Medicine & Health

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Low-calorie diet may slow aging (week of June 7) • One hump or two? (week of June 14) • Second chance transplants (week of June 21) • Erotic images get brain’s attention (week of June 28)

The newest concept for treating coronary artery disease is to induce hearts to grow their own new blood vessels to bypass damaged tissue or clogged arteries. Unfortunately, clinical trials of two important blood-vessel growth factors have not produced stellar results. Now researchers at the School of Medicine have investigated a third signaling molecule that could overcome problems associated with the previous two.

The answer to a 50-year-old question has been found by scientists at the School of Medicine. The question: Is it possible to accurately measure the intrinsic filling function of the heart?

Researchers have found that two common organisms collude and collaborate to increase the amount of calories harvested from a class of carbohydrates found in food sweeteners. In the study, conducted in previously germ-free mice, colonization with two prominent human gut microbes led to fatter mice. Scientists at the School of Medicine called the results an illustration of how understanding the menagerie of microorganisms that live in our guts can provide new insights into health.

Charles Huddleston performs a pediatric lung transplant.A team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that using lobes of lungs from living donors improves the chances of short-term survival for children who require a second lung transplant. Researchers compared the outcomes of lung retransplants in 39 children, including 13 patients who had lung retransplants using lobes from living donors and 26 who received lung retransplants using whole lungs from deceased donors. Living-donor lung retransplantation involves removing a lower lobe, or about one-third of a lung, from each of two healthy adult donors and then transplanting the lobes as replacement lungs into a child.

Histamine in the small intestine (shown in green) responding to the bacterium *Yersinia enterocolitica*Mice infected with a bacterium related to the plague sharply increase production of an enzyme that makes the inflammatory hormone histamine, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found. The increased production, which occurs in the intestine, appears to be an important part of the mouse’s successful efforts to control the infection.

Red zones in this brain map suggest frontal parts of the brain are particularly sensitive to erotic content.A new study suggests the brain is quickly turned on and “tuned in” when a person views erotic images. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis measured brainwave activity in women as they viewed a series of slides that contained various scenes from water skiers to snarling dogs to partially-clad couples in sensual poses. When study volunteers viewed erotic pictures, their brains produced electrical responses that were stronger than those elicited by other material, no matter how pleasant or disturbing the other material may have been. This difference in brainwave response emerged very quickly, suggesting that different neural circuits may be involved in the processing of erotic images.

Eliminating a molecular signal can help protect a neuron (show here) from destructive immune system cells.It may sound like a case of blame the victim, but researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that cells in the central nervous system can sometimes send out signals that invite hostile immune system attacks. In mice the researchers studied, this invitation resulted in damage to the protective covering of nerves, causing a disease resembling multiple sclerosis. The researchers found that they could prevent destructive immune cells from entering nervous system tissue by eliminating a molecular switch that sends “come here” messages to immune cells.

Susan Dutcher, Ph.D., professor of genetics and of cell biology and physiology, has been named interim head of the James S. McDonnell Department of Genetics at the School of Medicine effective July 1.

Invasive surgery — and anesthesia — has come a long way.While searching for answers to what it means to be Jewish — and at the same time completing a neuroscience course requirement — a doctoral student at Washington University in St. Louis came across what may be one of the earliest documented cases of brain surgery. And he found it in, of all places, the ancient texts of the Talmud. “Although this account raises several questions about the ailment itself, it provides us with a rare look at invasive cranial surgery dating nearly 2,000 years,” writes Adam Weinberg, a doctoral student in psychology in Arts & Sciences and author of an article on the surgery in the current issue of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences. More…