Daily briefing: Wearable robot could help kids with neuromuscular disease stand

A lightweight wearable robotic device provides individualized resistance training for children with spinal muscular atrophy who cannot walk. After six weeks of use, six children aged 6 to 10 could stand from a lower sitting angle, showed about 20% larger quadriceps, and generated more than twice the knee-bending force compared with pre-training assessments. A separate analysis of peer-review correspondence for papers in Nature Communications used artificial intelligence to assess reviewer comments. Papers that received stronger criticism and required more extensive revisions were associated with higher citation counts, and higher-quality comments were also linked to more citations. An additional study found that an extra-long snooze after a short night of sleep, called sleep rebound, offset some negative health effects, with participants less likely to die over the following eight years.

"A lightweight, wearable robotic device can help children living with a rare condition called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) improve their knee function, which could help them stand unassisted. The device provides resistance training tailored to the individual needs of children who are unable to walk because of SMA. After using the robot for six weeks, six children - aged between 6 and 10 years - could stand from a lower sitting angle, had 20% bigger quadriceps, and could generate more than twice as much force when bending their knees, compared to pre-training assessments."

"Researchers used artificial intelligence to analyse the peer-review correspondence associated with a selection of papers published in Nature Communications. They found that papers that elicited stronger criticism from reviewers and required more-extensive revisions received more citations than did papers that drew lighter comments. A higher 'quality' of reviewer comments - those that were more specific and well-reasoned - was also associated with a boost in citations to the published product."

"An extra-long snooze after a short night's sleep appears to offset some of the negative health effects associated with sleep deprivation. Researchers found that people who caught up on sleep the night after a brief slumber - termed 'sleep rebound' - were less likely to die in the eight years following the study."

Read at Nature