Brain
The first oral, broad-spectrum angiogenesis inhibitor, specially formulated through nanotechnology, shows promising anticancer results in mice, report researchers from Children's Hospital Boston. Findings were published online on June 29 by the journal Nature Biotechnology.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Animal studies by University of Michigan scientists suggest that people who experience the same clinical signs of multiple sclerosis (MS) may have different forms of the disease that require different kinds of treatment.
The results, if borne out in further studies, point to a time when doctors will be able to target specific inflammatory processes in the body and more effectively help MS patients, using available drugs and new ones in the pipeline.
Overactivation of proteins known as calpains, which are involved in memory formation, has been linked to Alzheimer disease. Ottavio Arancio and colleagues, at Columbia University, New York, have now shown that two different drugs that inhibit calpains can improve memory in a mouse model of Alzheimer disease (APP/PS1 mice), leading them to suggest drugs that target calpains might stop or slow down the memory loss that occurs as Alzheimer disease progresses.
SEATTLE For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that the administration of minute amounts of inhaled or intravenous hydrogen sulfide, or H2S the molecule that gives rotten eggs their sulfurous stench significantly improves survival from extreme blood loss in rats.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 1, 2008) Adult cells of mice created from genetically reprogrammed cells—so-called induced pluripotent stem (IPS) stem cells—can be triggered via drug to enter an embryonic-stem-cell-like state, without the need for further genetic alteration.
The discovery, which promises to bring new efficiencies to embryonic stem cell research, is reported in the July 1, 2008, online issue of Nature Biotechnology.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Businesses risk chasing away prospective customers when they send chummy e-mails that bandy around people's names, hobbies and other personal information to pitch sales, according to a new study of the popular marketing tool.
"People bristle at personalization just for the sake of personalization," said Tiffany Barnett White, a University of Illinois marketing professor who headed the research. "It comes across as too pushy. They want personalization that is relevant to them."
Proteins widely believed to protect against aging can actually cause oxidative damage in mammalian brain cells, according to a new report in the July Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press. The findings suggest that the proteins can have both proaging and protective functions, depending on the circumstances, the researchers said.
Difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep increase as women go through menopause according to research by Rush University Medical Center. Waking up earlier than planned also increases through late perimenopause but decreases when women become postmenopausal. The study is published in the July 1 issue of the journal SLEEP.
Providence, RI What began as a college course project to design therapeutic toys has resulted in the first toys of their kind, designed as therapy for children with cerebral palsy (CP).
In a follow-up to research showing that psilocybin, a substance contained in "sacred mushrooms," produces substantial spiritual effects, a Johns Hopkins team reports that those beneficial effects appear to last more than a year.
Writing in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, the Johns Hopkins researchers note that most of the 36 volunteer subjects given psilocybin, under controlled conditions in a Hopkins study published in 2006, continued to say 14 months later that the experience increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction.
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