HONOLULU – A new drug called perampanel appears to significantly reduce seizures in people with hard-to-control epilepsy, according to results of the first clinical trial to test the higher 12 mg dose of the drug. The late-breaking research will be presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, April 9-16, 2011, in Honolulu. "For about one-third of people with epilepsy, the drugs either don't stop their seizures or the side effects are not tolerable," said study author Jacqueline French, MD, with New York University in New York. French is ...

WASHINGTON, DC – Walking on a treadmill for one hour a day may slow the progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in obese people with prediabetes by jump-starting their metabolism and slowing the oxidative damage wrought by the condition, say researchers at the Cleveland Clinic. A study of 15 obese people with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease revealed that the daily walks not only increase insulin sensitivity, but improve the liver's polyunsaturated lipid index (PUI), which is thought to be a marker of liver health. The improvements are linked to an increase in ...

CHICAGO – Subtle differences in brain anatomy among older individuals with normal cognitive skills may be able to predict both the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in the following decade and how quickly symptoms of dementia would develop. In their analysis of magnetic resonance (MR) images from two separate study groups, researchers from Rush University Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) found that, among individuals in whom specific brain structures were thinnest, the risk of developing Alzheimer's was three times greater than in those with ...

ST. PAUL, Minn.–Areas of the brain affected by Alzheimer's disease may start shrinking up to a decade before dementia is diagnosed, according to a new study published in the April 13, 2011, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. For the study, researchers used MRI scans to measure areas of the brain in people with no memory problems or other signs of Alzheimer's, then followed them for years to see who developed the disease. The researchers specifically focused their measurements on areas known to be involved in AD. Those with ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Treating high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and other vascular risk factors may help lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease in people who already show signs of declining thinking skills or memory problems. The research is published in the April 13, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers followed 837 people with mild cognitive impairment, the stage of memory loss that often leads to Alzheimer's disease. Of the group, 414 had at least one vascular risk factor. Participants were ...

Rett syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder on the autism spectrum, is marked by relatively normal development in infancy followed by a loss of loss of cognitive, social and language skills starting at 12 to 18 months of age. It is increasingly seen as a disorder of synapses, the connections between neurons that together form brain circuits. What hasn't been clear is why children start out developing normally, only to become progressively abnormal. New research from Children's Hospital Boston, published in the April 14 issue of Neuron, helps unravel what's going on. The ...

WASHINGTON – Approximately one million Americans suffer a heart attack each year of which some 400,000 attacks are fatal. A key cause of heart attacks is atherosclerosis, a process in which cholesterol builds up in the arteries and impedes the ability of the blood to flow to our most vital organ. Atherosclerosis is often associated with a high-fat diet in humans, but in a new study using an animal model researchers have found that a high-fat diet for a very short period can protect the heart from heart attacks and result in less tissue damage when heart attacks occur. ...

WASHINGTON – Walking on a treadmill for one hour a day may slow the progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in obese people with prediabetes by jump-starting their metabolism and slowing the oxidative damage wrought by the condition, say researchers at the Cleveland Clinic. A study of 15 obese people with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease revealed that the daily walks not only increase insulin sensitivity, but improve the liver's polyunsaturated lipid index (PUI), which is thought to be a marker of liver health. The improvements are linked to an increase in the ...

CINCINNATI—A new study from researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) shows that short-term, high-fat "splurges" within one's diet could elicit cardioprotective properties during a heart attack. These findings are being presented for the first time at the 2011 Experimental Biology Meeting sponsored by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics on April 13 in Washington, D.C. Lauren Haar, a doctoral student in the Systems Biology and Physiology Graduate Program, found that short-term, high-fat feeding in animal models led to cardioprotection ...

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH., April 13, 2011 – Although only one in 10 American adults eats enough fruits and vegetables (1), new research being presented at the Experimental Biology meeting this week in Washington, D.C., finds older adults are consuming higher levels of carotenoids, flavonoids and other phytonutrients found in fruits and vegetables that are thought to support healthy aging. Specifically, the new findings suggest that, calorie for calorie, intakes of carotenoids are 20 percent higher, flavonoids 40 percent higher, and ellagic acid is 80 percent higher among older ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A new research study of the effect of a commonly used strategy to reduce the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospital intensive care units (ICU) shows that the strategy had no significant effect. That's the surprising finding of a multisite study led by Mayo Clinic investigators. The bacteria -- methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE) -- are resistant to common antibiotics and harder to treat if patients become infected. The findings appear in today's New England Journal of Medicine (http://www.nejm.org/). The ...

A team of scientists at Penn State University, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and other institutions have developed a method for recreating a schizophrenic patient's own brain cells, which then can be studied safely and effectively in a Petri dish. The method brings researchers a step closer to understanding the biological underpinnings of schizophrenia. The method also is expected to be used to study other mysterious diseases such as autism and bipolar disorder, and the researchers hope that it will open the door to personalized medicine -- customized treatments ...

LA JOLLA, CA- After a century of studying the causes of schizophrenia-the most persistent disabling condition among adults-the cause of the disorder remains unknown. Now induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) generated from schizophrenic patients have brought researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies a step closer to a fundamental understanding of the biological underpinnings of the disease. In their study, published in the April 13, 2011 advance online issue of the journal Nature, the Salk team reports both that neurons generated from these patient-derived ...

A new MRI device that guides surgeons as they implant electrodes into the brains of people with Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders could change the way this surgery, called deep brain stimulation, is performed at medical centers across the country, according to a group of doctors at University of California, San Francisco. Deep brain stimulation can help to alleviate patients' symptoms, and the new device will make the procedure faster and more comfortable for the patient. It grew out of a home-grown technique developed by a team of UCSF neurosurgeons ...

NGC 3582 is part of a large star-forming region in the Milky Way, called RCW 57. It lies close to the central plane of the Milky Way in the southern constellation of Carina (The Keel of Jason's ship, the Argo). John Herschel first saw this complex region of glowing gas and dark dust clouds in 1834, during his stay in South Africa. Some of the stars forming in regions like NGC 3582 are much heavier than the Sun. These monster stars emit energy at prodigious rates and have very short lives that end in explosions as supernovae. The material ejected from these dramatic events ...

Paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History and the Chinese Academy of Sciences announce the discovery of Liaoconodon hui, a complete fossil mammal from the Mesozoic found in China that includes the long-sought transitional middle ear. The specimen shows the bones associated with hearing in mammals— the malleus, incus, and ectotympanic— decoupled from the lower jaw, as had been predicted, but were held in place by an ossified cartilage that rested in a groove on the lower jaw. The new research, published in Nature this week, also suggests that the middle ...

Free bingo site City Bingo has stepped up its devotion to providing its players with an array of weekend special and promotions. The metropolitan bingo site already offers 70% bonuses on Saturdays and 80% bonuses on Sundays and has now added The Bingo Avenue Tournament. Players depositing at weekends had already been enjoying the aforementioned bonuses on their deposits and the introduction of their latest game is likely to keep the site buzzing. The new feature involves players picking numbers that they don't think will come up in a draw, they can swap any points accrued ...

Infectious disease is a huge cause of death globally, and is a particular threat to newborns whose immune systems respond poorly to most vaccines. A new approach developed at Children's Hospital Boston, using an adjuvant (an agent to stimulate the immune system) along with the vaccine, shows promise in a study of blood from Gambian infants. Results will appear in the open-access journal PLoS ONE on April 13. The ability to immunize newborns would close their window of vulnerability to serious infections during the first months of life, such as respiratory syncytial ...

If you have been diagnosed with breast cancer that requires surgery, the time to consider reconstruction options is now, even before you schedule your mastectomy or lumpectomy. Because the type of mastectomy procedure you receive can have a significant impact on your reconstruction options, failing to consider your options early can limit them later. Getting breast reconstruction is optional, it is not required, and some women find that life without breasts is freeing. However, if you would prefer to maintain your feminine appearance, breast reconstruction is a far ...

VIDEO: The film clip shows a nest of the most frequent host of the cuckoo finch, the tawny-flanked prinia, which has an extravagantly diverse range of eggs. The prinia parent has... Click here for more information. New research reveals how biological arms races between cuckoos and host birds can escalate into a competition between the host evolving new, unique egg patterns (or 'signatures') and the parasite new forgeries. Brood parasitic birds such as cuckoos lay eggs ...

The moments immediately following a serious auto accident can be overwhelming and scary, especially if someone suffers serious personal injury or death. Oftentimes, people are in a state of shock and not thinking clearly following a horrific car accident, but the moments immediately following the accident are critical to the outcome of a personal injury claim that may be filed later. For this reason, even though you will be overwhelmed and frightened, it is important that you take certain steps after a car accident and never admit fault at the scene of the accident ...

A step change in research relating to plasma nanoscience is needed for the world to overcome the challenge of sufficient energy creation and storage, says a leading scientist from CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering and the University of Sydney, Australia. Professor Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov of the Plasma Nanoscience Centre Australia, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, has highlighted, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, the unique potential of plasma nanoscience to control energy and matter at fundamental levels to produce cost-effective, ...

The modern cosmetic dentist is increasingly able to correct severe dental problems more comfortably and in less time. Treatment options are available for everything from repairing or replacing a tooth to realigning your jaw. It is important to pay attention to any discomfort as it may be a sign of an undiscovered issue. Preventing and Treating Tooth Erosion Frequent visits to your dentist combined with healthy oral hygiene at home are the best preventions for dental problems. Serious infection can occur from a damaged tooth that goes undetected. While teeth naturally ...

Some 2.6 million third trimester stillbirths worldwide occur every year, according to the first comprehensive set of stillbirth estimates, published today within a special series in the medical journal The Lancet. Every day more than 7,300 babies are stillborn. A death occurs just when parents expect to welcome a new life. Ninety-eight percent of stillbirths occur in low and middle-income countries. Wealthier nations are not immune with 1 in 200 pregnancies resulting in a stillbirth - two thirds occurring in the last trimester of pregnancy, a rate that has stagnated ...

Parenting time and child custody are necessary considerations in divorce agreements where children are involved. This is a particularly difficult process and can result in lengthy legal battles. Ultimately, the courts will determine what is in the best interest of the child. This may require expert testimony from a Child and Family Investigator appointed by the court, or from friends and relatives of the parents and children. Considerations in Custody Battles The court will consider several factors when determining the best interest of a child. This can include things ...