| UCSF Magazine

Periods May Trigger Pain for Many Who Have Sickle Cell Disease

UCSF researchers found that 64.4% of female patients report sickle cell disease (SCD) pain during menstruation. However, these patients also report low rates of hormonal contraceptive awareness or use, which could potentially help treat SCD pain for female patients.

Scientists Find a Mechanism for How Exercise Protects the Brain

A UCSF team finds a liver protein, released with exercise, that improves memory in aging and Alzheimer’s disease by repairing the brain’s blood vessels. It's the missing link between exercise and brain rejuvenation that many have been hunting for.

GE HealthCare and UCSF Health Announce 10-year Care Alliance

UCSF Health formed a collaboration with a large radiology equipment provider to enable expanded radiologic technologist (rad tech) education, magnetic resonance (MR) excellence, and remote imaging solutions. 

First UCSF Health Patient to Move from Total Artificial Heart to Transplant

In a first, UCSF implanted a patient, who was in heart failure, with an artificial heart, who then he received a heart transplant months later. He has been discharged and is in good health.

The Brain May Learn More from Rare Events than from Repetition

How we learn to predict an outcome isn’t determined by how many times a cue and reward happen together. Instead, how much time passes between rewards is also important. Understanding this process has implications for how we think about addiction, and could also point to faster AI algorithms.summary

As Health Care Goes Digital, Patients Are Being Left Behind

An NIH-funded survey by UCSF researchers found that despite the fact that digital health will continue to be core in health delivery, less than half of surveyed health systems are checking for barriers to using patient portals, telemedicine, and other digital health tools.

AI Bots Accurately Analyze Big Data Set to Predict Preterm Birth

A team of UCSF researchers successfully tested several mainstream AI agents for the ability to analyze big data on women's reproductive health, with the goal of predicting pre-term births.

How Bad Are A.I. Delusions? We Asked People Treating Them.

Decoding Parkinson’s Patients’ Movements in the Real World

For years, scientists have studied how the brain controls movement by asking patients to perform structured tasks while connected to multiple sensors in a lab. While these studies have provided important insights, they do not fully capture how the brain functions during everyday activities, be it walking to the kitchen for a snack or strolling through a park. For people living with Parkinson’s disease, this gap between laboratory research and real-world behavior has limited efforts to improve gait symptoms outside of the clinic.

Active v. Latent TB: What to Know About the San Francisco Outbreak

In the wake of a recent outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) and latent TB cases at a local San Francisco high school, IGHS's Priya Shete tells us what to know about latent TB.