Category Archives: Health

How patients make medical decisions

ANN ARBOR — Sooner or later, everyone faces decisions about whether or not to have surgery, take a new medication or have a cancer-screening test.

A new University of Michigan study published in Health Expectations explores the costs and benefits patients say are important in making these kinds of medical decisions, and how those costs and benefits explain what they actually decide to do. (more…)

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HIV meds dialogue differs by race, ethnicity

Researchers found specific racial/ethnic differences in discussions of HIV medicine adherence in a newly published analysis of recorded office visits between 45 doctors and nurse practitioners and more than 400 patients.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A lot of evidence shows that a patients’ race or ethnicity is associated with differences in how health care providers communicate with them, the health care they receive, and their health outcomes. In HIV care, a key to those outcomes is whether people take their medications as prescribed. A new study of the doctor-patient dialogue about HIV drug adherence found several specific differences in those conversations depending on patients’ race and ethnicity. (more…)

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Mysteries of neuroscience

What we don’t know: Neuroscience research at CMHC

The third floor of the CMHC houses the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit (CNRU), an inpatient and outpatient research facility. It’s an honor to be asked to start a dialogue with you about what we do on the CNRU. Over the next few months, I’d like to introduce you to the scientists and clinicians and their teams that work on the CNRU. Today I’d like to introduce you to some of the things we do on the 3rd floor. (more…)

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Vibrations influence the circadian clock of a fruit fly

The internal circadian clock of a Drosophila (fruit fly) can be synchronised using vibrations, according to research published today in the journal Science. The study suggests that an animal’s own movements can influence its clock.

The circadian clock, which underlies the daily rhythms characterising most of our bodily functions, including the sleep cycle, is mainly set by diurnal changes in light and temperature. (more…)

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„Molekularer Schalter“ bei Parkinson-Protein entdeckt

Bei einer Variante von Parkinson spielt das Enzym LRRK2 eine zentrale Rolle. Wissenschaftler der Universität Kassel haben nun einen Mechanismus entdeckt, der die Aktivität von LRRK2 steuert. Das eröffnet neue Ansatzpunkte für die Entwicklung von Medikamenten gegen die bislang unheilbare Krankheit.

Parkinson ist nach Alzheimer die häufigste neurodegenerative Krankheit; Schätzungen gehen von rund sieben Millionen Erkrankten weltweit aus. Ein Teil der Erkrankungen ist erblich bedingt und wird durch Mutationen bestimmter Gene hervorgerufen. Diese sogenannte familiäre Parkinson-Variante tritt in verschieden Volksgruppen unterschiedlich häufig auf; bestimmte Mutationen sind insbesondere in Italien und Spanien verbreitet. Mutationen eines Proteins namens LRRK2 gelten als häufigste Ursache für vererbbares Parkinson. (more…)

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