A team of UC San Francisco researchers has found that a tiny segment of genetic material known as a microRNA plays a central role in the transition from moderate drinking to binge drinking and other alcohol use disorders. Previous research in the UCSF laboratory of Dorit Ron, PhD, Endowed Chair of Cell Biology of Addiction in Neurology, has demonstrated that the level of a protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, is increased in the brain when alcohol consumed in moderation. In turn, experiments in Ron's lab have shown, BDNF prevents the development ...

(Vienna, October 21, 2014) Patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) may at last be able to hope for a brighter future as innovative new treatments emerge and researchers clarify the role of current therapies. Dr Alexander C. Ford from the Leeds Gastroenterology Institute in Leeds, UK, tells journalists attending the 22nd United European Gastroenterology Week (UEG Week 2014) in Vienna, Austria, that significant progress was being made in drug development for IBS, thanks to the intense research efforts of scientists around the world. "Researchers have dedicated many years ...

A new study shows that survival and neurological outcomes for patients in cardiac arrest can be improved by adding extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) when performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The study abstract was released today in an online supplement of the journal CHEST and will be presented at CHEST 2014, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Austin, Texas held October 25-30. Despite advances in medical care, less than 20% of people who experience a cardiac arrest make a full recovery. An alternate approach to traditional ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Scientists think of CD8 T cells as long-lived cells that become tuned to fight just one pathogen, but a new study finds that once CD8 T cells fight one pathogen, they also join the body's "innate" immune system, ready to answer the calls of the cytokine signals that are set off by a wide variety of infections. Think of CD8 T cells as soldiers who are drafted and trained for a specific mission, but who stay in service, fighting a variety of enemies throughout a long career. CD8 T cells therefore have more utility than researchers ...

Eliminating subsidies that help low- and moderate-income people purchase coverage through government-run health insurance marketplaces would sharply boost costs for consumers and cause more than 11 million Americans to lose their health insurance, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Modeling the likely effects of ending subsidies offered to individuals under the federal Affordable Care Act, researchers found that such a move would increase premium costs in the individual marketplaces by as much as 43 percent and cause enrollment to drop by 68 percent. "If subsidies ...

Two Michigan high school students, sisters Ilina and Medha Krishen, have developed screening tools using electronic stethoscopes to detect lung and heart disease. The sisters will present their findings at CHEST 2014 in Austin, Texas next week. Ilina Krishen became aware of the dangers of smoking and chemical air pollution when she saw the effects of lung disease on family members. Curious to find a way to detect early lung damage in people exposed to noxious air pollutants, Ilina, a high school senior at Port Huron Northern High School in Michigan, developed a screening ...

Adults typically believe that life gets better — today is better than yesterday was and tomorrow will be even better than today. A new study shows that even depressed individuals believe in a brighter future, but this optimistic belief may not lead to better outcomes. The findings are published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research shows that middle-aged adults who had a history of depression tended to evaluate their past and current lives in more negative terms than did adults without depression, ...

TORONTO, Oct. 21, 2014--Controlling the Ebola virus outbreak at the source in West Africa is the most effective way to decrease international risk of transmission, according to a research paper published today in The Lancet. If the epidemic persists and grows, it's likely there will be more cases of the deadly virus exported to other countries, including Canada, via air travel, said Dr. Kamran Khan, a physician and researcher at St. Michael's Hospital. Dr. Khan, who examines global airline travel patterns to predict the spread of diseases, said that every month, three ...

VIDEO: In this video, a Salk researcher explains how cancer evolves to become drug resistant. Click here for more information. LA JOLLA—Like a colony of bacteria or species of animals, cancer cells within a tumor must evolve to survive. A dose of chemotherapy may kill hundreds of thousands of cancer cells, for example, but a single cell with a unique mutation can survive and quickly generate a new batch of drug-resistant cells, making cancer hard to combat. Now, scientists ...

PENSACOLA, Fla. – Ospreys do not carry significant amounts of human pharmaceutical chemicals, despite widespread occurrence of these chemicals in water, a recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Baylor University study finds. These research findings, published by Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management is the first published study that examines the bioaccumulation of pharmaceuticals in the water-fish-osprey food web. Pharmaceuticals have been finding their way into the environment, primarily through wastewater, urban runoff and even biosolids applied ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — After following breast cancer patients for an average of eight-plus years, researchers say that adding trastuzumab (Herceptin) to chemotherapy significantly improved the overall and disease-free survival of women with early stage HER2-positive breast cancer. They found that the use of trastuzumab produced a 37 percent improvement in survival and a 40 percent reduction in risk of cancer occurrence, compared to patients treated with chemotherapy alone. These findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, demonstrate how important ...

A new study, which may have implications for approaches to education, finds that brain mechanisms engaged when people allow their minds to rest and reflect on things they've learned before may boost later learning. Scientists have already established that resting the mind, as in daydreaming, helps strengthen memories of events and retention of information. In a new twist, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have shown that the right kind of mental rest, which strengthens and consolidates memories from recent learning tasks, helps boost future learning. The ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Scientists have restored the hearing of mice partly deafened by noise, using advanced tools to boost the production of a key protein in their ears. By demonstrating the importance of the protein, called NT3, in maintaining communication between the ears and brain, these new findings pave the way for research in humans that could improve treatment of hearing loss caused by noise exposure and normal aging. In a new paper in the online journal eLife, the team from the University of Michigan Medical School's Kresge Hearing Research Institute and ...

PHILADELPHIA – Blue light can both set the mood and set in motion important biological responses. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine and School of Arts and Sciences have teased apart the separate biological responses of the human eye to blue light, revealing an unexpected contest for control. Their work addresses the properties of melanopsin, a light-sensitive protein in the eye that establishes the rhythm of our day-night cycle and the familiar constriction of the pupil to bright light. They measured the pupil response to stimulation ...

WASHINGTON, DC – October 20, 2014 -- Lactobacillus species, commonly seen in yogurt cultures, correlate, in the guts of mouse models, with mitigation of lupus symptoms, while Lachnospiraceae, a type of Clostridia, correlate with worsening, according to research published ahead of print in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. "Our results suggest that the same investigation shold be performed in human subjects with lupus," says principal investigator Xin Luo of Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. In the study, the investigators first showed that mouse models of lupus ...

Tropical Storm Gonzalo strengthened into a hurricane on Oct. 14 when it was near Puerto Rico and provided a natural laboratory for the next phase of NASA's HS3 or Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel mission. The WB-57 aircraft flew over Hurricane Gonzalo on Oct. 15 carrying two HS3 mission instruments called HIWRAP and HIRAD in addition to a new Office of Naval Research sponsored dropsonde system. The WB-57 is a mid-wing, long-range aircraft capable of operation for extended periods of time from sea level to altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet. Two crew members are positioned ...

For treating patients with prescription opioid dependence in primary care, buprenorphine maintenance therapy is superior to detoxification, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers published in the Oct. 20 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. Prescription opioid dependence has been increasing for the last 15 years and now surpasses heroin dependence. Doctors are also writing more prescriptions for pain management, which has led to higher experimentation and addiction rates, according to lead author David Fiellin, M.D., professor of internal medicine ...

Scientists have developed new geochemical tracers that can identify hydraulic fracturing flowback fluids that have been spilled or released into the environment. The tracers have been field-tested at a spill site in West Virginia and downstream from an oil and gas brine wastewater treatment plant in Pennsylvania. "By characterizing the isotopic and geochemical fingerprints of enriched boron and lithium in flowback water from hydraulic fracturing, we can now track the presence of 'frac' fluids in the environment and distinguish them from wastewater coming from other ...

LIVERMORE, Calif. – New medications created by pharmaceutical companies have helped millions of Americans alleviate pain and suffering from their medical conditions. However, the drug creation process often misses many side effects that kill at least 100,000 patients a year, according to the journal Nature. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have discovered a high-tech method of using supercomputers to identify proteins that cause medications to have certain adverse drug reactions (ADR) or side effects. They are using high-performance computers ...

Preexisting differences in the sensitivity of a key part of each individual's immune system to stress confer a greater risk of developing stress-related depression or anxiety, according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published October 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Inflammation is the immune system's response to infection or disease, and has long been linked to stress. Previous studies have found depression and anxiety to be associated with elevated blood levels of inflammatory molecules ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — They help fish swim, but fins also advertise a fish's social standing and health. In a new study, researchers report that for the male bluefin killifish (Lucania goodei), each colorful fin presents its own messages to other fish. Researchers report their findings in the journal Behavioral Ecology. They're called "bluefin" killifish, but the first thing University of Illinois animal biology professor Rebecca Fuller noticed while she was snorkeling in a Florida stream was the killifishes' differently colored fins. In addition to having reflective ...

Fairfax, Va., October 20, 2014—Tumor laterality (left-side vs. right-side) does not impact overall survival in breast cancer patients treated with breast-conserving surgery and adjuvant external beam radiation therapy, according to a study published in the October 1, 2014 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics (Red Journal), the official scientific journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). Studies have shown that breast cancer patients treated with radiation therapy have improved local-regional recurrence, ...

VIDEO: The movie is quantitative imaging of cells with potassium channels, bathed in dilute fluorescent tarantula toxin. Pixel color indicates intensity of tarantula toxin concentration. The circular shapes are cell surfaces,... Click here for more information. WOODS HOLE, Mass.--A novel probe that reports on the electrical activity of cells, made by fusing tarantula toxin with a fluorescent compound, is described in a paper today by scientists from the University of California, ...

PULLMAN, Wash.—Researchers led by a Washington State University biologist have found the optimal mechanism by which plants heal the botanical equivalent of a bad sunburn. Their work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could lead to the development of crops that can repair the sun's damage more easily, improving yields and profitability. Helmut Kirchhoff, an assistant professor in WSU's Institute of Biological Chemistry and corresponding author of the PNAS paper, said plants have had to deal with solar damage since the evolution of photosynthesis ...

PHILADELPHIA — Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine and School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have used graphene -- a two-dimensional form of carbon only one atom thick -- to fabricate a new type of microelectrode that solves a major problem for investigators looking to understand the intricate circuitry of the brain. Pinning down the details of how individual neural circuits operate in epilepsy and other neurological disorders requires real-time observation of their locations, firing patterns, ...