From Neuralink to infectious diseases

It is impossible to ignore the allure of technology, particularly when it cohabits a sweet spot, intersecting with human health. The latest update on Elon Musk’s Neuralink to start human trials of brain implants for paralysis patients will sit squarely in that bracket. Two days after surgery, the man was cracking jokes and able to sit in a chair; the 58-year-old Navy veteran was facing near-certain death from heart failure but other health problems meant he wasn’t eligible for a traditional heart transplant, according to doctors at the University of Maryland Medicine. Delight in health care advances apart, it was a sobering realisation of the high impact blood pressure has on the people of India thanks to the World Health Organisation’s first-ever report on BP. Here are a few issues that are relevant, in addition to what we have already discussed on the subject in the past: Looking at the curious link between Alzheimer’s disease and trauma, Saumya Kalia examines the question: Does stress — trauma, of the brain, the mind, the body — erode brain health to a degree that it hastens neurodegeneration, and consequently, the risk of developing AD?