It is well accepted that severe spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to functional disconnection of ascending and descending spinal pathways, impairing neural circuitry through and below the SCI. However, in clinically complete SCI, defined as American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS) level A, a portion of neural tissue commonly remains intact across the injury site1 and may provide nonspecific supraspinal influence on sublesional spinal circuitry.2, 3, 4, 5 This injury profile is defi...

Hormone replacement therapy has long been controversial. While some studies suggest that it lowers the risk of osteoporosis and improves some aspects of heart health, others link it to higher risk of cancer and stroke. A new imaging study by investigators at Cedars-Sinai suggests that women using hormone replacement therapy to relieve menopause symptoms face a lower risk of death and show lower levels of atherosclerosis — plaque buildup in the heart's arteries — than women who do not use horm...

A study by Indiana University researchers has identified 24 compounds -- including caffeine -- with the potential to boost an enzyme in the brain shown to protect against dementia.   The protective effect of the enzyme, called NMNAT2, was discovered last year through research conducted at IU Bloomington. The new study appears today in the journal Scientific Reports. "This work could help advance efforts to develop drugs that increase levels of this enzyme in the brain, creating a c...

University of Maryland study has found that fruit flies genetically coded to take frequent naps had the strongest resistance to both a fungal infection and bacteria that the World Health Organization says is one of the world’s most dangerous superbugs for humans. Researchers study the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, because these tiny flies provide a great model system for studying issues important to human health. More than 70 percent of human disease-causing genes have a correspo...

Blind tadpoles learn visually after researchers graft eyes onto tails and treat them with neurotransmitter drugs Blind tadpoles were able to process visual information from eyes grafted onto their tails after being treated with a small molecule neurotransmitter drug that augmented innervation, integration, and function of the transplanted organs, according to a paper published online today by researchers at the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University in npj Regenerative Medicine, a Nature Re...

Households in Australia Changing demography The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) is the Australian Government's key research body in the area of family wellbeing. AIFS conducts original research to increase understanding of Australian families and the issues that affect them. Listed below are the findings; Types of families in Australia Types of households Projections: 2011-36 couple families with children will decrease from 44.1% in 2011 to 40.2% in ...

UC Davis researchers have shown that combining high-intensity focused ultrasound with two immunotherapies (a PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor and TLR9 agonist) can produce excellent response rates in mouse models of epithelial cancer. They also found that, for the combination to be effective, immunotherapies must come first. Kathy Ferrara “These combination protocols can achieve a complete response in a large fraction of solid tumors,” said Katherine Ferrara, professor of the UC Davis Department of ...

  Researchers from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have confirmed that a prescription weight-loss pill decreases the urge to use opiates such as oxycodone. In a study published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience, the researchers led by UTMB scientist Kathryn Cunningham found that the drug, lorcaserin, reduced the use and craving for the opioid oxycodone in preclinical studies. Cunningham is director of UTMB’s Center for Addiction Research and a professor in the departmen...

A group of researchers from Nagasaki University, led by Dr Matsuo Tomohiro, has studied salt intake in a group of 321 men and women who had a high salt intake and had problems sleeping -- Japanese people tend to have a higher than average salt intake. The patients were given guidance and support to reduce salt consumption. They were followed for 12 weeks, and salt consumption measured biochemically. 223 members of the group were able to reduce their salt intake from 10.7 gm per day to 8.0 gm/...

  Semiconductor nanowires, with lasing emission at room temperature, can be transferred in a controlled way to specific locations on diverse substrates and organized into bespoke spatial patterns. Semiconductor nanowire (NW) lasers provide coherent light sources with highly localized emission and extremely small footprints. Such lasers may thus have the potential to revolutionize the field of photonics. Indeed, NW lasers are expected to play a key role in future optoelectronic sys...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today granted accelerated approval to Bavencio (avelumab) for the treatment of adults and pediatric patients 12 years and older with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), including those who have not received prior chemotherapy. This is the first FDA-approved treatment for metastatic MCC, a rare, aggressive form of skin cancer. “While skin cancer is one of the most common cancers, patients with a rare form called Merkel cell cancer have not had an appro...

UNSW researchers have identified a critical step in the molecular process that allows cells to repair damaged DNA – and it could mean big things for the future of anti-ageing drugs, childhood cancer survivors and even astronauts. Professor David Sinclair (front) and Dr Lindsay Wu (far left) with the UNSW research team. Photo: Britta Campion UNSW researchers have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing, improves DNA repa...

A protein originally discovered at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) appears to be involved in how the body controls breathing, according to a new study led by scientists at TSRI and Harvard Medical School. The study, published in Nature, shows how the Piezo2 protein, previously shown to be the principal sensor of touch and proprioception, also plays a critical role in sensing lung expansion. “The discoveries here could provide important clues on how to treat patients with respiratory dis...

Individuals with lower leg injuries could soon be saying goodbye to traditional crutches with the development of a hands-free alternative that is more comfortable and potentially more effective. The device, developed by Purdue University graduates, could provide ergonomic and natural movement and transmit real-time recovery data to physicians. “Six and a half million people in the U.S. today use devices such as wheelchairs, walkers, crutches and canes. Traditional crutches are the most common...

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are developing and testing a new peptide that they hope will lead to better treatment options for familial hypercholesterolemia. FH is a genetic condition that results from the body’s inability to clear low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or bad cholesterol, from the blood. This results in startlingly high cholesterol levels. There are two forms of FH: heterozygous FH (HeFH) and homozygous HoFH, which is the most serious type of FH. If untreat...

A research team led by Professors Doman Kim and Tae Sub Park of the Graduate School of International Agricultural Technology found that chicken feed including naturally fermented buckwheat increases the production of eggs by over 8%. The researchers used Rhizopus – a fungus causing the group of infections referred to as zygomycosis and usually found in decaying breads, fruits, and vegetables - to ferment the buckwheat. The team found that chickens eating the buckwheat feed laid more and larger e...

A Stanford electrical engineer has invented a way to wirelessly transfer power deep inside the body, and then use this power to run tiny electronic medical gadgets such as pacemakers, nerve stimulators or new sensors and devices yet to be developed. The discoveries reported May 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences culminate years of efforts by Ada Poon, assistant professor of electrical engineering, to eliminate the bulky batteries and clumsy recharging systems that preve...