Author: Jim Dryden

Researchers have identified an important part of the pathway through which stress affects mood and motivation for drugs. The finding may prove useful in humans by providing new potential targets for drugs to treat problems related to stress.  

Measuring oxygen during eye surgery, investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered a potential reason that African-Americans are at higher risk of getting glaucoma than Caucasians. They found that oxygen levels are significantly higher in the eyes of African-Americans with glaucoma than in Caucasians.

Neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified the brain cells involved in alcohol-related blackouts and the molecular mechanism that appears to underlie them. Alcohol interferes with key receptors in the brain, which in turn manufacture steroids that inhibit long-term potentiation, a process that strengthens the connections between neurons and is crucial to learning and memory. 

Jennifer Wray Cole, MD, associate professor of anesthesiology, died Saturday, July 2, 2011, from injuries sustained in a bicycling accident. She was 52.

Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience: A Primer, is the second book in 18 months from Charles F. Zorumski, MD, the Samuel B. Guze Professor and Head of Psychiatry, and Eugene H. Rubin, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry. It is about how the brain works and what the growing understanding of neuroscience will mean to future diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illnesses. 

Gary K. Ackers, PhD, professor emeritus, died from problems related to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease Friday, May 20, 2011, in Oro Valley, Ariz. He was 71.

Lifestyles and emotions play important roles in many medical illnesses, and when scientists study potential treatments to help people stop smoking, get more exercise, overcome depression or improve their diet, they often compare patients who get a certain treatment to others who don’t. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, led by Ken Freedland, MD, say to accurately measure a new therapy’s the effectiveness, it is critical to carefully define comparison — or control — groups in those studies.  

Researchers at Washington University and King’s College London have independently identified DNA on chromosome 3 that appears to be related to depression. The new studies identify a DNA region containing up to 90 genes. Both are published May 16 in the American Journal of Psychiatry. 

Nutrition and longevity researchers, including Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD, have found more evidence that eating less may help people live longer. They report that individuals who significantly reduce their calorie intake have lower core body temperatures. Mice and rats consuming fewer calories also have lower core body temperatures, and they live significantly longer than littermates eating a standard diet. 

Despite promising findings in the laboratory, Dominic N. Reeds, MD, and other nutrition researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that ginseng does not improve insulin sensitivity in diabetics who are overweight.