Using electrodes to stimulate areas deep within the brain may have therapeutic potential for patients with obsessive compulsive disorder that is refractory to treatment, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by persistent thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive ritualistic behaviors (compulsions)," the authors write as background information in the article. "It has an estimated lifetime prevalence of 2 percent and affects ...

Children whose mothers are genetically predisposed to have impaired production of serotonin appear more likely to develop attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later in life, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Serotonin is a hormone and transmitter that performs a broad range of physiological functions in the human body," the authors write as background information in the article. "In addition to its transmitter function in the mature nervous system, serotonin has an important role ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered biomarkers that could lead to personalized radiation treatments for cancer patients. The findings appear today online in the journal Genome Research. "Overcoming resistance to radiation therapy would make treatment more effective for some individuals," says Liewei Wang, M.D., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic genomic researcher and senior author of the study. "Our findings may make it possible to one day develop novel therapies aimed at selected subgroups of cancer patients." Roughly half of all cancer patients undergo radiation ...

The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 gave universities significant control of the intellectual property associated with technologies that result from their federally funded research, allowing them wide latitude to license these discoveries to companies that can commercialize them. How well is this system working at translating new knowledge into goods and services that can benefit the public, and are any changes needed? MANAGING UNIVERSITY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST, a new report from the National Research Council, examines these questions and recommends ways to ...

After a decade of joint work and scientific adventure, marine explorers from more than 80 countries today delivered a historic first global Census of Marine Life. In one of the largest scientific collaborations ever conducted, more than 2,700 Census scientists spent over 9,000 days at sea on more than 540 expeditions, plus countless days in labs and archives. Released today are maps, three landmark books, and a highlights summary that crown a decade of discovery. The now-completed documentation in books and journals, plus the accumulating databases and established ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Nanotechnology is about to emerge in the world of pesticides and pest control, and a range of new approaches are needed to understand the implications for public health, ensure that this is done safely, maximize the potential benefits and prevent possible risks, researchers say in a new report. In a study published today in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, scientists from Oregon State University and the European Union outline six regulatory and educational issues that should be considered whenever nanoparticles are ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study has determined that female executives are more than twice as likely to leave their jobs – voluntarily and involuntarily – as men. Yet despite systemic evidence that women are more likely to depart from their positions, the researchers did not find strong patterns of discrimination. Lead author John Becker-Blease, an assistant professor of finance at Oregon State University, and his co-authors at Loyola Marymount University and Trinity College, analyzed data from Standard & Poor's 1500 firms. They classified departures as voluntary or involuntary ...

Berkeley – Diagnostic X-rays may increase the risk of developing childhood leukemia, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health. Specifically, the researchers found that children with acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) had almost twice the chance of having been exposed to three or more X-rays compared with children who did not have leukemia. For B-cell ALL, even one X-ray was enough to moderately increase the risk. The results differed slightly by the region of the body imaged, with a modest increase associated ...

Having survived for more than 400 million years, the horseshoe crab is now under threat – primarily due to overharvest and habitat destruction. However, climatic changes may also play a role. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg reveal how sensitive horseshoe crab populations are to natural climate change in a study recently published in the scientific journal Molecular Ecology. The horseshoe crab is often regarded as a living fossil, in that it has survived almost unchanged in terms of body design and lifestyle for more than 400 million years. Crabs similar ...

Malnutrition often goes hand in hand with COPD and is difficult to treat. In a recent study researchers at the University of Gothenburg, have come up with a new equation to calculate the energy requirement for underweight COPD patients. It is hoped that this will lead to better treatment results and, ultimately, better quality of life for these patients. Recently published in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, the study involved a total of 86 patients with an average age of 64. In contrast to studies in other countries, more than half ...

Patients facing planned surgery answered 36 per cent more questions about the procedure correctly if they watched an interactive multimedia presentation (IMP) rather than just talking to medical staff, according to research in the October issue of the urology journal BJUI. Researchers from the University of Melbourne, Australia, randomised 40 patients due to undergo radical prostatectomy into two groups. The first group went through the standard surgery consent process, where staff explained the procedure verbally, and the second group watched the IMP. Both sets of ...

New research from the University of Leicester reveals that nursing staff have 'considerable difficulty' detecting depression and distress in patients. Two new research studies led by Dr Alex Mitchell, consultant in psycho-oncology at Leicestershire Partnership Trust and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Leicester, highlight the fact that while nurses are at the front line of caring for people, they receive little training in mental health. The researchers call for the development of short, simple methods to identify mood problems as a way of providing more ...

Tobias Brügmann and his colleagues from the University of Bonn's Institute of Physiology I used a so-called "channelrhodopsin" for their experiments, which is a type of light sensor. At the same time, it can act as an ion channel in the cell membrane. When stimulated with blue light, this channel opens, and positive ions flow into the cell. This causes a change in the cell membrane's pressure, which stimulates cardiac muscle cells to contract. "We have genetically modified mice to make them express channelrhodopsin in the heart muscle," explains Professor Dr. Bernd Fleischmann ...

The enigmatic Möbius strip has long been an object of fascination, appearing in numerous works of art, most famously a woodcut by the Dutchman M.C. Escher, in which a tribe of ants traverses the form's single, never-ending surface. Scientists at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University's and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, led by Hao Yan and Yan Liu, have now reproduced the shape on a remarkably tiny scale, joining up braid-like segments of DNA to create Möbius structures measuring just 50 nanometers across—roughly the width of a virus particle. ...

Jerusalem, October 4, 2010 – Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered a group of substances in the body that play a key role in controlling bone density, and on this basis they have begun development of a drug for prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and other bone disorders. The findings of the Hebrew University researchers have just been published in the American journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). The research group working on the project is headed by Prof. Itai Bab of the Bone Laboratory and Prof. Raphael ...

Biodiversity decreases towards the poles almost everywhere in the world, except along the South American Pacific coast. Investigating fossil clams and snails Steffen Kiel and Sven Nielsen at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) could show that this unusual pattern originated at the end of the last ice age, 20.000 to 100.000 years ago. The retreating glaciers created a mosaic landscape of countless islands, bays and fiords in which new species developed rapidly – geologically speaking. The ancestors of the species survived the ice age in the warmer Chilean north. The ...

Research published today by materials engineers from the University of Leeds could help pave the way towards 100% lead-free electronics. The work, carried out at the UK's synchrotron facility, Diamond Light Source, reveals the potential of a new manmade material to replace lead-based ceramics in countless electronic devices, ranging from inkjet printers and digital cameras to hospital ultrasound scanners and diesel fuel injectors. European regulations now bar the use of most lead-containing materials in electronic and electrical devices. Ceramic crystals known as 'piezoelectrics' ...

Palo Alto, CA—Geologists have found evidence that some 55 million years ago a river as big as the modern Colorado flowed through Arizona into Utah in the opposite direction from the present-day river. Writing in the October issue of the journal Geology, they have named this ancient northeastward-flowing river the California River, after its inferred source in the Mojave region of southern California. Lead author Steven Davis, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution, and his colleagues* discovered the ancient river system ...

Revenge cuts both ways in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Scientists of the University of Zurich, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tel Aviv and Quinnipiaq Universities show that attacks by either side lead to violent retaliation from the other. Both Israelis and Palestinians may underestimate their own role in perpetuating the conflict. A team of scientists from the University of Zurich, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tel Aviv and Quinnipiaq Universities have found that attacks by both Israel and Palestinians lead to violent retaliation ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Most doctors are spending a good deal of time counseling their patients about diet and weight loss, but for the most part, it isn't making any difference, according to a new study appearing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Duke University Medical Center researchers recorded the conversations between 40 primary care physicians and 461 of their overweight or obese patients over an 18-month period. Investigators didn't tell them what they were listening for – only that they wanted to record the encounters to see how doctors talked about health. ...

PROVIDENCE, RI -- New research from Rhode Island Hospital found that reduced levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein in the brain that encourages growth of neurons, may be a trait marker for individuals with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) (seizures that are psychological in origin). The findings are published in the October 4, 2010, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Past studies have shown decreased levels of BDNF in the serum of patients with psychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorder ...

The system has been designed by scientists from this Madrid university for Núcleo CC, a company which develops surveillance systems for the maritime and aeronautic sectors. The first prototype will be used in the near future in Cape Verde (Africa). Two types of sensors have been deployed there: a set of radars and a series of AIS (Automatic Identification System), which allow ships to communicate their position and give other relevant data on their location and characteristics. These two types of sensors offer complementary data which can be fused in order to obtain better ...

LONDON, UK—After a decade of joint work and scientific adventure, marine explorers from more than 80 countries, including six scientists from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), today delivered the first global Census of Marine Life revealing what, where, and how much lives and hides in the world's oceans. In one of the largest scientific collaborations ever conducted, more than 2,700 scientists spent over 9,000 days at sea on more than 540 expeditions gathering the data. As a result of these efforts the scientists discovered that there may be up to 1 billion kinds ...

WASHINGTON — The system put in place by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 -- which gives universities significant control over intellectual property associated with the results of federally funded research at their institutions – has been more effective than the pre-1980 system in making research advances available to the public and spurring innovation, says a new report from the National Research Council. Nevertheless, the current system needs improvement, said the committee that wrote the report. "The public investment in research universities has led to a great deal of new ...

A new research study published in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) may change how sports injuries involving muscle tissue are treated, as well as how much patient monitoring is necessary when potent anti-inflammatory drugs are prescribed for a long time. That's because the study shows for the first time that inflammation actually helps to heal damaged muscle tissue, turning conventional wisdom on its head that inflammation must be largely controlled to encourage healing. These findings could lead to new therapies for acute muscle injuries caused by trauma, chemicals, ...