News archive

Nobel Week is soon to come, bringing together all the Nobel Laureates in Stockholm. One of them, Tomas Lindahl, one of this year's three Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, made many of his pioneering discoveries at Karolinska Institutet.

A population of ‘stop cells’ in the brainstem is essential for the ability of mice to stop their locomotion, according to a new study by scientists at Karolinska Institutet. In an article published in the journal Cell, they report a brainstem pathway specifically dedicated to enforce locomotor arrest: its selective activation stops locomotion, while its silencing favors it. The study thus identifies a novel descending modality essential for gating the episodic nature of locomotor behavior.

Sonia Lain has been appointed Professor.

A mechanical valve prosthesis has a better survival record than a biological valve prosthesis, according to a large registry study from Karolinska Institutet. The finding, which is published in the European Heart Journal, can be highly significant, since the use of biological valve prostheses has increased in all age groups in recent years.

Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have high levels of androgens in their blood, which has been assumed able to affect fetal development during pregnancy. An international team of researchers led from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has now identified a hormonal mechanism that might explain why women with PCOS run a higher risk of developing symptoms of mental ill-health, such as anxiety and depression, in adulthood.

New research from Karolinska Institutet shows that hypersexual disorder – known popularly as sex addiction – can be linked to hyperactive stress systems. In a stress regulation test using the cortisone drug dexamethasone, men with hypersexual disorder showed higher levels of stress hormones than controls, a finding that the researchers hope will contribute to improved therapy for this patient group. The results are published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.