Medicine & Health

Mark Twain, a skeptic of the idea of free will, argues in his essay “What Is Man?” that humans do not command their minds or the opinions they form. Twain’s views get a boost this week from researchers at the School of Medicine and University of Chieti, Italy. In Nature Neuroscience, scientists report that a simple decision-making task does not involve the frontal lobes, where many of the higher aspects of human cognition, including self-awareness, are thought to originate.

“The increasing number of veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) raises the risk of domestic violence and its consequences on families and children in communities across the United States,” says Monica Matthieu, Ph.D., an expert on veteran mental health and an assistant professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Treatments for domestic violence are very different than those for PTSD. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has mental health services and treatments for PTSD, yet these services need to be combined with the specialized domestic violence intervention programs offered by community agencies for those veterans engaging in battering behavior against intimate partners and families.”

Keith Wailoo will talk about health care disparities in the Assembly Series lecture “How Cancer Crossed the Color Line: Race and Disease in America” at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11, in Rebstock Hall, Room 215.

Acute myelogenous leukemia cellsFor the first time, scientists have decoded the complete DNA of a cancer patient and traced her disease – acute myelogenous leukemia – to its genetic roots. A large research team at the Genome Sequencing Center and the Siteman Cancer Center at the School of Medicine sequenced the genome of the patient – a woman in her 50s who ultimately died of her disease – and the genome of her leukemia cells, to identify genetic changes unique to her cancer.

The tonsils and lymphoid tissues in the intestinal tract that help protect the body from external pathogens are the home base of a rare immune cell newly identified by researchers at the School of Medicine. The researchers indicate that the immune cells could have a therapeutic role in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

WailooKeith Wailoo will share his insights on today’s health care disparities in his talk “How Cancer Crossed the Color Line: Race and Disease in America” at 4 p.m. on Tues., Nov. 11 in Rebstock Hall room 215.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) results when the body’s own defense system attacks nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. Now scientists led by John Russell at the School of Medicine have shown that interferon-gamma plays a deciding role in whether immune cells attack and injure the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) in mice.

Disadvantaged and minority populations are more likely to be diagnosed with and die from cancer than other groups in the United States. A five-year, $8.6 million grant to Washington University will explore how improved information and referral systems can help eliminate these disparities.

Drugs widely used to treat type 2 diabetes may be more likely to keep working if they are used in moderation, researchers at the School of Medicine have found in a study using an animal model. The drugs, sulfonylureas, help type 2 diabetics make more insulin, improving control of blood sugar levels. But in most patients the effects of sulfonylureas are lost after several years of use, causing insulin secretion to shut down.

Video capture by James Collins*C. elegans* roundwormMany animals live longer when raised on low calorie diets. But now researchers at the School of Medicine have shown that they can extend the life spans of roundworms even when the worms are well fed — it just takes a chemical that blocks their sense of smell.