Researchers Closer To Helping Hearing-Impaired Using Stem Cells
Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine are several steps closer to the day when a profoundly deaf patient’s own bone marrow cells could be used to let him or her hear the world. The IU group, led by Eri Hashino, Ph.D., was able to transform, in the laboratory, stem cells taken from adult bone marrow into cells with many of the characteristics of sensory nerve cells -- neurons...A clue from macaques yields evidence for impaired retroviral defense genes in humans
Researchers Harmit Malik and Michael Emerman and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have found that a surprisingly large fraction of humans may be impaired in the function of a recently discovered arm of the body's defense against invading retroviruses such as HIV. One of the key components of this "intrinsic immunity" is encoded by the TRIM5 gene. This gene was disc...Debra Winger Wants Indians Abroad To Help Visually Impaired
Debra Winger, the Hollywood actress who is promoting eye care will be approaching Indians living abroad to help the visually impaired people living in India. Even though the country has a very high number// of visually impaired people, 80% of them can be cured, according to Debra Winger. Winger, who at the age of 17 met with an accident that left her temporarily blind, but she came ou...Identifying brain lesions with impaired consciousness
According to a new study it is indicative that systolic blood pressure is a good indicator for diagnosing brain lesions in patients with impaired consciousness. This means doctors may now have a better way// to estimate patients, as opposed to using expensive and time-consuming imaging technology. Researchers studied the vital signs of 450 patients who were admitted to an emergency roo...Sense of smell impaired in alcoholics
A study published in the March issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research reported that alcohol abuse can dampen the sense of smell. Researchers from the University Clinics of Innsbruck studied the sense of smell in 30 alcoholics and 30 healthy people who were matched for age, gender and smoking status. They used "Sniffin' Sticks", which are pen-like devices that dispense...Brain Function can be impaired by Flavonols
Based on findings of a recent study researchers say Cocoa flavonols, shown// to benefit heart health, may also have an impact on the brain. Cocoa flavonols were found to increase blood flow to key areas of the brain. In a study on 16 healthy young women, researcher tested the brain’s activation during cognitive tasks using functional MRI. The participants were asked to consume a flavon...Lead exposure plus high blood pressure Leads to impaired mental ability
Exposure to lead in early childhood and adolescence may contribute to hypertension-related decline that can impair a person's cognitive abilities. // Both lead exposure and hypertension have been associated with cognitive impairments in older adults. The study indicates that the interaction between lead exposures early in life combined with high blood pressure in working age adults ma...