(Press-News.org) Nanosymposium 18.10
Sat., 3:15 p.m., Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 150A
Lindsay Hayes and Akira Sawa
A Blood Pressure Hormone Implicated in Psychosis
In an effort to find a marker that predicts psychosis, postdoctoral researcher Lindsay Hayes, Ph.D., learned unexpectedly that mice and people with behavior disorders have abnormally low levels of a hormone system tied to blood pressure regulation and inflammation. In the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with first episode psychosis, she noticed abnormally low levels of the enzyme that makes the hormone angiotensin. To see if these results correlated to animals and could be studied in the lab, Hayes, who works in the laboratory of Akira Sawa, M.D., Ph.D., treated brain cells with angiotensin and inflammation activators in their mouse model for behavior disorders, then measured the output of proteins involved in inflammation. Compared to normal mice, the cells from the mouse with behavioral disorders released more inflammation protein when treated with low levels of angiotensin and less when treated with high levels. Next, she looked at gene expression levels of the angiotensin system components in the brain cells of the behavioral disorder mice. The gene expression levels for the receptor that detects angiotensin were abnormally low in a specific type of brain cell. Hayes says these specific cells in the behavior disorder mice seem to be less susceptible to angiotensin's immunosuppressive properties, because they have less receptor to detect angiotensin than the same brain cells in normal mice. Hayes and Sawa plan to investigate whether targeting angiotensin could control inflammation and perhaps treat psychosis.
Poster L2 795.02
Wed., 2 p.m., Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Halls A-C
Bindu Paul, Juan Sbodio, Risheng Xu, M. Scott Vandiver, Jin Cha, Adele Snowman, Solomon Snyder
Nutrient Deficiency Linked to Brain Wasting in Huntington's Disease
In a serendipitous finding, Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Bindu Paul, Ph.D., connected the manufacture of an essential amino acid to Huntington's disease, changing scientific understanding of the condition. Studying mice lacking the enzyme that makes cysteine, Paul, a researcher in the laboratory of Solomon Snyder, M.D., noticed the mice behaved like those used to study Huntington's disease: They remained still and clasped their paws together when dangled by their tails. Intrigued, Paul checked the amount of the cysteine-making enzyme in the Huntington's mice and found decreased levels in the disease-affected tissues. More experiments soon revealed that the mutant huntingtin protein, which causes the disease, gloms up the genetic machinery that generates the cysteine-making enzyme. Without the enzyme, much less cysteine is made. Paul fed the Huntington's mice diets rich in cysteine, and they regained normal behavior, swinging and biting when dangled by their tails. These unexpected findings have led to clinical trials to see if treatment with cysteine can relieve symptoms in people with Huntington's.
Poster S9 798.08
Wed., 4 p.m., Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Halls A-C
Mei Han, Rebeca Mejias-Estevez, Richard Huganir, Tao Wang
Autistic Mice Become Social with Drug Treatment
Researchers at Johns Hopkins improved the sociability of autistic mice by treating them with drugs that turn on specific receptors in the brain. Several years ago, Tao Wang, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of pediatrics, and Richard Huganir, Ph.D., a professor of neuroscience, found that mutations in genes that regulate a receptor in brain cells known as the AMPA receptor correlated with severe social defects in patients with autism. AMPA receptors detect the neurotransmitter glutamate and facilitate learning and memory. Wang's team tested drugs that affected the AMPA receptor in the autism mouse, an established laboratory mouse with known social interaction defects. They found that drugs that acted on the receptor in a similar way that glutamate does, initiating a whole series of internal cell messages that improved the social behaviors of the mice. Wang says that many studies implicate glutamate in autism, but this is the first time social behaviors in mice have been linked to AMPA receptors. Since the mice received only one dose of the drug in this study, the team next wants to test whether the treatment works long term. If so, drugs that affect AMPA receptors could potentially turn out to be effective treatments for social aversion in people with autism.
INFORMATION:
Nov. 15-19, 2014
Washington, DC
A laser used to remove unwanted tattoos appears to improve facial acne scarring, according to a study published online by JAMA Dermatology.
Acne and subsequent scarring can have psychological effects. Lasers are used in the treatment of acne scarring. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of a 755-nm picosecond alexandrite laser, , a technology that delivers lower doses of energy theoretically leading to fewer adverse events, for the treatment of unwanted tattoos.
Jeremy A. Brauer, M.D., of the Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York, and his co-authors ...
Military veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who live in rural areas successfully engaged in evidence-based psychotherapy through a telemedicine-based collaborative care model thereby improving their clinical outcomes, according to a report published online by JAMA Psychiatry.
A disabling disorder, PTSD develops in some people exposed to traumatic events. More than 500,000 military veterans enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) health care system (about 9.2 percent of the VHA population) were diagnosed with PTSD in 2012. A large portion of ...
Higher proportions of women eligible for breast conservation surgery (BCS) are undergoing mastectomy, breast reconstruction and bilateral mastectomy (surgical removal of both breasts), with the steepest increases seen in women with lymph node-negative and in situ (contained) disease, according to a report published online by JAMA Surgery.
BCS has been a standard of excellence in breast cancer care and its use for management of early-stage breast cancer had increased steadily since the 1990s. However there is evidence that that trend may be reversing.
Kristy L. Kummerow, ...
MAYWOOD, Ill. - Eighty percent of kidney dialysis patients surveyed were not adequately prepared in the event of an emergency or natural disaster that shut down their dialysis center.
But after receiving individualized education from a multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, dieticians and social workers, 78 percent of these patients had become adequately prepared, according to a Loyola University Medical Center study.
Anuradha Wadhwa, MD, and colleagues, reported findings during the ASN Kidney Week 2014 meeting.
Patients with kidney failure rely on dialysis treatments ...
It's known that cholesterol levels typically rise as people age and that high cholesterol levels are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. What's less known is that cholesterol levels begin to decline the more a person ages. Recently, researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the University of Kentucky found that differences in one gene can influence a person's cholesterol levels from midlife to late life.
The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, analyzed data from ...
MADISON, Wis. -- Each year, the planet balances its budget. The carbon dioxide absorbed by plants in the spring and summer as they convert solar energy into food is released back to the atmosphere in autumn and winter. Levels of the greenhouse gas fall, only to rise again.
But the budget has gotten bigger. Over the last five decades, the magnitude of this rise and fall has grown nearly 50 percent in the Northern Hemisphere, as the amount of the greenhouse gas taken in and released has increased. Now, new research shows that humans and their crops have a lot to do with ...
An international team of researchers analyzing decades of observations from many facilities, including NASA's Swift satellite, has discovered an unusual source of light in a galaxy some 90 million light-years away.
The object's curious properties make it a good match for a supermassive black hole ejected from its home galaxy after merging with another giant black hole. But astronomers can't yet rule out an alternative possibility. The source, called SDSS1133, may be the remnant of a massive star that erupted for a record period of time before destroying itself in a supernova ...
On an archaeology field trip in New Mexico as an undergraduate in 2006, Dana Bardolph noticed something that struck her as an odd gender imbalance: The professor leading the dig was a men, while the graduate assistant and all but two of the 14 undergrads were women.
"And it just got me thinking," Bardolph recalled. "Is this reflective of the profession as a whole, or is it an anomaly?"
The question stayed with her, and four years ago she decided to search for an answer. Her findings -- generated after digging through more than 4,500 peer-reviewed papers in 11 archaeology ...
TORONTO, November 19, 2014 - Today an international team of researchers announced the discovery of two new particles in the baryon family, which makes them cousins of the familiar proton and neutron. The LHCb collaboration at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, used CERN's Large Hadron Collider to make these discoveries.
The masses of these particles, named Xi_b'- and Xi_b*- had been predicted in a paper published in 2009 by York University Professor Randy Lewis and Richard Woloshyn, scientist at the TRIUMF Lab in Vancouver, using a supercomputer approach ...
Far more breast cancer patients are choosing to undergo mastectomy, including removal of both breasts, instead of choosing breast conservation surgery even when they have early stage disease that is confined to one breast, a Vanderbilt study shows. In the past decade, there have also been marked trends toward higher proportions of women opting for breast reconstruction.
The rates of increase were steepest among women with lymph node-negative and in situ (contained) disease.
This is a reversal of trends seen since the 1990s when breast conservation surgery (BCS) was ...
