Newsroom Stories

Abnormal heart rate variability increases the risk of death for depressed heart patients.Scientists have known for years that depression increases the risk of dying in the months after a heart attack, but they haven’t understood how depression raises that risk. Now, behavioral medicine specialists at the School of Medicine are reporting in the Archives of Internal Medicine that abnormal heart rate variability is partially responsible for depression’s effects in heart patients.

Arthritis can hit harder in African-Americans.A pilot study comparing the results of treatment for rheumatoid arthritis in African-Americans and Caucasians has revealed that African-Americans are more likely to suffer pain and disability from the disorder. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis studied a group of 33 African-Americans and 67 Caucasians and found that both disease activity and the resulting disabilities were worse in African-Americans. Further analysis showed this was linked primarily to socio-economic status rather than race.

Abnormal heart rate variability increases the risk of death for depressed heart patients.Scientists have known for years that depression increases the risk of dying in the months after a heart attack, but they haven’t understood how depression raises that risk. Now, behavioral medicine specialists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are reporting in the Archives of Internal Medicine that abnormal heart rate variability is partially responsible for depression’s effects in heart patients.

Deanna Barch (right), co-author of a memory study that used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (shown in the background) to monitor the brain activity of people with schizophrenia.When encouraged to use memorization strategies commonly employed by healthy individuals, people with schizophrenia can be helped to remember information just as well as their healthy counterparts, a process that in itself seems to spur a normalization of memory-related activities in the brains of people with schizophrenia, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

Summertime marks the height of ATV season.Most parents would never consider letting their 6-year-old child ride on the back of a motorcycle, yet many adults don’t think twice about letting kids ride all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). “Parental supervision is a key element to childhood safety,” explains Dee Hodge III, M.D., a pediatric emergency medicine specialist and associate professor of pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “And when it comes to ATVs, parents literally hold the key to their child’s safety. Injuries and death caused by ATVs are a serious and increasing problem in the United States, and it is critical that all riders understand the importance of safe and responsible ATV use,” adds Hodge, who is also associate director of clinical affairs for emergency services at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Summertime marks the height of ATV season.Most parents would never consider letting their 6-year-old child ride on the back of a motorcycle, yet many adults don’t think twice about letting kids ride all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). Injuries and death caused by ATVs are a serious and increasing problem in the United States, and it is critical that all riders understand the importance of safe and responsible ATV use, says Dee Hodge, pediatric emergency medicine specialist at Washington University School of Medicine and St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

MaconesGeorge A. Macones, M.D., M.S.C.E., has been named head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Elaine and Mitchell Yanow Professor at the School of Medicine. Macones will replace James R. Schreiber, M.D., who has served as head of obstetrics and gynecology since 1991.

The Gateway Festival Orchestra will continue its 42nd annual season of free summer performances with a concert entitled “The French Connection” at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, July 17, in Washington University’s Brookings Quadrangle.

The retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor from the Supreme Court will probably be the first of many changes in the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court. “These changes would undoubtedly have an impact on how the Court decides its cases,” says Neil Richards, former law clerk for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “In choosing future justices, I think that it’s important to focus not just on the outcomes of cases, but on how the Court does its business more broadly.”

For nearly a quarter century, Murray Weidenbaum has said little about what it was like to serve as the first chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, a role in which he was a primary architect of policies later known as “Reaganomics.” Now, one year after Reagan’s passing, Weidenbaum has issued a brief memoir detailing his years as the president’s chief economic adviser.