Your Updates for A&P [357]
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AI May Blunt Our Thinking—If We Let It
There’s growing evidence that generative AI can make our thinking lazier if we hand it the whole job. Studies show people remember less, show weaker brain connectivity, and do more shallow reasoning when AI does the synthesizing and explaining for them. Younger heavy users also report lower critical-thinking scores and admit they think less critically while using AI. But when people think first, then bring in AI as a helper, brain engagement stays high and the thinking gets sharper, not duller.
A&P teaching tip: Have students write a quick prediction or outline before they ask AI for help, then submit an “AI note” explaining what the tool added, what it got wrong, and what they changed.
Cuts and Scrapes May Heal More Slowly in Redheads
Mice with the same MC1R mutation that produces red hair in humans healed skin wounds more slowly than black-haired mice. With inactive MC1R, their lesions closed less over a week, likely because inflammation stayed a bit hotter and longer. A topical drug that boosts MC1R signaling sped healing in black-haired mice, shrinking wounds much faster by calming excess inflammation. Humans are more complicated, and most redheads have at least some MC1R activity, so this probably isn’t a dramatic difference in everyday life.
A&P teaching tip: In your integument module, have students trace MC1R from pigment to inflammation control, then predict how small shifts in that pathway might change pain, redness, and healing time.
Read more→ AandP.info/a7j
Your Microbiome Grows Old With You
As we age, our gut microbes tend to lose diversity and tilt toward a less helpful set, especially on a Western diet. The result is more “inflammaging”—chronic low-grade inflammation that weakens barriers, leaks microbes and toxins into the bloodstream, and even shakes the blood–brain barrier. That can nudge frailty, mood changes, and dementia risk. Yet diet and lifestyle still matter in later life: Mediterranean-style eating, fermented foods, fiber variety, social contact, and movement can all push the microbiome back toward a richer, more resilient community.
A&P teaching tip: Ask students to design a one-week “microbiome-friendly” plan for an older adult, then tie each food or habit to specific mechanisms like SCFA production, barrier function, and brain–gut signaling.
Read more→ AandP.info/6x7
When Strep Throat Rewires a Child’s Brain
A BBC feature on PANDAS/PANS shows how a common infection like strep throat can, in rare cases, trigger sudden OCD, tics, and dramatic behavior changes. The idea is that a misdirected immune response hits brain circuits—especially basal ganglia—after infection. Families often face long diagnostic delays and controversial opinions, because symptoms overlap with many other conditions and research is still evolving. That makes it a powerful story for teaching both immune–brain cross-talk and the messy reality of translating science into practice.
A&P teaching tip: Have students sketch a path from throat infection to molecular mimicry to circuit-level changes, then list at least three alternative diagnoses a clinician must consider.
Read more→ AandP.info/l1a
Free Histology Coloring Book
The Histology Coloring Book project offers a free, open-access histology “textbook” built around 100+ coloring plates. Chapters cover major tissues and organ systems, with downloadable images that can be colored digitally or on paper. It is explicitly aimed at health-science students and funded by the American Association of Anatomy as an active-learning resource. This is an easy way to get students doing low-stakes, visual retrieval before lab—even if you never call it “coloring” out loud.
A&P teaching tip: Assign a specific set of histology coloring plates before each lab and ask students to bring one question from any image to connect what they colored with the real slide.
Read more→ AandP.info/b7w
Goodbye Cavities? Regrowing Tooth Enamel
Researchers have developed bioinspired gels and keratin-based coatings that can regrow enamel-like mineral on teeth instead of just patching them. These materials mimic the protein scaffolds used in natural amelogenesis or use keratin from hair and wool to form a crystal-like layer that binds calcium and phosphate. Early tests suggest they can repair early enamel damage, cover exposed dentin, and reduce sensitivity. This points toward a future of regenerative dentistry where we rebuild enamel instead of drilling it away.
A&P teaching tip: When covering dental or skeletal topics, ask students to compare native enamel formation with these gels, and predict what side effects or limitations clinicians must watch for.
Read more→ AandP.info/5db
Gray Hair as a Cancer Defense
New work on melanocyte stem cells suggests gray hair can be a visible sign of a protective choice. When DNA damage hits these pigment stem cells, some undergo “seno-differentiation”—they mature and exit the stem pool rather than risk turning malignant. The cost is lost pigment and graying hair. The benefit is fewer damaged cells left behind to transform into melanoma. Gray hair, then, may sometimes be the footprint of an internal safety switch at work.
A&P teaching tip: Use hair follicle growth cycles to show how stem-cell fate decisions link aging to cancer risk, then ask students to find another visible “trade-off” in the body that may hide a protective mechanism.
Read more→ AandP.info/cd5
AI Has Joined the Faculty
The Chronicle piece shows faculty across disciplines using generative AI as a course-design assistant, feedback helper, and even AI tutor. Some report better-prepared students and richer in-class discussion when AI handles routine explanations or early drafting. Others worry about grading with AI, eroding trust, or admin pressure to “do more with less” by scaling class sizes. The strongest theme is that AI works best when it extends a teacher’s judgment and persona, not when it silently replaces them.
A&P teaching tip: Add a short “AI policy” box to each assignment that spells out what students may and may not do—and model that by being transparent about how you do or do not use AI in your own course prep.
Read more→ AandP.info/6pa
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Seven Basic Science Discoveries That Changed the World
This Nature feature walks through how today’s tools and drugs grew out of “blue-sky” basic research. Taq polymerase from hot-spring bacteria gave us PCR. Nuclear magnetic resonance led to MRI and fMRI. Liquid crystals from carrot chemistry became flat screens. CRISPR started as odd repeat sequences in salty microbes. GLP-1 drugs trace back to work on Gila-monster venom. Petunia-color experiments launched RNA interference. Even work on meteorite lead dating set up the fight against leaded gasoline.
A&P teaching tip: Have students pick one example and build a “bench-to-bedside” storyboard—at least three steps from weird lab finding to something they might see in a clinic.
Read more→ AandP.info/nco
Steroid Shots for Knee Pain: Not Much Better Than Placebo
A cross-over trial of 221 veterans with knee osteoarthritis compared intra-articular corticosteroid injections to lidocaine alone. Both groups showed only tiny gains on KOOS and PROMIS scores, far below the usual threshold for meaningful improvement. Steroids had slight numerical advantages for some subgroups, but the number needed to treat was in the 20s and effects faded by 12 weeks. In this broad, real-world sample, the study found no convincing evidence that steroid shots offer substantial benefit over a simple anesthetic shot.
A&P teaching tip: Use this to talk about effect size and clinical significance, then ask students to brainstorm non-injection strategies—like weight loss, muscle strength, and pain education—and map how each changes joint mechanics and perception.
Read more→ AandP.info/l9q
I give teachers today lots of credit. To develop or find appropriate AI tools must take a lot of time. Back in the day, I was scrambling just to get my classes prepared and keep up with my undergrads doing research.