Laura Sanders A newly described dementia strikes people in their last decades of life. The disease, aptly named LATE, comes with symptoms that resemble Alzheimer’s disease, but is thought to be caused by something completely different. An international team of scientists and clinicians describe the disease and officially christen it LATE, which stands for the more technical description, “limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy,” online April 30 in Brain. Study coauthor Peter Nelson, a neuropathologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, helped organize a meeting last year that addressed a growing realization among doctors and scientists: “There’s this disease, and it doesn’t have a name,” he says. Estimates vary, but it’s possible that about a quarter of people age 85 and older have LATE, Nelson says. “This is a disease that really attacks the very latest portion of the human aging spectrum,” he says. LATE comes with memory trouble and dementia — symptoms that mirror Alzheimer’s, Nelson says. But instead of the plaques and tangles that mark the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, LATE is characterized by a lesser-known protein called TDP-43. In LATE, that protein accumulates and spreads through parts of the brain that are key to thinking and memory, including the amygdala and hippocampus. In Brain, Nelson and his colleagues describe the signs of LATE in the brain in a series of stages, from less severe to most severe. But the trouble is that these signs, which include the spread of TDP-43 and occasionally signs of damage to the hippocampus, can be found only after a person has died. There are currently no surefire clinical tests that identify LATE in a living person. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 26192 - Posted: 05.01.2019

By Lisa Sanders, M.D. “I don’t know where I am,” said a terrified voice on the phone. It was the woman’s husband, and he was scared. “I’m lost,” he said in a panicked tone. It’s O.K., she told him, sounding as calm and reassuring as she could. Her husband, a former high school English teacher in his 60s, left his mother-in-law’s that morning to return to their home several hours away in Pinon Hills, just north of San Bernardino, Calif. It was a route he drove often enough to know well. But after making his way through towns that seemed familiar, he lost his sense of how to get home. With her voice on the speakerphone, she guided him. His voice shook, and she knew he was crying. She wanted to cry, too, but forced herself to be the strength he needed. She still loved her husband, but he’d changed so much. Where was the man she married over 30 years ago? Twenty years earlier, he found out he had multiple sclerosis. It started with numbness in his arms and hands. Sometimes his vision would darken on the periphery, as if he were in a tunnel. And then, after a couple of hours or so, he’d be fine. He was referred to a local neurologist, who did some testing. An M.R.I. of his brain showed patchy white clouds among the normal gray swirls of brain. That finding was suggestive of multiple sclerosis. In M.S., the immune system goes awry and attacks the fatty sleeves that surround the nerves in the brain and spine; that’s what causes the characteristic M.R.I. findings. But it wasn’t a perfect fit. The fluid taken from his spine did not show the proteins that are usually seen in M.S. Moreover, while M.S. is characterized by episodes of unusual neurological symptoms that come and go, they usually last days or weeks rather than hours. Still, there are different forms of the disorder, and they can vary widely in symptom intensity and rate of progression. And there are few diseases that result in the M.R.I. findings and intermittent symptoms that this man had. Subsequent neurologists confirmed the diagnosis of M.S. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 26191 - Posted: 05.01.2019

By Sayuri Hayakawa, Viorica Marian As Emperor Akihito steps down from the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan’s first abdication in 200 years, Naruhito officially becomes the new Emperor on May 1, 2019, ushering in a new era called Reiwa (令和; “harmony”). Japan’s tradition of naming eras reflects the ancient belief in the divine spirit of language. Kotodama (言霊; “word spirit”) is the idea that words have an almost magical power to alter physical reality. Through its pervasive impact on society, including its influence on superstitions and social etiquette, traditional poetry and modern pop songs, the word kotodama has, in a way, provided proof of its own concept. For centuries, many cultures have believed in the spiritual force of language. Over time, these ideas have extended from the realm of magic and mythology to become a topic of scientific investigation—ultimately leading to the discovery that language can indeed affect the physical world, for example, by altering our physiology. Our bodies evolve to adapt to our environments, not only over millions of years but also over the days and years of an individual’s life. For instance, off the coast of Thailand, there are children who can “see like dolphins.” Cultural and environmental factors have shaped how these sea nomads of the Moken tribe conduct their daily lives, allowing them to adjust their pupils underwater in a way that most of us cannot. © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 26190 - Posted: 05.01.2019

By Sheila Kaplan WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it would permit the sale of IQOS, a “heat not burn” tobacco device made by Philip Morris International, in the United States. While the agency stopped short of declaring that the device was safer than traditional cigarettes, the F.D.A. did say the heated tobacco-stick system could help people to quit smoking. Philip Morris has waited two years for the agency to clear IQOS (pronounced EYE-kose), a penlike electronic device that comes with a sleek battery pack resembling a cigarette case. The product includes an electronically controlled heating blade that warms a tobacco stick and releases a vapor with the taste of tobacco but fewer harmful chemicals than cigarette smoke. It differs from e-cigarettes already on the market because it contains tobacco rather than liquid nicotine. But IQOS still delivers an amount of nicotine that’s similar to traditional cigarettes. “The F.D.A.’s decision to authorize IQOS in the U.S. is an important step forward for the approximately 40 million American men and women who smoke,” said André Calantzopoulos, the chief executive of Philip Morris International. “Some will quit. Most won’t, and for them IQOS offers a smoke-free alternative to continued smoking.” Howard A. Willard III, chief executive of Altria, which will distribute the product in this country, said the company planned to begin sales of IQOS in Atlanta. A few years ago, the F.D.A.’s decision would have been a clear win for both Philip Morris and Altria. But IQOS products will now have to compete with the extremely popular devices sold by the vaping giant Juul Labs, in which Altria has a 35 percent stake. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26189 - Posted: 05.01.2019

April Dembosky Amelia and her roommate had been awake for two days straight. They decided to spray-paint the bathroom hot pink. After that, they laid into building and rebuilding the pens for the nine pit bull puppies they were raising in their two-bedroom apartment. Then the itching started. It felt like pin pricks under the skin of her hands. Amelia was convinced she had scabies, skin lice. She spent hours in front of the mirror checking her skin, picking at her face. She even got a health team to come test the apartment. All they found were a few dust mites. "At first, with meth, I remember thinking, 'What's the big deal?' " says Amelia, who asked that we not reveal her last name to protect her family's privacy. "But when you look at how crazy things got, everything was so out of control. Clearly, it is a big deal." While public health officials have focused on the opioid epidemic in recent years, another epidemic has been brewing quietly, but vigorously, behind the scenes. Methamphetamine use is surging in parts of the U.S., particularly the West, leaving first responders and addiction treatment providers struggling to handle a rising need. Across the country, overdose deaths involving methamphetamine doubled from 2010 to 2014. Admissions to treatment facilities for meth are up 17%. Hospitalizations related to meth jumped by about 245% from 2008 to 2015. And throughout the West and Midwest, 70% of local law enforcement agencies say meth is their biggest drug threat. © 2019 npr

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26188 - Posted: 05.01.2019

By Shubham Saharan Thomas Jessell, renowned neurologist and former director of and key contributor to the founding of Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, has died. He was 67. In a statement to MBBI affiliates, Institute co-directors Rui Costa, Eric Kandel, and Richard Axel attributed Jessell’s death to a rapidly-progressing neurodegenerative disorder. Jessell was endowed under the Claire Tow Professorship in Motor Neuron Disorders in the neuroscience and biochemistry and molecular biophysics departments. He was well known for his research on chemical signals and neurological circuits. Originally an assistant professor in the department of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, Jessell moved to Columbia in 1985 to work as an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a philanthropic organization that provides funding for biological and medical research as well as scientific education. Jessell, along with Axel and Kandel from the department of neuroscience, played a significant role in founding the MBBI, a center dedicated to neuroscience research, which is located at the Jerome L. Greene Science Center on the Manhattanville campus. In March 2018, HHMI stripped Jessell of all titles and grants and announced that it would stop funding his lab starting May 31. Columbia began investigating Jessell’s misconduct in December 2017, after which he was removed from all administrative positions, including his co-directorship of the MBBI, for engaging in a years-long relationship that violated the University policy on consensual romantic and sexual relationships between faculty and students. Copyright Spectator Publishing Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 26187 - Posted: 05.01.2019

By Benedict Carey Ever since its premiere, on March 31, 2017, the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” about a teenage girl’s suicide, has alarmed many health experts, who believe it glamorizes the topic for some young people. The show also has impressed critics, along with viewers young and old, who see it as an honest portrayal of adolescent distress. Now, a new study finds that suicide rates spiked in the month after the release of the series among boys aged 10 to 17. That month, April 2017, had the highest overall suicide rate for this age group in the past five years, the study found; the rate subsequently dropped back into line with recent trends, but remained elevated for the year. Suicide rates for girls aged 10 to 17 — the demographic expected to identify most strongly with the show’s protagonist — did not increase significantly. The study, posted Monday by the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, is likely to fuel further debate about the merits of “13 Reasons Why,” the third season of which is in production. “Suicide is a problem worldwide, and it’s so hard to knock these rates down,” said Lisa M. Horowitz, a staff scientist in the National Institute of Mental Health’s Intramural Research Program, and an author of the paper. “The last thing we need is something that increases them.” In a statement, a Netflix spokesperson said: “We’ve just seen this study and are looking into the research, which conflicts with last week’s study from the University of Pennsylvania,” which focused on young adults. “This is a critically important topic and we have worked hard to ensure that we handle this sensitive issue responsibly.” © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 26186 - Posted: 04.30.2019

By Simon Baron-Cohen At the annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) in Montreal, Canada, this week, one topic likely to be widely debated is the concept of neurodiversity. It is dividing the autism community, but it doesn’t have to. The term “neurodiversity” gained popular currency in recent years but was first used by Judy Singer, an Australian social scientist, herself autistic, and first appeared in print in the Atlantic in 1998. Neurodiversity is related to the more familiar concept of biodiversity, and both are respectful ways of thinking about our planet and our communities. The notion of neurodiversity is very compatible with the civil rights plea for minorities to be accorded dignity and acceptance, and not to be pathologized. And whilst the neurodiversity movement acknowledges that parents or autistic people may choose to try different interventions for specific symptoms that may be causing suffering, it challenges the default assumption that autism itself is a disease or disorder that needs to be eradicated, prevented, treated or cured. Many autistic people—especially those who have intact language and no learning difficulties such that they can self-advocate—have adopted the neurodiversity framework, coining the term “neurotypical” to describe the majority brain and seeing autism as an example of diversity in the set of all possible diverse brains, none of which is “normal” and all of which are simply different. © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 26185 - Posted: 04.30.2019

Nicola Davis Olfactory tests could help doctors spot older adults who are at greater risk of developing dementia, researchers say. The sense of smell is known to deteriorate with age. However, researchers have previously found it might also hint at health problems: older adults who struggle to identify odours have a greater chance of dying in the near future regardless of how old they are. Other studies have found older adults who have difficulties in identifying and remembering smells are more likely to have characteristics linked to a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease even if there is no current sign of cognitive decline. Get Society Weekly: our newsletter for public service professionals Read more It is thought the sense of smell is one of the first faculties affected by certain neurodegenerative diseases. Now experts say they have probed further, and those diseases alone do not explain why a poor sense of smell might bode ill. “My suspicion is [the] process of smell in older adults probably has much broader potential health implications than what we already know about,” said Prof Honglei Chen, a co-author of the research from Michigan State University. He suggested it could be linked to conditions of the immune system and even psychiatric disorders. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Alzheimers; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 26184 - Posted: 04.30.2019

By Rahul Desikan What is it like to be locked into your body, to be alive but not living? I’m dying — fast. My lungs are at 20 percent of vital capacity and it’s a matter of time before the nerves supplying my breathing muscles degenerate. I have a rapid form of ALS — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Two years ago, I was running around with my kids, hiking with my wife. All that is over. My body no longer moves. I cannot talk — my only voice is the one in my head, telling me over and over that I am going to die. Soon. I can’t even breathe for myself anymore — I am tethered to a ventilator that breathes for me. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. At all. It is just ironic, this new, condensed life of mine. I went into medicine to take care of patients with brain diseases. Now, I have one of the diseases that I study. Even with this lethal disease, I continue to find neurology fascinating and beautiful. I wish you knew the old me. ALS has completely destroyed my body and parts of my brain. The new version has stripped me of control over regulating my emotions. I laugh and cry inappropriately during movies, and even during conversations. The cognitive parts of my brain are still working perfectly fine so I’m able to get through the day. But because swallowing has become increasingly difficult, eating and drinking are a battle: continuous bouts of choking, vomiting, crying, sweating, drooling — until finally, it goes through. It is not a pretty picture. What is it like to be locked in? When I swallow, I imagine my childhood in India — driving with my parents and sister in our sky-blue Maruti minivan through the wide roads of New Delhi, relishing my grandmother’s sambar, a savory soup of lentils and vegetables. In my mind, I am always in Boston where I lived for 15 years during college and then medical school and for my doctorate in neurobiology. In my mind, which is all I have left, I am playing house music records at Satellite Records in the Back Bay or trying the Persian eggplant dish at Lala Rokh with my wife or going out with my friends to River Gods or the Enormous Room in Central Square. I am so good at imagining the old me that I see, taste, hear, touch everything. And relive every single detail. © 1996-2019 The Washington Post

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 26183 - Posted: 04.29.2019

By Jane E. Brody I was packing up at the end of a family vacation in Florida when my back went into an excruciating spasm unrelieved by a fistful of pain medication. As my twin sons, then 8 years old, wheeled me through the airport, one of them suggested, “Mom, if you think about something else, it won’t hurt so much.” At the time, I failed to appreciate the wisdom of his advice. Now, four decades later, a sophisticated distraction technique is being used to help patients of all ages cope with pain, both acute and chronic. The method, called Virtual Reality Therapy, goes beyond simple distraction, as might result from watching television. Rather, it totally immerses the patient in an entertaining, relaxing, interactive environment that so occupies the brain, it has no room to process pain sensations at the same time. “It’s not just a distraction — it’s like an endogenous narcotic providing a physiological and chemical burst that causes you to feel good,” said Jeffrey I. Gold, director of the pediatric pain management clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “It’s different from reading a book or playing with a toy. It’s a multisensory experience that engages a person’s attention on a much deeper level.” Virtual Reality Therapy is the new kid on the block for pain management, now gradually growing in use as the opioid epidemic continues to soar and the price of the needed equipment has plummeted. VR, as it is called, has been most widely and successfully used so far to help children and adults weather acute pain, as can accompany an IV insertion or debridement of burns. But it can also enhance the effectiveness of established techniques like physical therapy, hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapy to treat debilitating chronic pain. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Attention
Link ID: 26182 - Posted: 04.29.2019

By Susana Martinez-Conde Human night vision is not as precise as day vision. That’s why getting up barefoot in the middle of the night comes with a much higher risk of stepping on painful Lego pieces than walking along the same path during the day. I have three kids of ages twelve and under, so I know. But the specific ways in which our night vision is worse than our day vision are surprisingly counterintuitive to most of us. I remember learning in college that night-vision is achromatic (meaning that we only see in grayscale at night) and not really believing it. It took some careful night-time observation to conclude that my professor was right: objects that were colorful during the day had no hue at night. Most shocking of all was the realization that, though I had always suffered from night-time color blindness (as all of us do), I had never been aware of my deficiency. A recent study by Alejandro Gloriani and Alexander Schütz, from the University of Marburg, Germany, published earlier this month in Current Biology, shows that our night vision self-delusion is even more pervasive than previously thought. Advertisement To appreciate Gloriani and Schütz’s discovery, the first thing to understand is that day and night vision rely on the activity of different types of photoreceptors (these are the retinal cells that convert light energy into electrical signals, which your brain can then process). ‘Cones’ are active during the day (or when you turn the lights on at night). ‘Rods’ are active during the night (or at very dim light levels). © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 26181 - Posted: 04.29.2019

Lisa Wehrstedt Researchers in Philadelphia revealed last week that tastebuds also bear odour-detecting proteins, calling into question the idea that smell and taste come together in the brain to produce flavour. According to Dr Mehmet Hakan Ozdener, his findings open up the possibility of using smells to trick us into healthier eating, for example by adding a low-concentration odour to food to make it taste sweeter and thereby reduce sugar intake. It is believed that we all experience a form of motion-induced blindness while driving at night, when the red lights of the cars in front temporarily disappear if we move our eyes to the oncoming traffic. This phenomenon, where the brain ignores or discards visual information when it is placed in front of a moving background, was first observed in the lab in 1965. First described in 1976, the McGurk effect is a connection between hearing and vision in speech perception. When the auditory component of a syllable is paired with the visual component of another, this can lead to the perception of a third sound. Research conducted by the University of Oxford in 2013 suggests that the sight of cutlery and the perception of its size, weight, shape and colour have an effect on how we determine flavour, suggesting that the brain makes judgments on food even before it goes in our mouths. Yoghurt, for example, tastes sweeter on a white spoon than it does on a black spoon. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Vision
Link ID: 26180 - Posted: 04.29.2019

By Amy Barnhorst SACRAMENTO — If suicide is preventable, why are so many people dying from it? Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, and suicide rates just keep rising. A few years ago, I treated a patient, a flight attendant, whose brother had brought her in to the psychiatric crisis unit after noticing her unusual behavior at a wedding. After the ceremony, she quietly handed out gifts and heartfelt letters to her family members. When her brother took her home, he noticed many of her furnishings and paintings were missing. In her bathroom he found three unopened bottles of prescription sleep medication. He confronted her, and she admitted that she had donated her possessions to charity. She had also cashed out her retirement account and used the money to pay off her mortgage, her car loan and all of her bills. When I interviewed her, she said that for the last four months, doing anything — eating, cleaning her house, talking to her neighbors — had taken colossal effort, and brought her no joy. She felt exhausted by having to live through each day, and the thought of sustaining this for years to come was an intolerable torment. After evaluating her, I told her that I thought she was experiencing an episode of bipolar depression, and needed to be committed to the hospital while we started treatment. She shrugged and gave me her most troubling response yet: “I don’t care.” One of the reasons I remember this woman so well is that, of all the patients I have evaluated for suicide risk, she was an anomaly. She had a sustained and thought-out commitment to ending her life. Fortunately, that allowed her to be discovered, and her family was able to quickly get her into emergency care. She responded well to lithium, one of only two psychiatric medications shown to reduce suicide (the other is an antipsychotic, clozapine). Her depression lifted slowly and she began to remember the things that made her life worth living. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 26179 - Posted: 04.29.2019

By Sheila Kaplan COLUMBIA, S.C. — For months, Juul Labs has had a clear, unwavering message for officials in Washington: The e-cigarette giant is committed to doing all it can to keep its hugely popular vaping products away from teenagers. But here in Columbia, the South Carolina capital, and in statehouses and city halls across the country, a vast, new army of Juul lobbyists is aggressively pushing measures that undermine that pledge. The company’s 80-plus lobbyists in 50 states are fighting proposals to ban flavored e-cigarette pods, which are big draws for teenagers; pushing legislation that includes provisions denying local governments the right to adopt strict vaping controls; and working to make sure that bills to discourage youth vaping do not have stringent enforcement measures. Though Juul supports numerous state bills that would raise the legal age for buying vaping and tobacco products to 21, some of those bills contain minimal sanctions for retailers. Others fine only the clerks and not the owners for violations. “Juul is attempting to rehabilitate its public image by posing as a public health advocate while working behind the scenes to weaken or defeat tobacco control proposals and prevent communities from even considering policies to curb tobacco use,” said Nancy Brown, chief executive of the American Heart Association, whose network of lobbyists has parried with e-cigarette and tobacco industries in many states this year. In a statement, Juul said, “We are as committed as ever to combating youth usage but don’t take our word for it — look at our actions.” The company cited its action plan, unveiled in November, which included shutting down its social media accounts, discontinuing sales of many flavored pods in retail stores and strengthening its online age verification systems. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26178 - Posted: 04.29.2019

By Palko Karasz and Christopher F. Schuetze LONDON — When Munira Abdulla had last been fully awake, the first George Bush was America’s president and the Soviet Union was nearing its demise. It was the year the Persian Gulf war ended. In 1991, at the age of 32, Ms. Abdulla, from the oasis city of Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates, suffered injuries in a road accident that left her in a state of reduced consciousness for most of the next three decades. After 27 years, she awoke last June at a clinic near Munich, where doctors had been treating her for the complications of her long illness. “I never gave up on her, because I always had a feeling that one day she will wake up,” said Omar Webair, her 32-year-old son, who was just 4 when the accident happened. He shared his mother’s story with the Emirati news website The National on Monday. Dr. Friedemann Müller, the chief physician at the Schön Clinic, a private hospital with campuses around Germany, said that Ms. Abdulla had been in a state of minimal consciousness. He said only a handful of cases like hers, in which a patient recovered after such a long period, had been recorded. Patients in a state of reduced consciousness are usually classified into three categories. In a full coma, the patient shows no signs of being awake, with eyes closed and unresponsive to the environment. A persistent vegetative state includes those who seem awake but show no signs of awareness, while a minimally conscious state can include periods in which some response — such as moving a finger when asked — can be noted. Colloquially, all three categories are often described as comas. Signs that Ms. Abdulla was recovering started to emerge last year when she began saying her son’s name. A couple of weeks later, she started repeating verses from the Quran that she had learned decades ago. “We didn’t believe it at first,” Dr. Müller said. “But eventually it became very clear that she was saying her son’s name.” © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Consciousness
Link ID: 26177 - Posted: 04.27.2019

Sam Wolfson People who are stoned often think they’re being funnier than they actually are, now we know they overestimate their driving ability too. Almost half of cannabis users believe it’s safe to drive when you’re high, according to a new study by PSB Research and Buzzfeed News. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those who abstain from weed, take a different view – only 14% believe someone who’s stoned can drive safely. The dangers of driving while intoxicated have been so well established that it’s easy to assume it’s the abstainers who are right and pot-smokers are simply failing to recognize the danger they pose to themselves. But a number of studies into the issue have produced a murkier picture. It’s true that THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, can impair a person’s levels of attention and their perception of time and speed, important skills you might think for driving a car. One meta-analysis of 60 studies found that marijuana use causes impairment on every measure of safe driving, including motor-coordination, visual function and completion of complex tasks. But a 2010 analysis published in the American Journal of Addiction found that while “cannabis and alcohol acutely impair several driving-related skills … marijuana smokers tend to compensate effectively while driving by utilizing a variety of behavioral strategies”. The authors concluded that while marijuana should, in theory, make you a worse driver, in tests it doesn’t seem to. “Cognitive studies suggest that cannabis use may lead to unsafe driving, experimental studies have suggested that it can have the opposite effect,” they wrote. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Attention
Link ID: 26176 - Posted: 04.27.2019

By Joe Lindsey In the final episode of Season 7 of Game of Thrones, the Night King uses a terrifying weapon—the recently deceased dragon Viserion, now reanimated—to destroy the massive, magic-infused Wall that has for millennia stopped the White Walkers from invading Westeros. As the Army of the Dead lumbers through the gap, it’s pretty clear: Winter is here. We’ve only seen the Army of the Dead in action a few times now: Hardhome, in Season 5, and Season 7’s epic Wight Hunt, but it seems like Episode 3 of Game of Thrones’ final season is setting us up for an absolutely titanic clash at the Stark’s ancestral home of Winterfell. But wights—or zombies to use a more common parlance—aren’t just a well-worn trope for fantasy writers. The possibility of reanimating dead tissue—including braaaaains—has challenged neurobiologists around the world. So what are the wights, how do they work, and why does an entire army psychically linked together seem to be controlled by just one mind—the Night King? First off, are wights zombies at all? There are actually two types of zombies, the shambling dead—as representing George A. Romero’s classics—and the zombies of Haitian legend. “There’s the socio-cultural definition of zombie from tales in Haitian voodoo, where someone was put into a state similar to death and then ‘brought back to life,’” says Bradley Voytek, avid Game of Thrones fan, neuroscientist at the University of California-San Diego, and co-author of Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep, which uses zombies as the basis for an introduction to serious neuroscience. ©2019 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 26175 - Posted: 04.27.2019

By Benedict Carey “In my head, I churn over every sentence ten times, delete a word, add an adjective, and learn my text by heart, paragraph by paragraph,” wrote Jean-Dominique Bauby in his memoir, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” In the book, Mr. Bauby, a journalist and editor, recalled his life before and after a paralyzing stroke that left him virtually unable to move a muscle; he tapped out the book letter by letter, by blinking an eyelid. Thousands of people are reduced to similarly painstaking means of communication as a result of injuries suffered in accidents or combat, of strokes, or of neurodegenerative disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., that disable the ability to speak. Now, scientists are reporting that they have developed a virtual prosthetic voice, a system that decodes the brain’s vocal intentions and translates them into mostly understandable speech, with no need to move a muscle, even those in the mouth. (The physicist and author Stephen Hawking used a muscle in his cheek to type keyboard characters, which a computer synthesized into speech.) “It’s formidable work, and it moves us up another level toward restoring speech” by decoding brain signals, said Dr. Anthony Ritaccio, a neurologist and neuroscientist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., who was not a member of the research group. Researchers have developed other virtual speech aids. Those work by decoding the brain signals responsible for recognizing letters and words, the verbal representations of speech. But those approaches lack the speed and fluidity of natural speaking. The new system, described on Wednesday in the journal Nature, deciphers the brain’s motor commands guiding vocal movement during speech — the tap of the tongue, the narrowing of the lips — and generates intelligible sentences that approximate a speaker’s natural cadence. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language; Robotics
Link ID: 26174 - Posted: 04.25.2019

Jayne O'Donnell and Ken Alltucker, Doctors are misusing 2016 opioid pain medication guidelines, federal officials said Wednesday, a clear response to increasing complaints from chronic pain patients who say they are the victims of an overreaction to the opioid crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in new guidance for opioid prescribing, said many physicians were guilty of a "misapplication" of 2016 guidelines that clamped down on the use of opioids. The new guidelines, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was the latest federal acknowledgement that many physicians' responses to the opioid crisis went too far. Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb, a physician, spoke out last July about the impact the opioid crisis response had on pain patients when he called for development of more options. Until then, people in the middle of cancer treatments, having "acute sickle cell crises" or with pain after surgery shouldn't be affected by the earlier recommendations, CDC said. These patients were outside the scope of the guidelines, which were intended for primary care doctors treating chronic pain patients, CDC said. Doctors that set hard limits or cut off opioids are also misapplying the government's guidance, CDC said. Doctors should prescribe the lowest effective dosage and avoid increasing it to 90 "morphine milligram equivalents" a day or "carefully justify" any decision to raise the dose to that level.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26173 - Posted: 04.25.2019