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Violent Video Games Reduce Brain Response to Violence and Increase Aggressive Behavior, University of Missouri Study Finds

By Guest PostMay 31, 2011Health, Scienceaggressive, behavior, brain response, brains, bruce bartholow, call of duty, christopher engelhardt, grand theft auto, hitman, indicator of desensitization, killzone, Media, popular violent games, scientists, university of missouri, violence, violent video games

*Parental moderation encouraged for children*

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Scientists have known for years that playing violent video games causes players to become more aggressive. The findings of a new University of Missouri (MU) study provide one explanation for why this occurs: the brains of violent video game players become less responsive to violence, and this diminished brain response predicts an increase in aggression.

“Many researchers have believed that becoming desensitized to violence leads to increased human aggression. Until our study, however, this causal association had never been demonstrated experimentally,” said Bruce Bartholow, associate professor of psychology in the MU College of Arts and Science. (more…)

Bloodless Worms Yield Insight on Human Blood, Parasites & Iron Deficiency

By Guest PostMay 29, 2011Healthbloodless worm, hemecentric, iron binding protein, iron deficiency, parasitic worm infections, transport of heme, transport process

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Using a tiny bloodless worm, University of Maryland Associate Professor Iqbal Hamza and his team have discovered a large piece in the puzzle of how humans, and other organisms, safely move iron around in the body. The findings, published in the journal Cell, could lead to new methods for treating age-old scourges – parasitic worm infections, which affect more than a quarter of the world’s population, and iron deficiency, the world’s number one nutritional disorder. (more…)

Exploring The Dark Side of Happiness

By Guest PostMay 29, 2011Culture, Healthbipolar disorder, catastrophic, dark side of happiness, drug and alcohol abuse, excessive happiness, happy, hebrew university of jerusalem, june gruber, positive emotion, psychological benefits of human happiness, risky sexual behavior, risky sexual promiscuity, university of california berkeley, university of denver, yale psychologist

As a researcher, Yale psychologist June Gruber has confirmed the many positive physical, social and psychological benefits of human happiness.

While working as a clinical scientist at the University of California-Berkeley, however, she witnessed extreme and damaging bouts of positive emotion during periods of mania in bipolar disorder. (more…)

New Study Suggests Link Between Estrogen, Blood Pressure

By Guest PostMay 28, 2011Healthanti oxidant resveratrol, blood pressure, brain, carrie northcutt, chronic exposure, effects of menopause, estrogen only hrt, hannah garver, heart failure, high blood pressure, hormone, huawei zhao, hypertension, joseph haywood, long term exposure to estrogen, madhan subramanian, michigan state university, mohankumar, p s mohankumar, priya balasubramanian, rostral ventrolateral medulla, stress in the body, superoxide, women

EAST LANSING, Mich. — While recent studies have shown long-term exposure to estrogen can be a danger to women – overturning physicians’ long-held beliefs that the hormone was good for their patients’ hearts – the process by which estrogen induces high blood pressure was unclear.

In a new study, Michigan State University researchers found long-term estrogen exposure generates excessive levels of the compound superoxide, which causes stress in the body. The buildup of this compound occurs in an area of the brain that is crucial to regulating blood pressure, suggesting that the estrogen-induced buildup causes increased blood pressure. (more…)

Researchers Discover Way to ‘Amp Up’ Power of Killer T Cells in Immune System

By Guest PostMay 22, 2011Healthanti tumor effector, cancer killing power, immune system, killer cells, toll like receptors

Researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered a way to “amp up” the power of killer T cells known as CD8 cells in the immune system, making them more functional for longer periods of time and boosting their ability to multiply and expand within the body to fight melanoma. (more…)

Couples-oriented Programs Found to Boost Healthy Behaviors Among African Americans

By Guest PostMay 17, 2011Healthafrican american couples, antiretroviral therapy, cancer screenings, cardiovascular disease, chronic diseases, diabetes, gail wyatt, haart, healthier eating, hiv and its treatment with haart, hiv medications, hiv-positive, increased physical activity, john b jemmott, nabila el bassel, std risk reduction program, virus, willo pequegnat

*Intervention focuses on couples in which one partner is HIV-positive*

Intervention programs that promote healthier eating, increased physical activity and cancer screenings may be beneficial for African American couples that are at high risk for chronic diseases and that include one partner who is HIV-positive, according to new research.

With such inverventions, each partner appears to draw encouragement from the other to monitor his or her own lifestyle and health, according to study co-author Gail Wyatt, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and an associate director of the UCLA AIDS Institute. (more…)

Researchers See a ‘Picture’ of Threat in The Brain: Work May Lead to New Model of Inflammation

By Guest PostMay 14, 2011Healthbrain cells, inflammation in body, inflammatory response, learned helplessness, model of inflammation, psychological stress, response to threats, stress response

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A team of researchers is beginning to see exactly what the response to threats looks like in the brain at the cellular and molecular levels. (more…)

Yale Researchers Identify Four Key Weapons in Immune System’s Arsenal

By Guest PostMay 7, 2011Health4 key weapons, bacterial infections, deliver antimicrobial enzymes, food-borne bacteria, gastrointestinal illness, gtpases, hepatitis c, immune-compromised, interferon therapy, john d. macmicking, macrophage, marshal immune system, microbial pathogenesis, mimic, noxious chemicals, pathogens, pulmonary diseases, tuberculosis, variety of pathogens, winchester fund and cancer research institute, yale university

Yale University researchers have identified four unique host defense proteins among thousands that seem to play a crucial role in mobilizing the immune system’s response to bacterial infections, they report in the May 6 issue of the journal Science.

The findings suggest it may be possible to find new ways to assist immune-compromised patients to fight off a variety of pathogens, the authors say.

“We can start to think about how to mimic these chemical processes and deliver them in drug form,” said John D. MacMicking, associate professor of microbial pathogenesis at Yale School of Medicine and senior author the study. (more…)

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