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Caroline Myss – Anatomy of Your Soul Castle Combe 2014 – Sample chapter #1 of 9 – Video

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Caroline Myss - Anatomy of Your Soul Castle Combe 2014 - Sample chapter #1 of 9
There are certain questions that I am asked, regardless of the subject that I am teaching. People everywhere always want to know about: How to discern their inner guidance What is...

By: David Smith

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Caroline Myss - Anatomy of Your Soul Castle Combe 2014 - Sample chapter #1 of 9 - Video

More Media Coverage for MediVet Stem Cell Therapy at Newman Veterinary Centers – Central Florida – Video

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More Media Coverage for MediVet Stem Cell Therapy at Newman Veterinary Centers - Central Florida
We are proud to offer this amazing procedure at Newman Veterinary Centers. Stem cell therapy can help pets with arthritis, hip dysplasia and many other degen...

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Autologous stem cell therapy improves motor function in chronic stroke victims

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Apr-2014

Contact: Robert Miranda cogcomm@aol.com Cell Transplantation Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair

Putnam Valley, NY. (Apr. 23, 2014) People who have had a stroke, often suffer motor deficits with little potential to restore neurological function. However, a study conducted in Taiwan, that will be published in a future issue of Cell Transplantation, but is currently freely available on-line as an unedited early e-pub at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/pre-prints/content-ct1168Chen, has found that when one group of stroke victims had their own peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) injected directly into the brain and a similar group did not, those who received the PBSCs experienced some "improvement in stroke scales and functional outcome." Those in the PBSC-injected group also received injections of the growth factor granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), known to be potentially neuroprotective.

"In this phase 2 study, we provide the first evidence that intracerebral injection of autologous (self-donated) PBSCs can improve motor function in those who have suffered a stroke and have motor deficits as a result," said study corresponding Dr. Woei-Cheng Shyu of the Center for Neuropsychiatry, Graduate Institute of Immunology and Translational Medicine Research Center, China Medical University in Taiwan. "Our study demonstrated that this therapeutic strategy was feasible and safe in stroke patients who suffered a prior stroke, but within five years from the onset of symptoms."

According to the authors, there has been little advance made in restoring neurological function following ischemic stroke. However, since neuronal death is the primary mechanism that limits functional recovery, stem cell therapy is emerging as a potentially effective regenerative approach. Once more PBSCs are being increasingly used as a self-donated source for cell therapies for regenerating skeletal muscle, heart and neurons. The PBSCs may need to be "amplified" with G-CSF, speculated the researchers.

All of the patients in the trial had suffered a stroke in the past, as long as five years prior to this study. At the end of a 12 month follow-up, the group of 15 patients with neurological deficits who received injections of PBSCs experienced neurological and functional improvement based on a number of clinical outcomes measures. The control group of 15 patients with neurological deficits that did not receive the PBSC injections did not experience the same beneficial outcomes.

The researchers reported that nine of the 15 patients undergoing PBSC transplantation experienced "positive motor evoked potentials" (MEPs) after transcranial magnetic stimulation, but why MEPs appeared in some of the transplanted group, but not all, was unclear.

"Despite this success, it should be noted that this was a preliminary study and, due to the small number of patients, are tentative," concluded the researchers. "In the future we plan to conduct a multi-center, large-scale, double blind, placebo-controlled randomized studies to better evaluate the effect of PBSC implantation in patients suffering from the effects of past stroke."

"This phase II study offers pilot clinical evidence supporting the use of autologous stem cell-based treatment for stroke" said Dr. Cesar V. Borlongan, Prof. of Neurosurgery and Director of the Center of Excellence for Aging & Brain Repair at the University of South Florida. "Clarification of the impact of G-CSF on the cells and whether other factors are necessary to maximize the benefit of cell transplantation, as well as further studies with a larger number of patients are necessary to determine equivocal safety and efficacy of this treatment".

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Autologous stem cell therapy improves motor function in chronic stroke victims

Study finds long-term survival of human neural stem cells transplanted into primate brain

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Apr-2014

Contact: Robert Miranda cogcomm@aol.com Cell Transplantation Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair

Putnam Valley, NY. (Apr. 23 2014) A team of researchers in Korea who transplanted human neural stem cells (hNSCs) into the brains of nonhuman primates and assessed cell survival and differentiation after 22 and 24 months found that the hNSCs had differentiated into neurons at 24 months and did not cause tumors.

The study will be published in a future issue of Cell Transplantation but is currently freely available on-line as an unedited early e-pub at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/pre-prints/content-ct1117Antonucci2.

The hNSCs were labeled with magnetic nanoparticles to enable them to be followed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). They did not use immunosuppressants. According to the researchers, their study is the first to evaluate and show the long-term survival and differentiation of hNSCs without the need for immunosuppression.

The researchers concluded that hNSCs could be of "great value" as a source for cell replacement and gene transfer for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), spinal cord injury and stroke.

"Stroke is the fourth major cause of death in the US behind heart failure, cancer, and lower respiratory disease," said study co-author Dr. Seung U. Kim of University of British Columbia Hospital's department of neurology in Canada. "While tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) treatment within three hours after a stroke has shown good outcomes, stem cell therapy has the potential to address the treatment needs of those stroke patients for whom tPA treatment was unavailable or did not help."

Dr. Kim and colleagues in Korea grafted magnetic particle-labeled hNSCs into the brains of laboratory primates and evaluated their performance to assess their survival and differentiation over 24 months. Of particular interest was determining their ability to differentiate into neurons and to determine whether the cells caused tumorogenesis.

"We injected hNSCs into the frontal lobe and the putamen of the monkey brain because they are included in the middle cerebral artery (MCA) territory, which is the main target in the development of the ischemic lesion in animal stroke models," commented Dr. Kim. "Thus, research on survival and differentiation of hNSCs in the MCA territory should provide more meaningful information to cell transplantation in the MCA occlusion stroke model."

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Study finds long-term survival of human neural stem cells transplanted into primate brain

Scientists identify cancer specific cell for potential treatment of gastric cancer

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Apr-2014

Contact: Kimberley Wang kimberley.wang@nus.edu.sg National University of Singapore

A team of scientists led by a researcher from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore has identified the cancer specific stem cell which causes gastric cancer. This discovery opens up the possibility of developing new drugs for the treatment of this disease and other types of cancers.

The research group, led by Dr Chan Shing Leng, Research Assistant Professor at CSI Singapore, demonstrated for the first time that a cancer-specific variant of a cell surface protein, CD44v8-10, marks gastric cancer stem cells but not normal cells. Conceptualised by Dr Chan and Associate Professor Jimmy So, a Senior Consultant from the Department of Surgery at the National University Hospital Singapore, the study is also the first to be conducted with human gastric tissue specimens and took five years to complete. This novel study will be published in the research journal Cancer Research, the official journal of American Association of Cancer Research, in May 2014.

Gastric cancer is a major cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, with low survival and high recurrence rates for patients with advanced disease. New therapies for the treatment of gastric cancer are urgently needed.

How CD44v8-10 serves as a biomarker

Many cancer cell types express high levels of a cell surface protein known as CD44. This protein marks cancer stem cells that are thought to be responsible for resistance to current cancer therapy and tumour relapse. There are many forms of CD44 and the standard form of CD44, CD44s, is found in high abundance on normal blood cells. It was previously not known which form of CD44 is found on cancer stem cells. This is critical as an ideal cancer target should mark only cancer cells but not normal cells.

Research by the team and other scientists in the field has led to the hypothesis that the growth of gastric cancer may be driven by cancer stem cells. In this study, the researchers analysed 53 patient tissue samples in conjunction with patient-derived xenograft models which are derived from intestinal type gastric cancer. The team is one of the few groups in the world to have a relatively large collection of patient-derived xenograft models for gastric cancer and the first to use these models for identification of gastric cancer stem cells. A total of eight cancer cell lines were used in this study, including six new cell lines which were established by the researchers.

The scientists discovered a cancer-specific CD44 variant, CD44v8-10 marks gastric cancer stem cells but not normal cells. CD44v8-10 promotes cancer cell growth and it is significantly more abundant in gastric tumour sites compared to normal gastric tissue, which makes it easily detectable. The findings results suggest that CD44v8-10 is an ideal target for developing clinical therapeutics against gastric cancer stem cells. As CD44v8-10 is cancer specific, it may also be used as a biomarker for screening and diagnosis of gastric cancer. This is significant as biomarkers for early detection of gastric cancer are currently not available and doctors rely on endoscopy for the screening and diagnosis of this disease.

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Scientists identify cancer specific cell for potential treatment of gastric cancer

Screening instrument to identify testosterone deficiency

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Apr-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, April 23, 2014Men whose testosterone falls below normal levels are more likely to have erectile dysfunction and to be overweight and have heart disease and type 2 diabetes. A new simple screening questionnaire designed to identify testosterone-deficient men for further testing and possible treatment is described in an article in Journal of Men's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Men's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jmh.

The article "Male Androgen Deficiency Syndrome (MADS) Screening Questionnaire: A Simplified Instrument to Identify Testosterone-Deficient Men" presents a variety of patient factors that are predictive of risk for testosterone deficiency and MADS. These include overweight status, race, exercise frequency, erectile dysfunction, and type 2 diabetes, according to study authors Nelson Stone, MD, The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York), Martin Miner, MD, Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University (Providence, RI), Wendy Poage, MHA, Prostate Conditions Education Council (Centennial, CO), and Aditi Patel and E. David Crawford, MD, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (Aurora, CO).

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About the Journal

Journal of Men's Health is the premier peer-reviewed journal published quarterly in print and online that covers all aspects of men's health across the lifespan. The Journal publishes cutting-edge advances in a wide range of diseases and conditions, including diagnostic procedures, therapeutic management strategies, and innovative clinical research in gender-based biology to ensure optimal patient care. The Journal addresses disparities in health and life expectancy between men and women; increased risk factors such as smoking, alcohol abuse, and obesity; higher prevalence of diseases such as heart disease and cancer; and health care in underserved and minority populations. Journal of Men's Health meets the critical imperative for improving the health of men around the globe and ensuring better patient outcomes. Tables of content and a sample issue can be viewed on the Journal of Men's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jmh.

About the Societies

Journal of Men's Health is the official journal of the International Society of Men's Health (ISMH), American Society for Men's Health, Men's Health Society of India, and Foundation for Men's Health. The ISMH is an international, multidisciplinary, worldwide organization, dedicated to the rapidly growing field of gender-specific men's health.

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Screening instrument to identify testosterone deficiency

Genetic Tricks Could Make Bionic Ears Hear Better

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A CT scan showing a cochlear implant in the left ear of a guinea pig. Image: UNSW Australia Biological Resources Imaging Laboratory, NationalImaging Facility of Australia, and UNSW TranslationalNeuroscience Facility

Scientists have devised a strategy they hope will one day make bionic ears even sharper. The idea is to make neurons inside the ear sprout new branches and become more sensitive to signals from a cochlear implant.

The cochlear implant is arguably the most successful bionic device ever invented. More than 200,000 people with severe hearing loss have received one, allowing them to understand speech and hear things like barking dogs and fire alarms. But theres plenty of room for improvement.

Pitch perception is not so good, and that impacts music appreciation and hearing in a complex environment like a noisy room, said Gary Housley, a physiologist and neuroscientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia, and the senior author of a new study out today in Science Translational Medicine.

To appreciate what Housleys team did, you have to picture whats going on inside the inner ear. The bony, spiral cochlea is where sound waves get translated into the electrical language of neurons. Its essentially a coiled tube. The implant is thin like a wire, and it has an array of electrodes along its length. Surgeons thread it into the tube of the cochlea.A microphone worn on the ear converts sound into electrical signals and transmits them to the implant, thereby stimulating the auditory nerve directly and bypassing whatever part of the persons own hearing apparatus has broken down.

A cross section of the spiral tube of the cochlea shows the auditory nerve reaching up through the center. Image: Grays Anatomy, via WikiCommons

But a lot of information gets lost in the communication between the implant and the nerve.

Housley thinks one important reason is that in people with severe hearing loss, auditory nerve fibers degenerate and shrink into the bony core of the cochlea, farther away from the implant.

To try to overcome this communication breakdown, Housleys team borrowed some tricks from genetic engineering. We refer to it as closing the neural gap, he said.

Work by other scientists had suggested that growth factorschemicals that encourage neurons to grow new branchescouldimprove the performance of implants in lab animals. These studies used viruses to deliver genes encoding the growth factors, but Housleys team tried another strategy they think could be more precise.

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Genetic Tricks Could Make Bionic Ears Hear Better

Genome Editing

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Above: The genomes of these twin infant macaques were modified with multiple mutations.

The ability to create primates with intentional mutations could provide powerful new ways to study complex and genetically baffling brain disorders.

The use of a genome-tool to create two monkeys with specific genetic mutations.

The ability to modify targeted genes in primates is a valuable tool in the study of human diseases.

By Christina Larson

Until recently, Kunming, capital of Chinas southwestern Yunnan province, was known mostly for its palm trees, its blue skies, its laid-back vibe, and a steady stream of foreign backpackers bound for nearby mountains and scenic gorges. But Kunmings reputation as a provincial backwater is rapidly changing. On a plot of land on the outskirts of the citywilderness 10 years ago, and today home to a genomic research facilityscientists have performed a provocative experiment. They have created a pair of macaque monkeys with precise genetic mutations.

Last November, the female monkey twins, Mingming and Lingling, were born here on the sprawling research campus of Kunming Biomedical International and its affiliated Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research. The macaques had been conceived via in vitro fertilization. Then scientists used a new method of DNA engineering known as CRISPR to modify the fertilized eggs by editing three different genes, and they were implanted into a surrogate macaque mother. The twins healthy birth marked the first time that CRISPR has been used to make targeted genetic modifications in primatespotentially heralding a new era of biomedicine in which complex diseases can be modeled and studied in monkeys.

CRISPR, which was developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, and elsewhere over the last several years, is already transforming how scientists think about genetic engineering, because it allows them to make changes to the genome precisely and relatively easily (see Genome Surgery, March/April). The goal of the experiment at Kunming is to confirm that the technology can create primates with multiple mutations, explains Weizhi Ji, one of the architects of the experiment.

Ji began his career at the government-affiliated Kunming Institute of Zoology in 1982, focusing on primate reproduction. China was a very poor country back then, he recalls. We did not have enough funding for research. We just did very simple work, such as studying how to improve primate nutrition. Chinas science ambitions have since changed dramatically. The campus in Kunming boasts extensive housing for monkeys: 75 covered homes, sheltering more than 4,000 primatesmany of them energetically swinging on hanging ladders and scampering up and down wire mesh walls. Sixty trained animal keepers in blue scrubs tend to them full time.

The lab where the experiment was performed includes microinjection systems, which are microscopes pointed at a petri dish and two precision needles, controlled by levers and dials. These are used both for injecting sperm into eggs and for the gene editing, which uses guide RNAs that direct a DNA-cutting enzyme to genes. When I visited, a young lab technician was intently focused on twisting dials to line up sperm with an egg. Injecting each sperm takes only a few seconds. About nine hours later, when an embryo is still in the one-cell stage, a technician will use the same machine to inject it with the CRISPR molecular components; again, the procedure takes just a few seconds.

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The Pull of Social Media: Are We Becoming Ever More Individualistic or More Herd-Like in Our Decision Making?

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New York, NY (PRWEB UK) 23 April 2014

As our digital universe continues to expand at an exponential rate doubling in size every two years what effect is our online behavior having on our decision-making skills? The authors of an article in the latest issue of Behavioral and Brain Sciences argue that we need to be careful not to assume decisions made in the collective realm are typical of all decisions.

The co-authors from the University of Missouri and the University of Bristol make the case that social scientists themselves are in danger of classifying all decisions as socially influenced rather than individually determined, as researchers increasingly to big data sets from sources like Facebook and Twitter to measure trends in human behavior.

Bentley, OBrien and Brock note that the behavioral sciences have flourished in the past by studying how traditional and/or rational behavior has been governed throughout most of human history by relatively well-informed individual and social learning. In the online age, however, social phenomena can occur with unprecedented scale and unpredictability, and individuals have access to unprecedented social connections.

The digital shadow of every Internet user the online information created about that person is already much larger than the amount of information each individual deliberately creates online. These digital shadows are the subjects of big data research, which optimists see as an outstandingly large sample of real behavior that is revolutionizing social science. With all its potential in both the academic and commercial world, the effect of big data on the behavioral sciences is already apparent in the ubiquity of online surveys and psychology experiments, the authors argue. And that can be problematic.

Studies of human dynamics based on these data sets are novel and exciting but, if not placed in context, can foster the misconception that mass-scale online behavior is all we need to understand how humans make decisions, they write.

The authors have created a new multi-scale comparative map that provides a framework for evaluating how modern collective behavior may be changing in the digital age. The map makes it possible to measure whether behavior is becoming more individualistic, as people seek out exactly what they want, or more social, as people become more inextricably linked, even herd-like, in their decision making.

The authors posit that there is no substitute for human experience, so incorporating big data into behavioral science means more than just following the most popular trends; the latter has the potential to undermine the collective wisdom that formed the foundations of the Internet in the first place.

Humans sample the actions of their peers just by living among them for a lifetime, they conclude. As long as people trust their own individual experiences, even in observing the behavior of others, a collective wisdom is possible.

Read the full article here: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=9181555&jid=BBS&volumeId=37&issueId=01&aid=9181554&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0140525X13000289.

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The Pull of Social Media: Are We Becoming Ever More Individualistic or More Herd-Like in Our Decision Making?

Genetics risk, prenatal smoking may predict behavioral problems

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Apr-2014

Contact: Beth Kuhles kuhles@shsu.edu 936-294-4425 Sam Houston State University

HUNTSVILLE, TX (4/23/14) -- Researchers have found evidence of an interaction between prenatal smoking and genetic risk factors that increase aggressive behavior in children, especially in girls.

"The interesting issue is that not all children exposed to prenatal smoking will have behavioral problems. Some might, but others will not," said Brian Boutwell, Assistant Professor at Sam Houston State University, College of Criminal Justice and senior author on the study. "One possible explanation for this is that the effect of prenatal smoke exposure depends on the presence of 'triggering influence;' in this case, we investigated whether genetic risk factors might act as just such a trigger."

The study, "Prenatal Smoking and Genetic Risk: Examining the Childhood Origins of Externalizing Behavioral Problems," was led by Melissa Petkovsek, a doctoral student at Sam Houston State, and was based on a nationally representative sample of 1,600 twins, including identical and fraternal pairs, collected during early childhood. The study found that children exposed to prenatal smoking, and who also had an increased genetic propensity for antisocial behavior, exhibited the most pronounced conduct problems during childhood. Interestingly, this gene-environment interaction was most pronounced in females.

The study demonstrates that prenatal environmental experiences may influence future behavioral problems in children, especially in combination with the presence of genetic risk factors. Ultimately, the study presented four key findings:

The current research underscores the link between genetic factors and antisocial behaviors. Boutwell said that while most research focuses on environmental factors, such as the family and neighborhoods, it is important to explore alternative environments, such as prenatal experiences, to gain a better understanding of the origins of problem behaviors.

"Social scientists have spent decades looking at what happens with parents and the family to try and determine why some children develop behavioral problems and others don't," said Boutwell. "While we are not saying that family environments are completely unimportant, environmental experiences encompass far more than just parenting. It is possible, in fact, than other environmental experiences may matter just as much, and perhaps more in some cases, for development than simply what happens inside the home between parents and children."

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Genetics risk, prenatal smoking may predict behavioral problems

"The Utility of Viability Testing Prior to Surgical Revascularization" A Debate on the Pros and Cons – Video

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"The Utility of Viability Testing Prior to Surgical Revascularization" A Debate on the Pros and Cons
Robert Bonow, MD Goldberg Distinguished Professor of Cardiology Director, Center for Cardiovascular Innovation Northwestern University Feinberg School of Med...

By: Duke Clinical Research Institute

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"The Utility of Viability Testing Prior to Surgical Revascularization" A Debate on the Pros and Cons - Video