http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (Medical Xpress)—A research team including members of the Department of Bioengineering in the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science has discovered that drug intervention to reduce intercellular signaling between astrocytes following traumatic brain injury reduces cognitive deficits and damage. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-therapeutic-traumatic-brain-injury.html Neuroscience Tue, 09 Apr 2013 07:30:01 EST news284710693 Restoring vision might sometimes be as simple as turning out the lights. That's according to a study reported on February 14 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, in which researchers examined kittens with a visual impairment known as amblyopia before and after they spent 10 days in complete darkness. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-vision-total-darkness.html Neuroscience Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:13:16 EST news280069972 (Medical Xpress)—Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients sometimes experience "natural" improvements in disability at least over the short term, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-ms-patients-natural-disability.html Neuroscience Thu, 18 Oct 2012 07:41:15 EST news269764866 A virtual monopoly held by some drug manufacturers in part because of the way treatment protocols work is among the reasons cancer drugs cost so much in the United States, according to a commentary by two Mayo Clinic physicians in the October issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Value-based pricing is one potential solution, they write. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-mayo-clinic-physicians-id-high.html Cancer Mon, 01 Oct 2012 02:52:04 EST news268278685 Huntington disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by a defect on chromosome four where, within the Huntingtin gene, a CAG repeat occurs too many times. Most individuals begin experiencing symptoms in their 40s or 50s, but studies have shown that significant brain atrophy occurs several years prior to an official HD diagnosis. As a result, the field has sought a preventive treatment that could be administered prior to the development of actual symptoms that might delay the onset of illness. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-striatal-brain-volume-huntington-disease.html Neuroscience Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:14:28 EST news254654043 The dementia drug donepezil (Aricept), already widely used to treat mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease, can also help in moderate to severe patients, according to a report funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Alzheimer's Society. The study suggests that extending treatment to this group could help treat twice as many sufferers worldwide. Encouragingly, the drug has greater positive benefits for patients more severely affected than for those in the earlier stages of dementia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-commonly-dementia-drugs-patients-alzheimer.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:00:06 EST news250358769 Telephone motivational counseling sessions did not result in a statistically significant improvement in adherence to an osteoporosis medication regimen, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-intervention-adherence-osteoporosis-medication-regimen.html Health Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:00:11 EST news249573776 A program designed to boost cognition in older adults also increased their openness to new experiences, researchers report, demonstrating for the first time that a non-drug intervention in older adults can change a personality trait once thought to be fixed throughout the lifespan. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-cognition-older-adults-personality.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:48:59 EST news246080928