Clinical Research
Researchers from Chungnam National University in Daejeon, South Korea say that increasing dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcohol may reduce drinking-related side effects and accidents. The Results will be published in Alcoholism: Clinical&Experimental Research.
Scientists performed three experiments with 49 healthy volunteers (30 men, 19 women), with a mean age of 27.2 years. Experiment one compared 8 ppm and 20 ppm dissolved oxygen concentrations in 240 ml of 19.5 percent alcoholic beverage. The second compared 8 ppm and 20 ppm dissolved oxygen concentrations in 360 ml of 19.5…
camdic |
Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD)- Lorenzo's Oil.
Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) also known as Addison-Schilder Disease or Siemerling-Creutzfeldt Disease, is one of a group of genetic disorders called the leukodystrophies that cause damage to the myelin sheath, an insulating membrane that surrounds nerve cells in the brain.
Women have two X-chromosomes and are the carriers of the disease, but since men only have one X-chromosome and lack the protective effect of the extra X-chromosome, they are more severely affected.
The childhood form is the most severe, with onset between ages 4…
Video games may help recovering stroke patients improve their motor function, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2010.The pilot study focused on movements with survivors' impaired arms to help both fine (small muscle) and gross (large muscle) motor function.
Twenty survivors (average age 61) of mild to moderate ischemic or hemorrhagic strokes were randomized to playing recreational games (cards or Jenga, a block stacking and balancing game) or Two Nintendo Wii games, tennis or Wii Cooking Mama, which uses movements that…
If you feel like you have an achy breaky heart, you may not be imagining things. "Broken hearts" are indeed real, although in the medical community they go by the much less lyrical name of stress (tako-tsubo) cardiomyopathy.
A recent article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology described stress (tako-tsubo) cardiomyopathy as "a rapidly reversible form of acute heart failure reported to be triggered by stressful events and associated with a distinctive left ventricular (LV) contraction pattern." Oooh, romantic. Shakespeare couldn't have written it better.
The mysterious malady…
Media Wakes Up From Coma
The media is currently reporting on 'mind-reading' experiments using brain scanners. Whilst the 'yes-no' response is news, the use of brain scanners to detect awareness in comatose patients is not.
Research into the use of fMRI to detect covert awareness in the vegetative state has been conducted since at least 2004. In 2009 scientists demonstrated learning behaviour in comatose subjects.
Scientists have pursued several lines of inquiry into the possibility of meaningful communication with comatose patients. The current line: detecting yes-no…
Sorry to take the wind out of your sales, parents who use Andrew Wakefield's 1998 paper on MMR vaccine as the cause of their child's autism. Here are three related stories in the news:
BBC
Bloomberg
Reuters
The paper has since been discredited, but it took Lancet 12 years to fully retract the paper. Better late than never, I suppose...although tell that to the kids that got the measles.
Preliminary research published this week in JAMA indicates that decreased levels of serotonin and tryptophan hydroxylase in the brainstem are associated with an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
The study included for biochemical analysis 35 infants dying from SIDS, 5 infants with acute death from known causes (controls), and 5 hospitalized infants with chronic hypoxia-ischemia (a reduction in oxygen supply combined with reduced blood flow to the brain). Tissue samples were obtained via autopsy and levels of serotonin and several enzymes, including serotonin…
According to a new report in the Archives of General Psychiatry, individuals at extremely high risk of developing psychosis appear less likely to develop psychotic disorders following a 12-week course of fish oil capsules containing long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.
Researchers conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of their effect on the risk of progression to psychosis in 81 individuals at ultra–high risk. These individuals either had mild psychotic symptoms, transient psychosis or a family history of psychotic disorders plus a decrease in…
I’ve already written how it irks me that so few scientific publications include good detail of how the animal subjects were used. Everyone needs a pet peeve; this is [one of] mine.
I’ve been interested lately in mouse embryo transfer surgeries. It’s the murine cousin to human in vitro fertilization (with the drastic difference that the egg donor is euthanized in the process). It’s one step in the process of making transgenic mice. You start with a pregnant mouse. You kill her to “harvest” fertilized mouse eggs. You insert genes you’ve synthesized in the lab into the fertilized egg in a Petri…
Hot off the press: the National Research Council’s Recognition and Alleviation of Pain in Laboratory Animals. The NRC’s publications on laboratory animal care articulate (usually in the most cautious language possible) the standard of care on which labs are assessed, so this new book on pain management is important.Way back in 1970, Congress updated its Animal Welfare Act to include pain management for lab animals. The plan was that lab vets would prescribe anesthetics and analgesics for animals, confident that use of painkillers would only rarely interfere with an experiment. They set…