| The body electric | | Posted Sunday, October 08, 2006 11:03:36 AM by Blog57 Team | | It's a humid, overcast morning when Marcia Hudson heads to the hospital for a treatment most people would be surprised to know still exists. Reclining on a gurney with white cloths tucked around her, she will be rolled into a bright room at Palmetto Health Baptist. She will chat with the doctors and nurses attending her. She will be sedated and have electrodes attached near her temples. When she's asleep, a doctor will press a button and for a fraction of a second, an electrical stimulus will pass into her brain. Yes, electroconvulsive therapy or ECT — formerly known as electroshock — does still exist. About 100,000 patients will have these treatments in the United States this year, including more than 385 in South Carolina. If you're already picturing a horror movie, or "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," you might be surprised to know Hudson calls ECT "a blessing" that helped her conquer crippling depression when nothing else worked.... | |
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| | | Brain Enzyme Treatment Relieves Memory Lapse In Alzheimer's Mice | | Posted Sunday, August 27, 2006 9:17:22 PM by Blog57 Team | | An enzyme that helps neurons rid themselves of excess or aberrant proteins is required for normal brain function, according to a new report in the August 25, 2006 issue of the journal Cell, published by Cell Press. What's more, by increasing brain levels of the enzyme in mice with Alzheimer's symptoms, the researchers found they could reverse lapses of memory characteristic of the debilitating disease. Treatments that elevate the protein, known as ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 (Uch-L1), might therefore have potential as a new therapy for Alzheimer's disease, according to the researchers. Currently available therapies have almost exclusively targeted amyloid beta (A), the protein responsible for the "amyloid plaques" that riddle the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, they added.... | |
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| | | Diplomatic freeloaders need to be given a reality check | | Posted Saturday, July 29, 2006 2:57:00 PM by Blog57 Team | | Before things can turn a corner in the Middle East, we need the diplomatic equivalent of electric-shock therapy. We may need US$100 oil to jolt the Europeans and the Chinese. We may need the Russians to be told that they can forget joining the World Trade Organization. And we're going to need something dramatic to reward India, whose response to terrorism last week was exemplary. The India-Israel comparison is startling. Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorists shower rockets on Northern Israel and carry out a raid that inflicts eight deaths and two abductions. Israel justifiably responds by bombing the headquarters of the Hezbollah leader, but it also rains fire on Beirut's airport, roads and apartment towers, destroying the props of a new and hopeful Lebanon. Almost everybody understands that failed states are good for terrorists.... | |
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