The research was conducted at Oregon Health & Science University and published in the journal Science Advances.

The Disease Behind “Brain on Fire”

Many people recognize this disorder from the bestselling memoir and the 2016 film “Brain on Fire.” Although widely publicized, the condition is rare, affecting roughly 1 in 1 million people each year, most often adults in their 20s and 30s.

The illness occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks NMDA receptors in the brain. These receptors play an essential role in memory and thinking. The attack is driven in part by anti-NMDA receptor autoantibodies. Patients can experience dramatic personality changes, profound memory loss, seizures, and in severe cases, death.

Pinpointing the Antibody Binding Sites

In the new study, scientists identified specific locations on a subunit of the NMDA receptor where these harmful antibodies attach. Blocking these precise sites could potentially slow or even reverse the progression of the disease.

Lead author Junhoe Kim, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the OHSU Vollum Institute, analyzed anti-NMDA receptor autoantibodies taken from a specially engineered mouse model of the disease. He then compared those findings with detailed images of the same types of antibodies collected from people diagnosed with the disorder.

The binding locations observed in mice closely matched those seen in human patients.

“We have really solid evidence because the autoantibody binding sites that Junhoe identified overlap with those from people,” said senior author Eric Gouaux, Ph.D., senior scientist in the Vollum and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “We’re focused now on this area as literally a hot spot for the interaction that underpins at least one component of the disease.”

Kim explained that earlier research had narrowed down the general region where antibodies might attach.

“From previous studies, people knew where the antibodies might bind,” he said. “But we collected the entire native autoimmune antibody panel from a mouse model with the disease, and we elucidated where specifically they bind onto the receptor.”

Near-Atomic Imaging Reveals a Critical Hot Spot

The team used advanced near-atomic imaging at the Pacific Northwest Cryo-EM Center on OHSU’s South Waterfront campus. The facility is one of three national centers dedicated to this state-of-the-art imaging technology. It is jointly operated by OHSU and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Their analysis showed that nearly all of the antibodies concentrated on a single region of the receptor.

“Nearly all of the antibodies bound to a single domain of the receptor that happens to be the part of the receptor that’s simplest to target,” Gouaux said. “It’s a super exciting result, actually.”

Toward More Precise Treatments

According to co-author Gary Westbrook, M.D., a neurologist and senior scientist at the Vollum Institute, the discovery could help pharmaceutical companies design drugs that specifically block the damaging antibody interactions. Current treatments rely largely on immunosuppression, which does not work for everyone and can leave patients vulnerable to relapse.

“More specific approaches are definitely needed,” he said.

In addition to Kim, Gouaux, and Westbrook, the research team included Farzad Jalali-Yazdi, Ph.D., and Brian Jones, Ph.D., of OHSU.

The study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea, award RS202400334731; the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, both part of the National Institutes of Health, under award numbers F32MH115595, R01NS117371 and R01NS038631; the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Jennifer and Bernard LaCroute. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

All animal research at OHSU undergoes review and approval by the university’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). The IACUC ensures the welfare of animal subjects and the safety of research personnel. It also evaluates all proposed animal studies to confirm their scientific merit and justify the use of live animals.

Researchers from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Penn State recreated Mars like conditions in the laboratory to test that idea. They found that pieces of amino acids from E. coli bacteria, if trapped in Martian permafrost or ice caps, could survive more than 50 million years even under constant cosmic radiation. The findings, published in Astrobiology, suggest that missions searching for life on Mars should prioritize pure ice or ice rich permafrost instead of focusing mainly on rocks, clay, or soil.

“Fifty million years is far greater than the expected age for some current surface ice deposits on Mars, which are often less than two million years old, meaning any organic life present within the ice would be preserved,” said co author Christopher House, professor of geosciences, affiliate of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Earth and Environment Systems Institute, and director of the Penn State Consortium for Planetary and Exoplanetary Science and Technology. “That means if there are bacteria near the surface of Mars, future missions can find it.”

Simulating Mars and Cosmic Radiation in the Lab

The study was led by Alexander Pavlov, a space scientist at NASA Goddard who completed a doctorate in geosciences at Penn State in 2001. The team sealed E. coli bacteria inside test tubes filled with pure water ice. Other samples were combined with water and materials commonly found in Martian sediment, including silicate based rocks and clay.

The frozen samples were placed in a gamma radiation chamber at Penn State’s Radiation Science and Engineering Center. The chamber was cooled to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit to match temperatures in icy regions of Mars. The bacteria were then exposed to radiation equivalent to 20 million years of cosmic ray bombardment on the Martian surface. Afterward, the samples were vacuum sealed and shipped back to NASA Goddard under cold conditions for amino acid testing. Researchers then modeled an additional 30 years of radiation exposure, bringing the total to 50 million years.

Pure Ice Protects Organic Molecules

The results were striking. In pure water ice, more than 10 percent of the amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, survived the full 50 million year simulation. By contrast, samples mixed with Mars like sediment broke down 10 times faster and did not survive.

A 2022 study by the same team had shown that amino acids preserved in a mixture of 10% water ice and 90% Martian soil were destroyed more quickly than samples containing only sediment.

“Based on the 2022 study findings, it was thought that organic material in ice or water alone would be destroyed even more rapidly than the 10% water mixture,” Pavlov said. “So, it was surprising to find that the organic materials placed in water ice alone are destroyed at a much slower rate than the samples containing water and soil.”

Researchers think the faster breakdown in mixed samples may happen because a thin film forms where ice touches minerals. That layer could allow radiation to move more freely and damage amino acids.

“While in solid ice, harmful particles created by radiation get frozen in place and may not be able to reach organic compounds,” Pavlov said. “These results suggest that pure ice or ice-dominated regions are an ideal place to look for recent biological material on Mars.”

Implications for Europa and Enceladus

The team also tested organic material at temperatures similar to those on Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn. At those even colder temperatures, deterioration slowed down further.

Pavlov said the findings are encouraging for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, which will study Europa’s ice shell and subsurface ocean. Europa is the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 95 moons. Europa Clipper launched in 2024 and is traveling 1.8 billion miles to reach Jupiter in 2030. The spacecraft will perform 49 close flybys to determine whether environments beneath the surface could support life.

Drilling Into Martian Ice

When it comes to Mars, accessing buried ice will require the right tools. The 2008 NASA Mars Phoenix mission was the first to dig down and photograph ice in the Martian equivalent of the Arctic Circle.

“There is a lot of ice on Mars, but most of it is just below the surface,” House said. “Future missions need a large enough drill or a powerful scoop to access it, similar to the design and capabilities of Phoenix.”

In addition to House and Pavlov, the research team included Zhidan Zhang, a retired lab technologist in the Penn State Department of Geosciences, along with Hannah McLain, Kendra Farnsworth, Daniel Glavin, Jamie Elsila, and Jason Dworkin of NASA Goddard.

The work was funded by NASA’s Planetary Science Division Internal Scientist Funding Program through the Fundamental Laboratory Research work package at Goddard Space Flight Center.

“Without a magnetic field, the galaxy would collapse in on itself due to gravity,” says Brown, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Calgary.

“We need to know what the magnetic field of the galaxy looks like now, so we can create accurate models that predict how it will evolve.”

New Milky Way Magnetic Field Data and Models

This month, Brown and her colleagues published two new studies in The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. Together, the papers introduce a complete dataset that astronomers around the world can use, along with a new model designed to improve understanding of how the Milky Way’s magnetic field developed over time.

To gather the data, the team relied on a new radio telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in B.C., a National Research Council Canada facility. The instrument allowed them to scan the northern sky at multiple radio frequencies, offering a detailed look at the structure of the galaxy’s magnetic field.

“The broad coverage really lets you get at the details about the magnetic field structure,” says Dr. Anna Ordog, PhD, lead author of the first study.

The result is a high quality, wide ranging dataset collected as part of the Global Magneto-Ionic Medium Survey (GMIMS), an international effort to chart the Milky Way’s magnetic field.

Tracking Faraday Rotation Across the Galaxy

The researchers measured a phenomenon known as Faraday rotation to trace the magnetic field. This effect occurs when radio waves pass through regions filled with electrons and magnetic fields, causing the waves to shift.

“You can think of it like refraction. A straw in a glass of water looks bent because of how light interacts with matter,” says Rebecca Booth, a PhD candidate working with Brown and lead author of the second study. “Faraday rotation is a similar concept, but it’s electrons and magnetic fields in space interacting with radio waves.”

By analyzing these subtle changes in radio signals, the team was able to map how the magnetic field is arranged across vast stretches of the galaxy.

A Diagonal Magnetic Reversal in the Sagittarius Arm

In the second study, Booth focused on a striking feature within the Milky Way known as the Sagittarius Arm, where the magnetic field runs in the opposite direction compared to the rest of the galaxy.

“If you could look at the galaxy from above, the overall magnetic field is going clockwise,” says Brown. “But, in the Sagittarius Arm, it’s going counterclockwise. We didn’t understand how the transition occurred. Then one day, Anna brought in some data, and I went, ‘O.M.G., the reversal’s diagonal!'”

Building on Ordog’s findings, Booth used the newly assembled dataset to construct a three dimensional model explaining this reversal.

“My work presents a new three-dimensional model for the magnetic field reversal. From Earth, this would appear as the diagonal that we observe in the data,” Booth explains.

The research is not designed to forecast earthquakes. Instead, it outlines a possible physical mechanism showing how shifts in ionospheric charge levels — triggered by intense solar activity such as solar flares — might interact with already weakened areas of the crust and influence how fractures develop.

How the Ionosphere Could Affect Fault Zones

In this model, cracked regions of the crust are thought to contain water at extremely high temperatures and pressures, possibly in a supercritical state. Electrically, these fractured zones may act like capacitors. They are coupled both to the Earth’s surface and to the lower ionosphere, creating a vast electrostatic system that links the ground to the upper atmosphere.

When solar activity surges, electron density in the ionosphere can rise significantly. This can produce a negatively charged layer in the lower ionosphere. Through capacitive coupling, that charge may generate intense electric fields inside microscopic voids within fractured rock. The resulting electrostatic pressure could approach levels similar to tidal or gravitational stresses that are already known to influence fault stability.

According to the team’s calculations, ionospheric disturbances tied to major solar flares — involving increases in total electron content of several tens of TEC units — might create electrostatic pressures of several megapascals within these crustal voids.

Ionospheric Anomalies Observed Before Major Quakes

Unusual ionospheric behavior has often been detected before powerful earthquakes. Observations have included spikes in electron density, drops in ionospheric altitude, and slower propagation of medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances. Traditionally, scientists have interpreted these changes as effects caused by stress building up inside the crust.

This new framework offers an additional perspective. It suggests a two way interaction in which processes inside the Earth can influence the ionosphere, while ionospheric disturbances may also send feedback forces back down into the crust. The model connects space weather and seismic activity without claiming that solar activity directly causes earthquakes.

Solar Activity and the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake

The researchers point to recent major earthquakes in Japan, including the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake, as events that occurred shortly after periods of intense solar flare activity. They stress that this timing does not prove cause and effect. However, it aligns with the idea that ionospheric disturbances could act as a contributing factor when faults are already close to failure.

Rethinking Earthquakes Beyond Internal Forces

By drawing on plasma physics, atmospheric science, and geophysics, this approach expands the traditional view that earthquakes are driven solely by forces inside the planet. The findings indicate that tracking ionospheric conditions alongside underground measurements could improve understanding of how earthquakes begin and how seismic risk is assessed.

Future work will combine high-resolution GNSS-based ionospheric tomography with detailed space weather data. The goal is to determine when and how ionospheric disturbances might exert meaningful electrostatic effects on the Earth’s crust.