New research has overturned the scientific belief that the brain is a sterile place devoid of microbes, write Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel in their weekly Medical Discovery News column. Scientists now estimate that more than 170 different bacteria and viruses could be present in the brain.

Even low levels of daily physical activity can lead to significant improvements in fitness levels, social responsiveness, cognitive flexibility, and planning and organizing abilities in autistic adolescents, according to the latest research from UTMB’s Dr. Claudia Hilton. She discussed the findings with the GCDN.

The Galveston newspaper was on hand to capture the smiles, tears and excitement as UTMB’s fourth-year medical students, joined by family and friends, opened their Match Day letters at Levin Hall.

UTMB’s Dr. Natacha Cough spoke to NPR about what astronauts go through when they return to earth after an extended stay in outer space. "Your inner ear kind of shuts off more or less in weightlessness," Chough told NPR. "So when you reintroduce that sense of gravity, it can be a little bit disorienting." Along with her role as an assistant professor in aerospace medicine at UTMB, Cough is also a NASA flight surgeon and part of the team that oversees astronaut health care.

“For me, it has been the relentless focus on our values and culture,” Dr. Jochen Reiser, UTMB President and CEO of the UTMB Health System, tells Becker’s. Reiser was among the 36 C-suite executives Becker’s spoke to about lessons learned in the past year.

Becker’s also spoke to UTMB’s Dr. Salim Hayek for a separate story on lessons learned over the past year. “The most profound lesson I’ve learned is that our traditional RVU-centric physician compensation models are fundamentally misaligned with academic medicine’s multi-faceted mission — they’re financially unsustainable and directly contribute to the high proportion of low-value care in our health systems,” Hayek told Becker’s.

Where a person lives can influence their recovery from a traumatic brain injury, according to a new study by UTMB’s Dr. Monique Pappadis and a team of researchers. “The intricate relationship between healthcare access and community socioeconomic factors necessitates sophisticated strategies to increase equity,” the research team concluded.

While Vitamin A has an important role in supporting the immune system, it is no substitute for a vaccine, write Drs. Megan Berman and Richard Rupp in their Vaccine Smarts column.

In recent years, the simple act of gardening has gained recognition not only for its aesthetic appeal but also for its remarkable health benefits, writes Dr. Hasan Yasin in his column for the Daily News.

Dr. Salim Hayek also spoke to Becker’s about physician compensation. “Transforming compensation systems requires both acknowledging this anxiety and demonstrating through clear data how the current approach undermines our core academic mission of patient care, education and research,” Hayek said.