Regimen enhances caffeine’s ability to target key sleep system
Caffeine is the world’s most widely-used stimulant yet, scientists still do not know exactly how it staves off sleep. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and other institutions have now discovered that caffeine works by thwarting one of two interacting physiological systems that govern the human sleep-wake cycle. The researchers, who report their findings in the May issue of t
A team of researchers has reported that chronic wasting disease (CWD) can be transmitted through environments contaminated by whole carcasses or excrement of animals infected with the pathogen that causes CWD. The research confirms long-held theories that CWD can be indirectly spread through environmental sources, in addition to direct interactions between infected and healthy mule deer. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health, the study
If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few – 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush.
The study also finds that the Bush administration switched its focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein early on – only fiv
Many sexual partners, history of gonorrhea seen as risks for prostate cancer
Men who have had gonorrhea are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer, new research from the University of Michigan Health System finds.
Having more than 25 lifetime sexual partners also increases odds of prostate cancer, by more than 2.5 times that of men with five or fewer sexual partners, the study found.
The conclusions are part of the Flint Men’s Health Study, a populat
Researchers, using a new combination of techniques, have discovered that dopamine levels in our brains vary the most in situations where we are unsure if we are going to be rewarded, such as when we are gambling or playing the lottery.
The research results, “Dopamine Transmission in the Human Striatum during Monetary Reward Tasks,” were published online April 28 in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Dopamine has long been known to play an important role in how we experience rewards from
Scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids) and UCLA have pinpointed for the first time a region of the brain responsible for storing and retrieving distant memories. This research is reported in the May 7, 2004 issue of the journal Science.
“It was previously known that the hippocampus processes recent memory, but that the hippocampus did not store memories permanently. We were able to determine that it is the anterior cingulate cortex where older, or lifelong, memories are st
Highly purified soy foods and soy supplements marketed in the United States may stimulate the growth of pre-existing estrogen-dependent breast tumors, according to a study done at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“Soy has been correlated with low rates of breast cancer in Asian populations, but soy foods in Asia are made from minimally processed soybeans or defatted, toasted soy flour, which is quite different from soy products consumed in the U.S.,” said William G. Helferich
Practicing rapid deep breathing could help cyclists smash their personal bests. An article published this week in BMC Physiology shows how experienced cyclists can shave minutes off their race times by regularly putting their respiratory muscles through endurance training. The researchers, from University of Arizona, who carried out the study write: “We are unaware of other training methods that result in similar performance increments in experienced bicycle racers.” Twenty highly t
Half of patients treated for depression in primary care facilities during a recent study still suffered from the condition 18 to 24 months later, according to recent research.
Patients who were unemployed, had suicidal thoughts at the beginning of the study and who stopped taking antidepressant medication on their own, before their doctor told them to quit the treatment were more likely to suffer persistent depression symptoms than those who recovered from depression over the course of the
Teens who suffered iron deficiency as infants are likely to score lower on cognitive and motor tests, even if that iron deficiency was identified and treated in infancy, a new University of Michigan study shows.
Betsy Lozoff, who has studied iron deficiency for nearly three decades, followed Costa Rican children who were diagnosed with severe, chronic iron deficiency when they were 12-23 months old and were treated with iron supplements.
She and her collaborators examined 191 child
A team at the University of Rochester has found that the human brain makes much more extensive use of highly complex statistics when learning a language than scientists ever realized. The research, appearing in a recent issue of Cognitive Psychology, shows that the human brain is wired to quickly grasp certain relationships between spoken sounds even though those relationships may be so complicated they’re beyond our ability to consciously comprehend.
“We’re starting to learn just
’Chemical thumbprint’ can help determine if tumor is returning or dying
Brain tumor survivors live with the constant worry that their cancer might come back. And even if they have a brain scan every few months to check, doctors often can’t tell the difference between new cancer growth and tissue changes related to their treatment with radiation or chemotherapy.
That leaves patients with a tricky choice. Do they wait and watch? Let doctors take a brain biopsy? Or, in some cas
For those with type 2 diabetes, the most prevalent kind, a person’s eating habits — their basic eating practices, selections while dining out, meal planning and carbohydrate and vegetable strategies — matter as much or more as medicine for maintaining blood sugar control, says a Penn State researcher.
Dr. Carla Miller, assistant professor of nutritional sciences, says, “Our recent study identified 15 common underlying food habits related to blood sugar control that people with diabete
Improvements in sexual desire, mood, lean body mass and bone density sustained in 3-1/2 year study
Long-term use of AndroGel® (testosterone gel 1% CIII) is safe and effective for men with hypogonadism, a condition sometimes referred to as low testosterone, according to a new study published today in the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The study, the first to examine safety and efficacy of testosterone gel up to 42 months, was conducted at multiple rese
The accuracy and intrinsic safety of MRI in diagnosing abdominal and pelvic disease in pregnant women with acute abdominal or pelvic disease make it an excellent choice for the evaluation of these patients, a new study from researchers at the University of North Carolina Hospitals, Chapel Hill, and the University of San Diego Hospitals in California says.
In the study, MRI was used to image pregnant patients with acute abdominal or pelvic pain. Afterwards, each patient’s clinical course was
For several years, scientists have attempted to identify gene expression changes, using microarrays or ’DNA chips’, in order to understand and predict breast cancer onset, progression, and clinical outcome. Although important insights into breast cancer have been drawn from determining the expression ’profiles’ of thousands of genes in tumors, the interpretation of experimental results has been complicated by the absence of knowledge about the gene expression in ’normal’
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