NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Electrical Current Releases Happiness

Totally trippy: A group of neuroscience researchers succeeded in releasing natural opiate-like substances from the brain using a constant low electrical current. This gives self-medicating a new meaning.

A group from the University of Michigan, Harvard, and CUNY led by senior researcher Alexandre DaSilva and Dr. Jon-Kar Zubieta, experimented with an application called "transcranial direct current stimulation" or tDCS. They studied a patient with severe chronic facial pain, first administering a radiotracer and then applied electrodes that stimulated a specific area of the skull with a very small current for 20 minutes.

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That current released the brain's natural painkillers known as endogenous opioids. One session improved the patient's pain threshold by 36 percent, according to an article (full article link) the researchers published recently in the journal Frontiers in Neuropsychiatric Imaging and Stimulation. A PET scan during the session showed what was happening.

While that first session didn't alleviate the clinical pain, the researchers think that repeated sessions would have a lasting effect. According to Michigan University's news service, another study on more patients was just completed and initial results showed that more tDCS did help.

Brain stimulation might have crazy uses beyond treating pain. The BBC's Tom Feilden reported last year that tDCS has the potential to enhance overall cognitive performance, depending on where the current is applied. Try that one on for size.

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For now, though, I think it's good that scientists are focusing on tDCS for people who have mind-melting pain. Imagine being able to book tDCS sessions instead of taking strong medications, which have all kinds of side effects and can be addicting. Maybe our brains already contain the cure.

Photo: An example of a positron emission tomography (PET) brain scan. Credit: TRIUMF Lab

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Mussels Inspire Sensitive Tooth Treatment

If you have sensitive teeth, it's usually because the enamel and dentin on the surface is worn away, exposing the tissues -- and nerves.

Going sugar-free can help a bit, and there are toothpastes and mouth rinses that help alleviate the sensitivity. But enamel isn’t made up of living cells, so once it’s gone from a tooth, it’s gone for good.

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Quan-Li Li, Chun Hung Chu and a team at the Anhui Medical University and University of Hong Kong may have hit on a way to rebuild enamel and dentin even after enamel wears away completely. They used a substance similar to the one mussels use to stick onto rocks -- dopamine.

Teeth are layered. The outer part is the enamel and underneath is the dentin, which is the white part. To restore enamel that has worn off, it’s necessary to get minerals to stick to the dentin. That’s where the dopamine comes in.

Most people think of dopamine as a chemical in the brain, but it also works as a strong glue for mussels.

The researchers dipped bits of human teeth in an acid solution to wear away the enamel. Then they put them in a solution of dopamine. After they dried them off, they immersed the tooth bits in a solution of calcium carbonate, phosphate and fluoride. The result was restoration of the enamel surface after a week of immersion in the calcium carbonate mixture.

The dopamine, as it happened, allowed the minerals to bond to the dentin better and restored some of the hardness of the teeth, though not all of it.

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There is still some work to do on checking whether there is any toxicity -- the researchers say it shouldn't be too much of a problem, though, since the amounts are small. Thus far the tests have been on pieces of tooth in the lab rather than in a mouth. But if it works it could end up being a relatively simple treatment for all those folks for whom drinking hot tea or eating sugar is painful.

The team’s results were published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Via American Chemical Society.

Credit: Albert Bridge / Wikimedia Commons

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Kids Get Ultrasounds at Children's Hospitals

If you want to reduce the odds of a child getting an X ray and being exposed needlessly to radiation, take them to a children's hospital. That's the upshot of a recent study that looked at children who had been evaluated for appendectomies at a children's hospital as compared with a general hospital.

When kids get diagnosed with appendicitis, often it's via X rays -- specifically, CT scans. But CT scans expose children to more radiation than many doctors would like.

There is one solution: ultrasounds. The problem is most children won't get those unless they go to a children's hospital, and ultrasounds also require a lot of specialized expertise to interpret. That's something not a lot of general hospitals will have.

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A recent study by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, published in the journal Pediatrics, bears this out. If a patient went to St. Louis children's hospital they were more likely to be checked with an ultrasound than with a CT scan.

The study covered 423 children who had appendectomies at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Of the 423, 205 were initially evaluated at general hospitals and 215 at Children's. Some 85 percent of patients who went to a general hospital to be evaluated got CT scans before surgery, and 45 percent of children initially seen at St. Louis Children's Hospital had CT scans. Meanwhile, over half of children initially seen at St. Louis Children's Hospital got ultrasounds, while at general hospitals the rate was 20 percent. Seven percent were not scanned at all and 15 percent got both ultrasound and CT.

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The authors of the study noted that even though reading an ultrasound is a bit harder, it's probably worth finding a way to do them for more patients, especially children. That said, it isn't clear whether what applies at a children's hospital, with a lot of experts in diagnosing kids, is transferable to general hospitals. The other factor is what happened to those patients whose scans, either ultrasound or CT, ruled out the need for an appendectomy -- an important question to answer is whether they showed symptoms afterwards, needed an appendectomy later, or were healthy.

In the meantime, the takeaway seems to be that if you want to reduce the odds of a child getting exposed to radiation via an X ray, take them to a children's hospital.

Credit: Pascal Deloche/Godong/Corbis

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Sensor Corset Monitors Movement, Improves Rehab

Today's younger generation is getting quite accustomed to the idea of electronic apparel. There are jeans with built-in keyboards, t-shirts that can recharge phones, vibrating suits that help improve athletic performance and glasses that augment reality. But older folks need not feel left out. Wearable computers are being developed to monitor health and improve rehabilitation.  

Take this device, developed by a group of Italian researchers led by Michelangelo Bartolo. It's a kind of lightweight corset equipped with battery-powered sensors that monitor the way the wearer moves and send  the data via Bluetooth to a computer.

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This kind of intelligent biomedical clothing, the researchers say in their paper, could give doctors a better look at what the muscles in the trunk are doing during therapy. Those muscles are important to balance and even limb movement.

The team presented their work in the journal BioMedical Engineering Online.

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The sensors are made from stretchy conducting materials called conductive elastomers. They are piezoelectric, so they generate current whenever they're bent or stretched, and they're printed onto the fabric, keeping it lightweight. The garment itself zips up the front and has velcro strips on the side to adjust for different body sizes. A set of suspenders holds it up over the shoulders.

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The scientists had a subject move around in the corset, and then gathered data that showed it was possible to monitor movement and exercise while it was being worn. It won't provide high-precision measurement, but it's enough to see whether a patient is moving and the direction they are bending and flexing in. That's likely good enough for most physical therapists -- who will have better data and know if a person is doing the exercises correctly. 

Image: Paolo Tormene

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Alzheimer's Patient Gets Brain Pacemaker

By 2050, the number of Americans living with Alzheimer's is expected to triple -- from roughly 5.2 million to potentially 16 million people. While there is still no cure for the disease, researchers continue to forge ahead with the belief that their innovative methods could lead to medical breakthroughs.

The latest effort comes from researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and neurosurgeon William S. Anderson, M.D. who recently implanted a pacemaker-like device into the brain of an early-stage Alzheimer's patient. The device, which has already been used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, provides deep brain stimulation in the form of low-voltage electrical charges to boost memory and reverse cognitive decline.

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Preliminary safety stages of the research began in 2010, when similar devices were implanted in six Canadian patient's afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. Researchers found that over a 13 months, patients showed sustained increases in glucose metabolism, which indicates neuronal activity. In most Alzheimer's patients, glucose metabolism decreases over that same time frame.

The most recent surgery performed at Johns Hopkins Hospital was one of the first such operations in the United States.

The procedure involves drilling holes into the patient's skull and implanting wires into the brain's fornix, the pathway essential to bringing information to the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the part of the brain where learning begins and memories are made. It's also where the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer's start to appear.

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Wires connected to the "brain pacemaker" emit small electrical impulses 130 times a second. Patients don't even feel the current, according to Paul Rosenberg, M.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

"Recent failures in Alzheimer's disease trials using drugs such as those designed to reduce the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in the brain have sharpened the need for alternative strategies," Rosenberg said in a press release. "This is a very different approach, whereby we are trying to enhance the function of the brain mechanically. It’s a whole new avenue for potential treatment for a disease becoming all the more common with the aging of the population."

via Extreme Tech

Credit: ABK/BSIP/Corbis

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3-D Printer Makes Drugs with Drag-and-Drop DNA

By George Dvorsk, iO9

Researchers are hoping to use this technique to develop synthetic vaccines for biodefense and gene therapies that can target disease. Credit: Mike Agliolo/Corbis

The new technology, which was in part funded by the National Science Foundation, is called the Parabon Essemblix Drug Development Platform, and it combines computer-aided design (CAD) software called inSequio with nanoscale fabrication technology.

"What differentiates our nanotechnology from others is our ability to rapidly, and precisely, specify the placement of every atom in a compound that we design, " said lead investigator Steven Armentrout through the NSF's official release.

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The inSequio software allowed the scientists to design molecular pieces with specific, functional components. They then optimized their designs using a cloud supercomputing platform called the Parabon Computation Grid that searches for sets of DNA sequences that can self-assemble its new components.

To design the compounds, the researchers applied their knowledge of the cell receptors they were targeting or the biological pathways they were trying to affect. And they did so by applying the principles of basic chemistry to explore the space of all possible assemblies. Consequently, the process was very deliberate and methodical, what the researchers say is unique in the drug development industry.

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And to hasten the drug production process, the researches took their new sequences and chemically synthesized trillions of identical copies of the designed molecules. So, in a matter of weeks -- and sometimes days -- the developers produced their drugs. The technique is considerably faster than traditional drug discovery techniques, many of which simply utilize trial-and-error screening.

Looking forward, Parabon is hoping to develop synthetic vaccines for biodefense and gene therapies that can target disease (what will be based on information from an individual's genome). And interestingly, the technology may be usable outside of medicine; future applications could also include the development of nanoscale logic gates, devices critical for computing, and molecular nanosensors.

 

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Get a 3-D Model Of Your Unborn Child

Lots of expecting couples get ultrasounds of their babies, and even take the grainy black-and-white pictures home. Now a clinic in Japan is offering models of the fetus, using 3-D printing technology.

Fasotec, an engineering company and Parkside Hiroo Ladies clinic have teamed up to offer the service since July 30. The way it works is similar to an ultrasound, but in this case they use MRI scans. (X rays can be harmful to a developing fetus). The next step is a technology called Bio-Texture modeling, which converts the MRI data and into a 3-D image. A 3-D printer builds up the three-dimensional image using two different resins that produce two different colors. The result is a fetus represented in a creamy color surrounded by the mother's tissue, represented as transparent (see image above).

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The resolution of the image isn't perfect -- but the clinics say that many expectant mothers are delighted by the service, which costs 100,000 yen (about $1,200 at current exchange rates), not including the cost of the MRI.

For those who would like a less-pricey version, the company will start offering a 3-D model of the face of the fetus for half that price at 50,000 yen in December.

The technology is about more than providing mementos to mothers, though. Fasotec says the printer can output 3-D models of organs, as well, which could be used to train physicians. In fact, the fetus-printing idea was a spin-off the company is using to publicize the more general organ-imaging it does.

Image: Fasotec

Via DigInfo TV, Wired UK

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Doctors Talk to Vegetative Patient: DNews Nugget

Doctors Talk to Vegetative Patient: Using fMRI brain scans, doctors were able to communicate with Canadian patient, Scott Routley, who's been in a vegetative state for more than a decade. The doctors asked Routley if he was in any pain to which Routley answered no. It's the first time an uncommunicative, severely brain-injured patient has been able to answer questions related to his care.

Over the years, Routley's parents claim that their son was responding to them by lifting a thumb or moving his eyes, but their interpretations have not been accepted by medical staff. In fact, medical textbooks will need to be updated to include this kind of technique for assessing whether a brain-damaged person has some cognitive abilities.

The procedure was led by British neuroscientist Prof Adrian Owen of the Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario. In 2010, Owen published research showing that nearly one in five vegetative patients he analyzed using the fMRI method were able to communicate.

via Gizmodo and the BBC

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Smart Bra Detects Breast Cancer Earlier

Breast cancer is leading cause of cancer-related deaths among females in both developed and developing nations. It's also the most frequently diagnosed cancer, but early detection is vital -- there is 5-year survival rates at approximately 80 percent, if detected it's in the early stages.

Helping to make early detection even earlier is First Warning Systems, a Nevada-based company that's developed a BSE (breast self-exam) bra with sensors integrated into the cups. The sensors detect slight variations in breast surface temperature that could indicate tumor growth.

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These variations in temperature are caused by the growth of blood vessels that develop in the breast to supply cancerous tissue with blood. The company explains that a distinct heat signature is given off by these blood vessels, allowing a tumor to be detected years before it is visible on a mammogram or MRI.

In three clinical trials involving 650 participants of all ages, the bra had an accuracy rate of over 90 percent and offered far greater an accuracy level than a traditional mammogram.

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Sensor data from the non-invasive monitoring system is wirelessly transferred to a computer or mobile device and can be uploaded to the Internet for analysis.

First Warning Systems has been granted a number of patents and plans to put the BSE bra on the market next year in Europe and, pending FDA approval, the United States in 2014. Cost details have yet to be determined.

via Gizmag

Credit: First Warning Systems

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Cellphones Track Malaria in Kenya

Millions of cellphone users in Kenya are helping the fight against malaria. In the Oct. 12 issue of the journal Science, scientists report using cellphone location data to create a map of "sources" and "sinks" of malaria, which could lead to better-focused efforts against the mosquitoes that carry it.

The researchers used location data from every call and text made by a mobile phone user in Kenya -- 14.8 million of them. The location data was gathered from the 11,920 cell towers that dot the country, spread among 692 settlements. That data was used to track where people traveled. The researchers then superimposed maps of population density and the rate of infection of malaria. The prevalence of the number of people infected with the disease combined with the travel data was then used to establish a per-day probability that a person would be infected if they visited a specific location.

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Malaria is caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, which bite an infected person and transmit the disease to someone else. In 2011, the disease resulted in some 655,000 deaths, 91 percent of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization's 2011 World Malaria Report.

"We really got to work out where the infections are coming from," Caroline Buckee, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and senior author of the study, told Discovery News.

The combination of two "big data" sources enabled the research team to see travel patterns and use that to find areas where most malaria infections come from. "One of the 'great' things about malaria is that we have very high spatial resolution maps of prevalence," Buckee said. The map of prevalence can be broken up into areas as small as a kilometer (about a thousand yards) on a side.

Some people don't show symptoms immediately, so they can be carriers. That means draining a swamp or spraying a certain area might kill the local bugs, but if people carry the parasite from an area that is untreated, the eradication effort won't do any good.

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The study found that many people travel from Nairobi to areas near Lake Victoria, where mosquitoes and malaria are prevalent. If infected, those travelers bring malaria back to Nairobi when they return. This is why there are more malaria cases showing up in Nairobi's clinics and hospitals than one would expect from the fact that there aren't many places for mosquitoes (of the species that transmits malaria) to live.

Buckee noted that the study doesn't involve finding someone with malaria and tracking their movements. Rather, it uses the data that local officials have about malaria prevalence and population density and combines it with the location information from the phone companies. That's combined with mathematical models of malaria transmission. There's no information about individual people.

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Aside for malaria, Buckee said there has been interest from other researchers in applying this method to studies of dengue, another mosquito-borne disease that tends to show up in tropical countries. Dengue, in fact, might be even easier to study as it tends to show up in urban areas where there are more cell phone towers, and thus better data on human movement.

Top image: Sources and sinks of people and parasites. The left map shows ranked sources (red) and sinks (blue) of human travel, while the right one shows the sources and sinks of parasites. The biggest source of parasites center on Lake Victoria, which is on the western side of the country, and the sink is in the area around Nairobi, in the south-central part of the map. Travelers, by contrast, move from Nairobi to Lake Victoria and back again.

Credt: Science / AAAS

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