close
Immunology

Scientists show the damaging effects of immunological hyperactivity in Down syndrome and how to normalize it using currently available medications.

The Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) led a team that discovered that NASA’s Juno spacecraft frequently encounters enormous swirling waves at the boundary between Jupiter’s magnetosphere and the solar wind. The waves are a significant cycle for moving energy and mass from the sun-based breeze, a flood of charged particles radiated by the sun, to planetary space conditions.

These phenomena occur when a significant difference in velocity forms across the boundary between two regions in space, as noted by Jake Montgomery, a doctoral student in the joint space physics program between UTSA and SwRI. At the point where a planet’s magnetic field and the solar wind meet, known as the magnetopause, this may result in a swirling wave or vortex. Although these Kelvin-Helmholtz waves cannot be seen with the naked eye, they can be observed by instruments in space through plasma and magnetic fields. Plasma—a principal condition of issue comprised of charged particles, particles, and electrons—is omnipresent across the universe.

“Kelvin-Helmholtz hazards are a basic actual cycle that happens when sun-powered and heavenly breezes interface with planetary attractive fields across our nearby planet group and all through the universe,” Montgomery said. “Juno noticed these waves during a large number of its circles, giving decisive proof that Kelvin-Helmholtz dangers assume a functioning part in the connection between the sun-based breeze and Jupiter.”

“We discovered that interferon hyperactivity shapes the biology of Down syndrome throughout the lifespan. Those with the highest interferon activity exhibit higher autoinflammation, stronger dysregulation of key growth factors, substantial metabolic alterations, and a vastly altered immune system.”

Dr. Matthew Galbraith, leader of the Data Sciences Program at the Crnic Institute and one of the co-leading authors of the paper.

Montgomery is the lead creator of a review distributed in Geophysical Exploration Letters that utilizes information from numerous Juno instruments, including its magnetometer and the SwRI-fabricated Jovian Auroral Circulations Examination (JADE).

“Juno’s broad time close to Jupiter’s magnetopause has empowered point-by-point perceptions of peculiarities like Kelvin-Helmholtz dangers around here,” said Dr. Robert Ebert, a staff researcher at SwRI who likewise fills in as an adjoint teacher at UTSA. “This sun-based breeze communication is significant as it can move plasma and energy across the magnetopause into Jupiter’s magnetosphere, driving action inside that framework.”

More information: Matthew D. Galbraith et al, Multidimensional definition of the interferonopathy of Down syndrome and its response to JAK inhibition, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adg6218

Journal information: Science Advances 

Topic : Article