http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress provides the latest news from Brown University A new study shows that common mutant forms of the deadly JC polyomavirus are not responsible for the pathogen's main attack, which causes a brain-damaging disease in immunocompromised patients called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. But that finding raises the ominous question of what the mutants might be up to instead. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-dossier-jc-polyomavirus.html Medical research Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:00:01 EST news290107067 In India most people who are HIV positive don't know it, yet testing and treatment are relatively cheap and available. It would therefore meet international standards of cost-effectiveness—and save millions of lives for decades—to test every person in the billion-plus population every five years according to a new study published in the journal PLoS One. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-cost-effective-universal-hiv-india.html HIV & AIDS Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:43:03 EST news290076165 A study using brain images from "quiet" MRI machines adds to the growing body of evidence that breastfeeding improves brain development in infants. Breastfeeding alone produced better brain development than a combination of breastfeeding and formula, which produced better development than formula alone. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-breastfeeding-boosts-babies-brain-growth.html Neuroscience Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:45:44 EST news289752332 Lundy Braun studies racial health disparities and their history as a professor of both pathology and laboratory medicine and Africana studies and a member of the Science and Technology Studies Program. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-spirometers-built-in.html Health Mon, 03 Jun 2013 08:10:01 EST news289462693 Hikers in New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest often hit the trail less prepared than they should be, according to a study that gauged readiness by how many of 10 essential items the hikers brought along. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-white-mountains-hikers-underprepared.html Health Tue, 28 May 2013 09:26:42 EST news288951993 With obesity reaching epidemic levels in some parts of the world, scientists have only begun to understand why it is such a persistent condition. A study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry adds substantially to the story by reporting the discovery of a molecular chain of events in the brains of obese rats that undermined their ability to suppress appetite and to increase calorie burning. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-vicious-obesity-sustained-brain-biochemistry.html Medical research Thu, 16 May 2013 10:26:28 EST news287918780 Doctors often diagnose tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) based on the abnormal growths the genetic disease causes in organs around the body. Those overt anatomical structures, however, belie the microscopic and mysterious neurological differences behind the disease's troublesome behavioral symptoms: autism, intellectual disabilities, and seizures. In a new study in mice, Brown University researchers highlight a role for a brain region called the thalamus and show that the timing of gene mutation during thalamus development makes a huge difference in the severity of the disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-advance-tuberous-sclerosis-brain-science.html Neuroscience Thu, 09 May 2013 12:00:20 EST news287306747 Vertebrates are predisposed to act to gain rewards, and to lay low to avoid punishment. Try to teach chickens to back away from food in order to obtain it, and you'll fail, as researchers did in 1986. But (some) humans are better thinkers than chickens. In the May 8 edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers show that the level of theta brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex predicts whether people will be able to overcome these ingrained biases when doing so is required to achieve a goal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-theta-brainwaves-ability-built-in-bias.html Neuroscience Tue, 07 May 2013 17:00:05 EST news287141209 (Medical Xpress)—Two wrongs don't make a right, they say, but here's how one tangle can straighten out another. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-tangle-talents-untangles-neurons.html Medical research Mon, 06 May 2013 05:53:02 EST news287038373 Powerful data-sifting algorithms developed by computer scientists at Brown University are helping to untangle the profoundly complex genetics of cancer. In a study reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis used two algorithms developed at Brown to assemble the most complete genetic profile yet of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive form of blood cancer. The researchers hope the work will lead to new AML treatments based on the genetics of each patient's disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-algorithms-cancer.html Cancer Wed, 01 May 2013 13:00:02 EST news286625709 U.S. emergency care costs may be more than twice previously published estimates, according to a new analysis that critiques those estimates, argues for improved accounting, and suggests considering the value of emergency care as well as total spending. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-emergency.html Health Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:48:23 EST news286458431 More than 1 in 5 seniors with Medicare Advantage plans received a prescription for a potentially harmful "high risk medication" in 2009, according to a newly published analysis by Brown University public health researchers. The questionable prescriptions were significantly more common in the Southeast region of the country, as well as among women and people living in relatively poor areas. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-seniors-risky-meds-south.html Health Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:27:14 EST news284818948 Spinal muscular atrophy is a debilitating neuromuscular disease that in its most severe form is the leading genetic cause of infant death. By experimenting with an ALS drug in two very different animal models, researchers at Brown University and Boston Children's Hospital have identified a new potential mechanism for developing an SMA treatment. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-approach-spinal-muscular-atrophy.html Neuroscience Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:00:04 EST news284745218 A new study finds that two genes individually associated with rare autism-related disorders are also jointly linked to more general forms of autism. The finding suggests a new genetic pathway to investigate in general autism research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-misregulated-genes-big-autism-role.html Genetics Thu, 21 Mar 2013 09:35:36 EST news283077329 As Kenyan citizens negotiated the tensions following the March 4 nationwide elections, memories of the violence that followed the December 2007 vote weighed heavily for many reasons. Among those in any nation with an HIV epidemic, argue authors of a new paper in AIDS Reviews, should be the long-term damage that political conflict can do to public health by disrupting treatment and thereby promoting resistance to antiretroviral drugs and treatment failure. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-political-strife-undermines-hiv-treatment.html HIV & AIDS Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:49:31 EST news282322105