School of Medicine

Scientists believe they have found an explanation for a puzzling and serious complication of West Nile virus infection. Researchers showed that the virus can enter a nerve cell, replicate and move on to infect other nearby nerve cells. Viruses traveling this infectious pathway can break into the central nervous system, triggering a condition known as acute flaccid paralysis that leaves one or more limbs limp and unresponsive.

Studying efforts to combat obesity in children, a research team led by School of Medicine investigators has found that children who lose weight are able to keep it off more effectively if they participate in a maintenance-targeted treatment program, although the effectiveness of the maintenance program lessens over time.

Peter Humphrey, M.D., Ph.D., has been named the Ladenson Professor of Pathology in the Department of Pathology and Immunology. As the Ladenson professor, Humphrey becomes chief of the newly renamed Division of Anatomic and Molecular Pathology within the department.

Susan E. Mackinnon, M.D., has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

A memorial service will be held in honor of Daniel P. Schuster, M.D., Monday, Oct. 22, from 4-6:30 p.m. at the Eric P. Newman Auditorium.

Photo by Robert BostonDale Thuet, a second-year doctoral student in the Program in Physical Therapy, prepares the InBody body scanner to analyze Nikki Morilak, a first-year student.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is bringing together a distinguished group of scientists, legal scholars, jurists and philosophers from across the country to help integrate new developments in neuroscience into the U.S. legal system.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Bright tumors, dim prospects (week of Oct. 3) • New drugs for Parkinson’s (week of Oct. 10) • Heart disease in the mentally ill (week of Oct. 17) • Preventing plaque buildup (week of Oct. 24) • Helping children lose weight (week of Oct. 31)

Children who are obese or who are at risk for obesity show early signs of heart disease similar to obese adults with heart disease, a study by researchers at the School of Medicine has found. “Based on this study, these subtle markers can help us predict who could be at risk for heart disease and heart attacks,” said Angela Sharkey, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and a pediatric cardiologist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

A psychiatrist at the School of Medicine writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that although mortality from cardiovascular disease has declined in the United States over the past several decades, patients with severe psychiatric illness are not enjoying the benefits of that progress.