School of Medicine

Image courtesy of Benjamin Shannon, John Cirrito, and Robert Brendza Washington University in St. LouisBrain regions active during default mental tates in young adults reveal remarkable correlation with those regions showing Alzheimer’s disease pathology.Researchers who used five different medical imaging techniques to study the brain activity of 764 people, including those with Alzheimer’s disease, those on the brink of dementia, and healthy individuals, have found that the areas of the brain that young, healthy people use when daydreaming are the same areas that fail in people who have Alzheimer’s disease. Findings suggest Alzheimer’s may be due to abnormalities in regions of the brain that are active when people are musing, daydreaming, or thinking to themselves.

From laser surgery to simple eyeglasses, people of all ages now have a variety of vision correction choices available to them. WUSM ophthalmologist Michael Conners discusses today’s treatment options in the following St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

Gabriel B. Tait/P-DDoctors are using stents to manage heart disease without opening the chest.The number of open-heart surgery patients is declining for several reasons. Better drugs and healthier lifestyle choices are keeping many people out of the operating room, but even those who do require surgery are frequently opting for less invasive procedures these days. Read more in the following St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

Camp HOPE lives up to its name. The three-day camp, part of a larger outreach called Project ARK, gives HIV-positive children a chance to swim, ride horses and simply have fun. Kim Donica, director of Project ARK and research administrator for pediatric infectious disease, discusses the project in the following interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

Opening the possibility of new therapies for type 2 diabetes, researchers at the School of Medicine have found that a protein called Sirt1 enhances the secretion of insulin in mice and allows them to better control blood glucose levels. Their study will appear in the August 17 issue of Cell Metabolism.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Neurotransmitter linked to cancer (week of Aug. 3) • ATV safety (week of Aug. 10) • Biomechanics of men and women (week of Aug. 17) • College can add pounds (week of Aug. 24) • Chimp genome sequenced (week of Aug. 31)

How exactly does the human brain react to a fall or an automobile accident? Researchers at Washington University are working to answer that question through a new computer model based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Learn more in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

He has been an assistant team physician with the Cardinals since l998 and covers many of the team’s home games.

Elliot E. Abbey, Martin I. Boyer, Mary E. Klingensmith and Jane Loitman are the recipients through a program established last year.