Philadelphia, PA-- As in any other field of medicine, when a depressed person visits a psychiatrist for treatment of depression, they like to be informed of the odds that they will respond to the medication they are prescribed. Unfortunately, there has been no precise way to predict antidepressant response in individual patients. It would be very nice to have an equation that would enable doctors to predict the likelihood that individual patients would respond to specific treatments. Accurate predictions are likely to be challenging. The ability to accurately predict ...

Computer science researchers have programmed a computer to play the game Concentration (also known as Memory). The work could help improve computer security – and improve our understanding of how the human mind works. The researchers developed a program to get the software system called ACT-R, a computer simulation that attempts to replicate human thought processes, to play Concentration. In the game, multiple matching pairs of cards are placed face down in a random order, and players are asked to flip over two cards, one at a time, to find the matching pairs. If a player ...

Bethesda, MD -- Like most other things, you can have too much of a good thing when it comes to wound healing, and new research proves it. According to an article published in the July 2013 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, wound healing can be delayed because the body produces too many mast cells, which normally promote healing. An overabundance of these cells, however, also causes harm by leading to the overproduction of IL-10, which prevents certain white blood cells from reaching the wounded area. The work was conducted in mice with lymphedematous skin, and ...

This news release is available in Spanish. The UPV/EHU researcher Irati Agirreazkuenaga-Onaindia has developed a new methodology for studying the profiles, working habits and perceptions of Basque and Scottish Gaelic-speaking radio journalists. The study confirms that social responsibility is the main motivation for the EITB and BBC journalists. Euskadi Irratia was 30 years old last year, and the study covers what the journalists who work in minority languages are like and how they go about their work. So the UPV/EHU researcher Irati Agirreazkuenaga has compared ...

There's not much difference between what makes a man and what makes his beer - at least at the molecular level - according to a new study led by Professor John Schwabe at the University of Leicester. Scientists used a powerful technique called protein crystallography to look at 3D structures of protein complexes purified from cultured human cells. They discovered that a family of complexes, that switch off gene expression, is regulated by small signalling molecules called inositol phosphates. This latest study shows that this mode of regulation is conserved from yeast ...

Neuroblastomas are pediatric tumors that originate from cells of the embryonic nervous system. The disease can take widely varying clinical courses that range from spontaneous regression to fatal outcomes. Highly aggressive neuroblastomas rarely respond well to chemotherapy. Understanding and overcoming the resistance mechanisms of highly aggressive neuroblastomas are considered essential to the development of effective treatments. Scientists from the department headed by Professor Dr. Olaf Witt at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, ...

Researchers found that dopamine levels in a part of the brain called the striatum were lower in people who smoke more cannabis and those who began taking the drug at a younger age. They suggest this finding could explain why some cannabis users appear to lack motivation to work or pursue their normal interests. The study, by scientists at Imperial College London, UCL and King's College London, was funded by the Medical Research Council and published in the journal Biological Psychiatry. The researchers used PET brain imaging to look at dopamine production in the striatum ...

Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have discovered a mechanism that triggers chronic inflammation in Alzheimer's, atherosclerosis and type-2 diabetes. The results, published today in Nature Immunology, suggest a common biochemical thread to multiple diseases and point the way to a new class of therapies that could treat chronic inflammation in these non-infectious diseases without crippling the immune system. Alzheimer's, atherosclerosis and type-2 diabetes—diseases associated with aging and inflammation—affect more than 100 million Americans. When the body encounters ...

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- A Kansas State University-led study has discovered the role of a protein in bacteria that cause a wide variety of diseases, including typhoid fever, plague, meningitis and dysentery. The results may lead to new and improved antibiotics for humans and animals. Phillip E. Klebba, professor and head of the department of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, made the findings with two colleagues in the department: Lorne D. Jordan, doctoral candidate, Manhattan, and Salete M. Newton, research professor. The collaboration included other biophysicists at ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Even short-term exposure to political violence may have long-lasting effects on children's adjustment and behavior, says a new study by a team of researchers from Kenya, Italy and the United States. Intense violence followed the contested Kenyan presidential election of December 2007. More than a year later, children who were exposed to the violence showed increased delinquent and aggressive behaviors, including such problem behaviors as bullying, vandalism, stealing and skipping school, said study author Ann T. Skinner of the Duke University Center for ...

A new method designed to measure the aesthetic value of ecosystems has been applied in Cornwall. According to the research findings, Cornwall's beautiful rugged coastline has been measured to have the highest aesthetic value. Researchers at the University of Exeter's Environment and Sustainability Institute developed the method, which uses computational social science to count photos uploaded to an online photo-sharing site. The researchers found that areas most highly valued for their aesthetic attributes generate hotspots of photographer activity. Areas in which large ...

Bethesda, MD—Chronic inflammation is a major factor in a wide range of problems from arthritis to cardiovascular disease, and DHA (found in fish oil) is known to temper this problem. A new research report appearing in the July 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal, helps explain why DHA is important in reducing inflammation, and provides an important lead to finding new drugs that will help bring people back to optimal health. Specifically, researchers found that macrophages (a type of white blood cell) use DHA to produce "maresins," which serve as the "switch" that turns inflammation ...

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have traced chronic health problems of adult inner-city women to traumas from childhood abuse and neglect. The latest findings, reported in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, complement prior studies of other socioeconomic groups and provide further evidence linking childhood mistreatment to serious health issues as adults, said Meeyoung O. Min, assistant professor of social work at Case Western Reserve's Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. The National Institute on Drug Abuse funded the study. Min's ...

Every parent has a different strategy for trying to get his or her kid to eat more vegetables, from growing vegetables together as a family to banning treats until the dinner plate is clean. New research suggests that teaching young children an overarching, conceptual framework for nutrition may do the trick. The new findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, show that a conceptual framework encourages children to understand why eating a variety of foods is ideal and also causes them to eat more vegetables by ...

Reacting to terrorist groups: Injustice leads to anger, power to fear Perceptions really matter when it comes to how we react to terrorist threats. Across two studies, researchers found that the more a terrorist group is seen as unjust, the more anger we feel, whereas the more the group is seen as powerful, the more fearful we become. Surveying 1,072 Americans in one study about fictional terrorist groups, the researchers found that fear from powerful portrayals led participants to support offensive, defensive, and negotiated measures to deal with the terrorists. On the ...

Bethesda, MD -- Gene mutations caused by a father's lifestyle can be inherited by his children, even if those mutations occurred before conception. What's more, these findings show that mutations in the germ-line are present in all cells of the children, including their own germ cells. This means that a father's lifestyle has the potential to affect the DNA of multiple generations and not just his immediate offspring. These findings were published in the July 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal. "Our study should be regarded as a pilot study," said Roger Godschalk, Ph.D., ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (July 1,2013) – Seventy percent of U.S. plastic surgeons have used fat grafting techniques for breast operations, but they are more likely to use it for breast reconstruction rather than cosmetic breast surgery, reports a survey study in the July issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Once discouraged, fat grafting to the breast is an increasingly common plastic surgery technique, according to the new report. But more data is needed to optimize the technique and ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (July 1, 2013) – Preoperative evaluations before facial cosmetic surgery find that about half of patients are taking herbal and other supplements, reports a study in the July issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). "It is extremely important to investigate the use of herbal medicines, as many of these supplements can put the surgical patient at risk," writes ASPS Member Surgeon Dr. Bahman Guyuron and colleagues of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. They advise ...

A new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of stars in the universe. This finding means that in the Milky Way galaxy alone, 60 billion planets may be orbiting red dwarf stars in the habitable zone. Researchers at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University based their study, which appears in Astrophysical Journal Letters, on rigorous computer simulations of cloud behavior on alien planets. This cloud behavior dramatically expanded the habitable ...

Identification of a protein that appears to play an important role in the immune system's removal of amyloid beta (A-beta) protein from the brain could lead to a new treatment strategy for Alzheimer's disease. The report from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has been published online in Nature Communications. "We identified a receptor protein that mediates clearance from the brain of soluble A-beta by cells of the innate immune system," says Joseph El Khoury, MD, of the Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases in the MGH Division of Infectious ...

WASHINGTON -- A new study by Valerie Hu, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine at the George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), reports that RORA, a novel candidate gene for autism discovered by her group in a 2010 study, regulates a large number of other genes associated with autism. "We are focusing on this gene, in part, because this gene can act as a master regulator of other genes," said Hu, whose study was published in the journal Molecular Autism. "Called nuclear hormone receptors, they are capable of ...

Epilepsy, irregular heartbeats and other conditions caused by malfunctions in the body's nerve cells, also known as neurons, can be difficult to treat. The problem is that one medicine may help some patients but not others. Doctors' ability to predict which drugs will work with individual patients may be influenced by recent University of Missouri research that found seemingly identical neurons can behave the same even though they are built differently under the surface. "To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, 'every unhappy nervous system is unhappy in its own way,' especially ...

Plants that emit an airborne distress signal in response to herbivory may actually attract more enemies, according to a new study published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Plant Science . A team of researchers from Switzerland found that the odor released by maize plants under attack by insects attract not only parasitic wasps, which prey on herbivorous insects, but also caterpillars of the Egyptian cotton leafworm moth Spodoptera littoralis, a species that feeds on maize leaves. When damaged, many plants release hydrocarbons called volatile organic compounds, ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - It's a GEMM of a system. Genetically engineered mouse models that is. Using them allows scientists to study cancer in a way that more naturally mimics how human tumors exist within the complex environment of the body. UNC scientists used GEMMs to develop biomarkers for challenging molecular subtypes of human breast cancer, those for which there are fewer targets and therapies. Their work helps to further establish genetically engineered mouse models as predictors of human response to therapy. The molecular subtypes of breast cancer that the UNC ...

WASHINGTON, DC, July 1, 2013 — For the first time, a study has suggested that the position of grandparents in the British class system has a direct effect on which class their grandchildren belong to. It has long been accepted that parents' social standing has a strong influence on children's education, job prospects, and earning power. However, this study by researchers from the University of Oxford and Durham University shows that even when the influence of parents has been taken into account, the odds of grandchildren going into professional or managerial occupations ...