Our brain keeps growing well into our 20s |  |
- Our brain keeps growing well into our 20s
- She fights genetic disorder with art
- Wayne State University study aims to improve diabetes management in high-risk youth
- Researchers studying 10,000 Solutions participatory online platform
- Infusing chemotherapy into the liver gives extra months of disease-free life in melanoma patients
- US firm dials in healthcare for seven million Indians
- FDA grants cardiotrophin-1 Orphan Drug status for acute liver failure treatment to Digna Biotech
- Virus kills breast cancer cells in laboratory
- Limits for mountain trail use identified
| Our brain keeps growing well into our 20s Posted: 24 Sep 2011 03:54 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Our brain continues to grow well into our 20s -- not just stopping at adolescence as once thought in medical science. New evidence to this effect has been unearthed by biomedical engineering researchers Christian Beaulieu and his doctoral student Catherine Lebel, from University of Alberta in Canada. Lebel recently moved to the US to work at the University of California in Los Angeles where she is a post-doctoral fellow working with an expert in brain-imaging research. 'This is the first long-range study using a type of imaging that looks at brain wiring to show that in the white matter, there are still structural changes happening during young adulthood,' says Lebel, the Journal of Neuroscience reports. 'The white matter is the wiring of the brain; it connects different regions to facilitate cognitive abilities. So the connections are strengthening as we age in young adulthood,' Lebel added, according to an Alberta statement. The researchers relied on magnetic resonance imaging - to scan the brains of 103 healthy people aged between five and 32 years. Each subject was scanned at least twice, with a total of 221 scans being conducted overall. The study demonstrated that parts of the brain continue to develop post-adolescence within individual subjects. The results revealed that young adult brains were still wiring the frontal lobe; tracts responsible for complex cognitive tasks such as inhibition, high-level functioning and attention. Researchers speculated that this may be due to a plethora of life experiences in young adulthood, such as pursuing post-secondary education, starting a career, independence and developing new social and family relationships. 'What's interesting is a lot of psychiatric illness and other disorders emerge during adolescence... it may be one of the factors that makes someone more susceptible to developing these disorders,' says Beaulieu. http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| She fights genetic disorder with art Posted: 24 Sep 2011 01:03 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 24 - It is 11 a.m. on a breezy September morning. Meryl Sarah speedily moves her wheelchair towards her drawing room where several of her glass paintings grace the pale yellow walls like a palette. Her limbs cannot move properly and she cannot stand on her feet as she suffers from Pompe, a rare genetic disorder. Sarah's back is bent as her spine remains swollen. Her stomach gets bloated when her condition worsens. But nothing can stop the 21-year-old from entering her world of art - and scripting an inspiring story for others who suffer from the disorder. 'I remember it was a dance class when I fell and could not get up. I was an 11-year-old ...this disease has been with me since then, but it never stopped me from following my dreams,' said Sarah, looking at the paintings at her home in Ghaziabad, near the national capital. It was after a decade of doubt that her disease could be diagnosed. Pompe, among a group of genetic diseases called Lysosomal Storage Disorders -, is caused by dysfunctioning of the body cells. It is triggered by a genetic defect in enzymes that maintain cellular functioning in the body. With a rare occurrence of one in 5,000 live births, LSDs have seen little research. Treatment through enzyme replacement therapy will cost hundreds of thousands of rupees a month, say experts. Sarah, a graduate of computer applications, has never let the feeling of dependence sink in even as she plans to pursue her masters in psychology - long distance. 'I need support for difficult movement like going to the toilet or climbing the stairs. My parents have been my pillars of strength,' she said, adding she has a passion for playing the guitar. Pompe, Gaucher, Schindler and Wolman are some of the 45 life-threatening LSDs. 'LSDs can be fatal as well as treatable. The disease affects multiple organs and causes progressive physical and mental deterioration over time,' Madhulika Kabra, professor at the genetics... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Wayne State University study aims to improve diabetes management in high-risk youth Posted: 23 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A little motivation for parents could go a long way toward improving young diabetes patients' ability to manage their own care, a Wayne State University researcher believes. Deborah Ellis, Ph. D, associate professor of pediatrics in WSU's School of Medicine, has received a two-year, $418,000 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health to develop and preliminarily validate a computer-delivered intervention to increase parental motivation to supervise and monitor diabetes management behavior of young adolescents who are beginning to manage their diabetes care by themselves. A companion intervention to increase the youths' own motivation to improve their diabetes care also will be developed as part of the study. The study, Ellis said, is designed to address poor diabetes-related health outcomes among a particularly high-risk group: urban, African American youth with diabetes. Those disparities can be caused by higher insulin resistance and a greater number of single-parent households among African Americans compared to other groups, she said. Content currently is being developed; actual testing of the intervention is scheduled to start in two to three months. Common sense might suggest that parents do need to oversee adolescents' diabetes management, Ellis said, but there's been a consistent finding in the literature that such supervision doesn't necessarily happen. Research shows that parents tend to back off as their children enter adolescence and let them have more responsibility for care than they are ready to manage. We're trying to motivate parents to continue supervising and not simply rely on asking their child if diabetes care was done. The intervention will be delivered by computer, because if you're looking for something you can deliver widely, it's got to be brief and easily replicated, and if you're talking about medical care, it's got to take... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Researchers studying 10,000 Solutions participatory online platform Posted: 23 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) What are the conditions that increase and sustain collective action? Arizona State University researchers are working to answer this question through a National Science Foundation RAPID research grant that will study participation in 10,000 Solutions, a problem solving participatory Web site initiated by ASU that addresses local and global challenges. 10,000 Solutions is a newly launched project that releases the power of collaborative imagination to create solutions to issues. The project seeks input from the ASU community and the public for solutions to the world's greatest challenges on topics ranging from education to technology and from health to human rights. Participatory challenge Web sites where citizens contribute to problem solving are an increasingly popular tool that governmental organizations are utilizing. Challenge Web sites are a new approach to utilize information from the public. We anticipate learning about this new medium's effectiveness and potential during this study, said ASU President Michael M. Crow. Researchers are in the advantageous position of being able to study the ASU community, unique as a student body in both diversity and size. Part of the research will use current governance studies to guide the design of the 10,000 Solutions Web site. This is the first large-scale study of the online participatory platform's effectiveness that we're aware of, said Erik Johnston, one of the principal investigators for the study and an assistant professor in ASU's School of Public Affairs in the College of Public Programs. Challenge online sites will be part of the next wave of governance, but to realize their potential, systematic research is necessary. Rounding out the research team are: Marty Anderies, associate professor in the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Marco Janssen, associate professor in the ASU School of Human Evolution and... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Infusing chemotherapy into the liver gives extra months of disease-free life in melanoma patients Posted: 23 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Stockholm, Sweden: Melanoma of the eye (ocular or uveal melanoma) frequently spreads to the liver and, once this has happened, there is no effective treatment and patients die within an average of two to four months. Only about one in ten patients live for a year. Now, final results from a phase III study have demonstrated that a new treatment significantly extends the time patients can live without the disease progressing. James Pingpank, associate professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (Pittsburgh, USA), will tell the 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress [1] on Saturday that, by April 2011, the length of time that patients survived without the metastases spreading further in the liver (disease progression) was an average of 8.1 months for those receiving the new treatment compared to 1.6 months in the group of patients that had been randomised to receive the best alternative care. The new treatment is called percutaneous hepatic perfusion (PHP) and is designed to saturate the liver with high doses of chemotherapy without affecting the rest of the body. The chemotherapy drug melphalan is infused directly into the liver via an intra-arterial catheter over a period of 30 minutes. Blood in the veins leading out of the liver is then captured and filtered through a specially designed, double-balloon catheter to extract the drug before the cleaned blood is returned to the body. This enables the drug to be delivered directly to the liver to target the melanoma metastases there, but in a minimally invasive manner. The patient is monitored in intensive care before being allowed home. Once the liver has recovered from the toxicity of the treatment, the procedure is repeated every four to eight weeks. In a phase III, randomised trial that took place in nine US clinics, 93 patients were randomised to receive PHP or best alternative care between February 2006 and July 2009. Best alternative care... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| US firm dials in healthcare for seven million Indians Posted: 22 Sep 2011 03:43 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 22 - A US-based technology firm will promote access to healthcare among seven million Indians in rural areas over the next three years through mobile phone applications, the UN said Thursday. In India, where up to 70 percent of the rural population lacks access to basic health services, US-based technology firm Dimagi through CommCare will provide 70,000 community health workers in areas lacking basic medical care with patient information and the ability to monitor at-risk patients, the US said in a statement. CommCare, a mobile phone-based application enables community health workers to provide better, more efficient care while also enabling better supervision and coordination of community health programmes. 'We developed CommCare to scale up the health impacts of community health programmes,' said Dimagi CEO Jonathan Jackson. 'We've been working in this field for a long time, and haven't seen anything with the potential that CommCare has to scale up the effective delivery of life saving interventions.' Each health worker will have a phone running the CommCare software that will assist them in managing household visits and planning their day. CommCare will collect and report data that will help monitor and evaluate community health programmes themselves. 'The private sector is a strong partner in our collective drive to reduce poverty and achieve inclusive growth. Continued commitments and innovative partnerships are key,' said Sigrid Kaag, assistant secretary-general and assistant administrator, UN Development Programme -. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| FDA grants cardiotrophin-1 Orphan Drug status for acute liver failure treatment to Digna Biotech Posted: 22 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Digna Biotech, a Spanish biotechnological company, announces that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted cardiotrophin-1 (CT-1) Orphan Drug status for use in the treatment of acute liver failure (Designation request 11-3507). This provides more incentives to work on cures for this disease, which has an incidence of 2,000 cases per year in the United States, according to the findings reported by Acute Liver Failure Study Group (ALFSG) (Lee, Squires et al. 2008). In August, the European Medicine Agency (EMA) granted also the Orphan Drug status of cardiotrophin-1 for the treatment of acute liver failure (EU/3/11/893). Pablo Ortiz, CEO at Digna Biotech, commented, The experimental findings that support this new indication of CT-1 are very strong and we are confident that they can be converted in a clinical valuable effect in patients suffering from acute liver failure of different etiology. Acute liver failure is a very severe condition with a high mortality rate and very limited therapeutics possibilities that needs effective treatments. The advantage of having the product at the clinical stage starting Phase I allow us to plan Phase II for this indication by the end of next year. Acute liver failure is a rare disease that is manifested by a sudden loss of the normal liver functions in a patient with a previously normal liver and without evidence of chronic liver disease. The most common first sign of liver failure is yellowing of the skin (jaundice). This condition has serious complications such as bruising and bleeding due to impaired blood clotting as well as cerebral edema (swelling around the brain), convulsions (fits) and coma. The most common causes of acute liver failure are toxic damage (e.g. alcohol and drugs such as paracetamol) or viral hepatitis (an infectious disease that affects the liver). Acute liver failure is a long-term debilitating and life-threatening disease because of its damaging effects on the... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Virus kills breast cancer cells in laboratory Posted: 22 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A nondisease-causing virus kills human breast cancer cells in the laboratory, creating opportunities for potential new cancer therapies, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers who tested the virus on three different breast cancer types that represent the multiple stages of breast cancer development. Adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2) is a virus that regularly infects humans but causes no disease. Past studies by the same researchers show that it promotes tumor cell death in cervical cancer cells infected with human papillomavirus. Researchers used an unaltered, naturally occurring version of AAV2 on human breast cancer cells. Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in the world and is the leading cause of cancer-related death in women, said Samina Alam, Ph.D., research associate in microbiology and immunology. It is also complex to treat. Craig Meyers, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and immunology, said breast cancer is problematic to treat because of its multiple stages. Because it has multiple stages, you can't treat all the women the same. Currently, treatment of breast cancer is dependent on multiple factors such as hormone-dependency, invasiveness and metastases, drug resistance and potential toxicities. Our study shows that AAV2, as a single entity, targets all different grades of breast cancer. Cells have multiple ways of dying. If damage occurs in a healthy cell, the cell turns on production and activation of specific proteins that allow the cell to commit suicide. However, in cancer cells these death pathways are often turned off, while the proteins that allow the cell to divide and multiply are stuck in the on position. One way to fight cancer is to find ways to turn on these death pathways, which is what researchers believe is happening with the AAV2 virus. In tissue culture dishes in the laboratory, 100 percent of the cancer cells are destroyed by the virus within seven days, with the... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Limits for mountain trail use identified Posted: 22 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A new study on human impact to wildlife in some of Canada's most popular national parks has identified limits at which trails can be used before ecological disturbance takes place. The study led by University of Calgary Masters graduate, J. Kimo Rogala, is published in the current online issue of the journal Ecology and Society. Rogala was a student of professor Marco Musiani in the Faculty of Environmental Design. The research found that wolves and elk were disturbed away from high quality habitat in Banff, Kootenay and Yoho National Parks in areas where human traffic on trails was monitored. In particular, the study found that wolves and elk avoided areas within 50 metres of trail routes travelled by one person per hour or greater; and up to 400 metres from trails with human activity above two persons per hour. Such avoidance behaviours are consistent with previous scientific research; however, the identification of threshold levels at which this occurs is new. Partially funded by Parks Canada, the research conducted on wolf and elk distributions in Banff, Kootenay, and Yoho National Parks in Canada between 2005 and 2008 also sheds light on the mechanism by which further ecological changes may be occurring. Results found that at human activity levels below two persons per hour, wolves avoided and conversely, elk were attracted to, habitat areas within 51-400 metres of trails. This suggests a refuge zone for elk from key predators, such as wolves. The challenge of parks and reserves is finding the balance between long term ecological integrity and providing visitors with quality experiences and learning opportunities, Rogala said. This research increases understanding of how humans impact the national park landscape and provides a tool for park staff to better manage sensitive areas such as wildlife corridors and primary habitat. Another recently-published research paper out of Musiani's lab by PhD graduate Tyler Muhly... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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