Medicine & Health

Colorado Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook recently received the Tony Conigliaro Award from the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Cook garnered the award — established in 1990 to honor major league players who overcome adversity — for his return to the mound following two surgeries to correct thoracic outlet syndrome. Both procedures were performed by WUSM surgeon Robert Thompson, who conducted similar surgery on Arizona outfielder Luis Terrero in 2003.

Karen Elshout, Post-DispatchRobin Harris holds a blanket that belonged to her daughter, Kaitlyn, a teen whose depression led her to kill herself.The teenage brain may hold secrets which could help unlock some of the mysteries of mental illness. Adolescent brains undergo serious transitions and can become very volatile, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish between normal teenage behavior and serious mental illness. Some scientists believe several severe mental illnesses may even have roots in the developing teen brain.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Tongues can sense fat (week of Dec. 7) • Bipolar preschoolers (week of Dec. 14) • Gambling risk factors (week of Dec. 21) • Genetic link to alcoholism (week of Dec. 28)

Mechanical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis and their collaborators have devised a technique on humans that for the first time shows just what the brain does when the skull accelerates. What they’ve done is use a technique originally developed to measure cardiac deformation to image deformation in human subjects during repeated mild head decelerations.

Benjamin Franklin’s myriad contributions as scientist, inventor, publisher and statesman will be back in the spotlight in coming months as America celebrates his 300th birthday on Jan. 17. Much of the hoopla, including major exhibits in London, Paris, Philadelphia and other American cities, will focus on Franklin’s role as an influential American diplomat. However, a new book by medical historian Stanley Finger contends that Franklin also deserves considerable recognition for important contributions to the healing arts. “With strong interests in bedside and preventative medicine, hospital care, and even medical education, he helped to change medical care in both America and Europe,” Finger says.

The eyes have it — a design to manage aspects of movement.The design of the eye and the muscles and bone that surround it help the brain manage certain complex aspects of eye movement, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The finding, published in Neuron, may help push an old debate about how eye movement is controlled toward resolution and help eye surgeons better diagnose and treat disorders such as strabismus (crossed eyes) that lead to misalignment of the eyes.

Repair proteins (bright green areas) are inhibited from gathering at sites of DNA damage.To remain healthy, all cells must quickly mend any breaks that arise in their DNA strands. But cancer cells are particularly dependent on a process called homologous recombination to repair DNA and stay alive. Now researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a protein with a role in homologous recombination, and the discovery could be exploited as part of a two-pronged treatment strategy to kill cancer cells by eliminating their ability to repair DNA.

WUSM researchers have developed a diagnostic tool for identifying pathological gambling disorder.More than 80 percent of the U.S. population gambles at some time in their lives. It might be the lottery, bingo or poker. Most never need treatment for problem gambling, but others lose control and lose their houses or cars and damage family relationships as a result of compulsive gambling. Little is known about why people gamble and how to predict who is likely to become a pathological gambler, but Washington University researchers have developed a diagnostic tool for identifying pathological gambling disorder, and they’re beginning to learn who is at risk.

Structure of the fatty acid receptor CD36As you stand at buffet tables during holiday parties this year, it might cheer you up to know most people don’t gain as much weight over the holidays as once was thought. Instead of five or 10 pounds, most of us actually gain only a pound or two. But it might depress you to know that weight gain happens one pound at a time, and in the long run, it may be hard to avoid — especially for some of us, because some of the taste buds in our tongues are programmed to make us crave fatty food — and fat is everywhere in our diets. French researchers recently reported that mice have a receptor in their tongues that can sense fat, and the presence of that receptor seems to drive the mice to crave fat in their diets. The research was based on work from scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where investigators previously had identified a protein receptor for fat and documented its function in recognizing and using fatty food.

Mania can be confused with ADHD.Child psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a small group of preschoolers who appear to suffer from bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness. In findings presented this fall to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the researchers reported they had identified key symptoms that distinguish bipolar disorder from other problems in very young children. Diagnosing bipolar disorder in childhood can be difficult because the manic phase of the illness can be confused with the more common attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The confusion arises because mania and ADHD both involve hyperactivity, irritability and distractibility.