Social Sciences

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – Being able to accurately predict how a given cancer will respond to chemotherapy would spare patients with non-responsive tumors the burden of undergoing toxic and ultimately unhelpful treatment. Just as important, knowing which of a patient's cancer-causing genetic lesions are contributing to drug resistance might help doctors redesign therapy for maximum benefit. Researchers led by Professor Scott Lowe, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), have come closer to achieving these critical goals for human cancer therapy by developing new mouse models for…

PITTSBURGH, March 31 – People who suffer cardiac arrests and then receive coronary angiography are twice as likely to survive without significant brain damage compared with those who don't have the procedure, according to a study by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers. The study, published in the May/June issue of the Journal of Intensive Care Medicine and now available online, showed that patient outcomes improved with coronary angiography, an imaging procedure that shows how blood flows through the heart, regardless of certain clinical and demographic factors that…

Why do some consumers prefer local products and others gravitate toward global brands? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research examines why some people might choose a local brand instead of a recognizable global brand like Coke or Pepsi. "Due to rapid globalization, local products—products with specifications and packaging tailored for local markets, such as Mecca Cola (France) and Fei-Chang Cola (China)—and global products (products with the same specifications and packaging for consumers from around the world) such as Pepsi and Coke, routinely compete against each other," write…

A blood test that can help predict the seriousness of a head injury and detect the status of the blood-brain barrier is a step closer to reality, according to two recently published studies involving University of Rochester Medical Center researchers. News stories about tragic head injuries – from the death of actress Natasha Richardson to brain-injured Iraq war soldiers and young athletes – certainly underscore the need for a simpler, faster, accurate screening tool, said brain injury expert Jeffrey Bazarian, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of Emergency Medicine, Neurology and Neurosurgery…

[PRESS RELEASE, 31 March 2009] Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet (KI) have constructed a mathematical activity model of the brain's frontal and parietal parts, to increase the understanding of the capacity of the working memory and of how the billions of neurons in the brain interact. One of the findings they have made with this 'model brain' is a mechanism in the brain's neuronal network that restricts the number of items we can normally store in our working memories at any one time to around two to seven. Working memory, which is our ability to retain…

Imagine a delicious pile of French fries next to a low-fat green salad. After resisting the fries, can you really be expected to go to the gym instead of watching TV? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, consumers who focus on long-term goals are more likely to resist unhealthy urges. "Whether it's gobbling dessert, skipping a workout, or failing to floss, consumers often let down their guard when they're faced with one health challenge after another," write authors Nidhi Agrawal (Northwestern University) and Echo Wen Wan (University of Hong Kong). "If we are feeling…

Washington, DC – Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have been able to speed recovery and substantially reduce damage resulting from spinal cord injury in preclinical studies. Their research, published online in Annals of Neurology and led by Kimberly Byrnes, PhD, shows that inflammation following injury causes the neurotoxicity that leads to lasting nerve cell damage, and that an experimental agent is able to block this inflammatory reaction. "The findings we have made in this study may potentially be applicable to other neurological disorders, including stroke, head…

To avoid unwanted or unnecessary purchases, keep your hands off the goods. That's the conclusion of a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Authors Joann Peck (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Suzanne B. Shu (UCLA) cite a 2003 warning from the Illinois state attorney general's office that warned holiday shoppers to be cautious of retailers who encourage them to hold objects and imagine the objects as their own when shopping. The authors wondered whether the warning was valid and, more generally, if touch influences the feeling of ownership and valuation of an object. "In our…

The beneficial effects of anti-angiogenesis drugs in the treatment of the deadly brain tumors called glioblastomas appear to result primarily from reduction of edema – the swelling of brain tissue – and not from any direct anti-tumor effect, according to a study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers. Their report, to be published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and receiving early online release, describes how treatment with the experimental drug cediranib reduced edema and improved survival in three mouse models of glioblastoma. "Our findings suggest that…

DURHAM, N.C. – Mice born without a certain enzyme can resist the normal effects of a heart attack and retain nearly normal function in the heart's ventricles and still-oxygenated heart tissue, according to a study by researchers at Duke University Medical Center. The findings raise the possibility of a therapy that could stimulate the growth of blood vessels and limit damage from a heart attack as well as prevent an attack from occurring at all, the scientists said. Normal mice that went through the same experiment had full heart attacks, suffering damage to their heart pumps and a lack of…