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Pattern of brain development affects recovery from childhood ADHD
Date: Oct-17-2013Some people grow out of their childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and some don't. In fact, around 50% of individuals diagnosed as children continue to suffer from ADHD as adults. Researchers are trying to understand the reasons why, and relatedly, whether there are any differences that distinguish the two groups. Gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and symptom severity have already been ruled out as potentials. So, perhaps there is a distinguishing variable in the brain? Dr...
Phase 3 trial of 1-year contraceptive vaginal ring shows positive results
Date: Oct-17-2013Tthe Population Council has presented findings from a Phase 3 clinical trial that was designed to demonstrate the safety, efficacy, and acceptability of the Council's investigational one-year contraceptive vaginal ring (CVR). The results were presented during an oral session at the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. The study (Study 300B) is part of an extensive clinical trial package that will be submitted as part of a New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration...
Hormone produced during stressful situations primes the brain for post-traumatic stress disorder
Date: Oct-17-2013About a dozen years ago, scientists discovered that a hormone called ghrelin enhances appetite. Dubbed the "hunger hormone," ghrelin was quickly targeted by drug companies seeking treatments for obesity - none of which have yet panned out. MIT neuroscientists have now discovered that ghrelin's role goes far beyond controlling hunger. The researchers found that ghrelin released during chronic stress makes the brain more vulnerable to traumatic events, suggesting that it may predispose people to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)...
Scientists create self-renewing antioxidant
Date: Oct-17-2013Scientists at Rice University are enhancing the natural antioxidant properties of an element found in a car's catalytic converter to make it useful for medical applications. Rice chemist Vicki Colvin led a team that created small, uniform spheres of cerium oxide and gave them a thin coating of fatty oleic acid to make them biocompatible. The researchers say their discovery has the potential to help treat traumatic brain injury, cardiac arrest and Alzheimer's patients and can guard against radiation-induced side effects suffered by cancer patients...
Prolactin may help in liver regeneration
Date: Oct-17-2013The hormone prolactin is probably best known for its role in stimulating milk production in mothers after giving birth. But prolactin also has an important function in the liver. This organ has the highest number of prolactin receptors in the body, ports that allow this hormone to enter liver cells. There, prolactin signals these cells to multiply and new blood vessels to grow to fuel this organ's expansion...
Gulf War Illness and Alzheimer's disease share similar neurochemical underpinnings
Date: Oct-17-2013New research illuminates definitive brain alterations in troops with Gulf War Illness (GWI) thought to result from the exposure to neurotoxic chemicals, including sarin gas, during the first Persian Gulf War. "More than 250,000 troops, or approximately 25% of those deployed during the first Persian Gulf War, have been diagnosed with Gulf War Illness (GWI)...
Survey estimates Iraqi death toll from 2003-2011 war and subsequent conflict at half a million
Date: Oct-17-2013A scientific study calculating Iraqi deaths for almost the complete period of the US-led war and subsequent occupation published in PLOS Medicine this week reports that close to half a million Iraqi deaths are directly or indirectly attributable to the conflict. A team of researchers from Iraq and the US led by Amy Hagopian, of the University of Washington, conducted a survey in 2000 households across Iraq and used the data to estimate death rates for the two year-period before the war began in March 2003 and the subsequent years until mid-2011...
Protective pathway identified to counter toxicity associated with Alzheimer's disease
Date: Oct-17-2013New research led by Marco Prado, PhD, of Western University has identified a pathway used by the brain to try to protect itself from toxicity that occurs with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Prado and his colleagues at the Robarts Research Institute and at the A.C. Camargo Cancer Center in Brazil have done extensive work on the role of prion protein. They found that toxicity of amyloid-β peptides, one of the major culprits in AD, can be decreased by preventing it from interacting with the prion protein...
Bacteriophages to tackle superbugs'
Date: Oct-17-2013A specialist team of scientists from the University of Leicester has isolated viruses that eat bacteria -- called phages -- to specifically target the highly infectious hospital superbug Clostridium difficile (C. diff). Now an exciting new collaboration between the University of Leicester, the University of Glasgow and AmpliPhi Biosciences Corporation could lead to the use of bacteriophages for treating the superbug Clostridium difficile infections...
Crystal methamphetamine use increases risk of injection initiation among injection-naive street-involved youth
Date: Oct-17-2013The use of crystal methamphetamine by street-involved youth is linked to an increased risk of injecting drugs, with crystal methamphetamine being the drug most commonly used at the time of first injection, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Amphetamine-type drugs, including crystal methamphetamine, are second only to cannabis in popularity. Injection rates of crystal methamphetamine have increased substantially among adult drug users in some Canadian centres such as Vancouver, BC...
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