions still do not have a neurobiological correlation. Using functional connectivity approaches to study resting-state fMRI data in a group of habitual coffee drinkers, Picó-Pérez et al. show that coffee consumption decreased connectivity of the posterior default mode network (DMN) and between the somatosensory/motor networks and the prefrontal cortex, while the connectivity in nodes of the higher visual and the right executive control network (RECN) is increased after drinking coffee; the data also show that caffeine intake only replicated the impact of coffee on the posterior DMN, thus disentangling the neurochemical effects of caffeine from the experience of having a coffee. Image credit: Sci.News.

Study: Boost from Morning Coffee Can’t Be Replicated with Plain Caffeine

Jun 29, 2023 by News Staff

Plain caffeine only partially reproduces the effects of drinking a cup of coffee, activating areas of the brain that make you feel more alert but not the...

Talking on a mobile for 30 minutes or more per week is linked with a 12% increased risk of high blood pressure compared with less than 30 minutes. Image credit: Pexels.

Regular Mobile Phone Use for Calls May Increase Risk of New-Onset Hypertension: Study

May 8, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

In a large study of 212,046 participants, mobile phone use for making or receiving calls was significantly associated with a higher risk of new-onset hypertension,...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Study: Our Momentary Perception of Time May Stretch or Shrink with Each Heartbeat

Mar 8, 2023 by News Staff

The role of the heart in the experience of time has been long theorized but empirical evidence is scarce. In new research, scientists from Cornell University...

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