Some Brain Injuries May Reduce Likelihood of Post-Traumatic Stress

A new study of combat-exposed Vietnam War veterans shows that those with injuries to certain parts of the brain were less likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The findings, from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Naval Medical Center, suggest that drugs or pacemaker-like devices aimed at dampening activity in these brain regions might be effective treatments for PTSD.

PTSD involves the persistent reliving of a traumatic experience through nightmares and flashbacks that may seem real. Twenty percent to 30 percent of Vietnam vets (more than 1 million) have been diagnosed with PTSD, and a similar rate has been reported among Hurricane Katrina survivors in New Orleans. Public health officials are currently tracking the disorder among soldiers returning from Iraq. Yet, while war and natural disasters tend to call the greatest attention to PTSD, it's estimated that millions of Americans suffer from it as a result of assault, rape, child abuse, car accidents, and other traumatic events.

Previous studies have shown that PTSD is associated with changes in brain activity, but those studies couldn't determine whether the changes were contributing to the disorder or merely occurring because of it.

Jordan Grafman, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of NIH, turned to the Vietnam Head Injury Study (VHIS) to make that distinction. The VHIS is a registry of Vietnam veterans who sustained penetrating brain injuries (which are less common in Iraq compared to concussion brain injuries). It has received support from the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans of Affairs and NIH, and is currently supported by NINDS.

"If we could show that lesions in a specific brain region eliminated PTSD, we knew we could say that the region is critical to developing the disorder," says Grafman. The results of his study appear online in Nature Neuroscience.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

New Animal, Plant Species Found in Vietnam

World Wildlife Fund scientists said today that the discovery of 11 new animal and plant species in a remote area in central Vietnam underscores the importance of conservation efforts in the ancient tropical forests of the region.

Within the ancient tropical forests of a region known as Vietnam’s “Green Corridor,” scientists found a snake, five orchids, and two butterflies as well as three other plants new to science and exclusive to the Annamites Mountain Range. Ten other plant species, including four orchids, are still under examination but also appear to be new species.

“Discoveries of so many new species are rare and occur only in very special places like the Green Corridor,” says Chris Dickinson, WWF’s chief conservation scientist in the Green Corridor. “Several large mammal species were discovered in the 1990s in the same forests so these latest discoveries may be just the tip of the iceberg.”

The rainforests of the Central Annamites likely existed as continuous undisturbed forest cover for thousands of years, and, as a result, offer unique habitats for many species, said WWF experts.

The new snake species, called the white-lipped keelback, prefers living by streams where it catches frogs and other small animals. With a beautiful yellow-white stripe sweeping along its head and red dots covering its body, the white-lipped keelback can reach 31 inches—almost a yard in length.

Three of the new orchid species are entirely leafless, a rarity even among orchids. Containing none of the chlorophyll or green pigment commonly found in plants, these orchids live on decaying matter like many fungal species. The other new plants include an aspidistra which produces a nearly black flower and a newly-discovered species of arum with beautiful yellow flowers. Arum plants have funnel-shaped leaves surrounding the flowers.

The two new butterfly species are among eight discovered in the province since 1996. One is a skipper – a butterfly with quick, darting flight habits—from the genus Zela and the other is a new genus in the subfamily of Satyrinae.

According to WWF experts, all of these species are at risk from illegal logging, hunting, unsustainable extraction of natural resources and conflicting development interests. However, local authorities – in particular the Thua Thien Hue Provincial Forest Protection Department – have committed to conserve and sustainably manage these valuable forests.

“The area is extremely important for conservation and the province wants to protect the forests and their environmental services, as well as contribute to sustainable development,” says Hoang Ngoc Khanh, director of Thua Thien Hue Provincial Forest Protection Department.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Bird Flu Survivors' Antibodies Effective at Neutralizing H5N1 Strain

Adults who have recovered from the potentially deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza may hold the key to future treatments for the virus, according to an international team of researchers. In a study published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine, the researchers have shown how specific antibodies taken from avian flu survivors in Vietnam can be reproduced in the laboratory and prove effective at neutralising the virus in culture vitro and in mice.

The H5N1 influenza virus has caused disease and death in millions of poultry across the globe and occasionally has been transmitted to humans, often fatally. By mid-May 2007, according to the World Health Organization, there had been 306 known cases in humans, 185 of them fatal.

Now, doctors based at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona, Switzerland and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, US, have shown that monoclonal antibodies generated from blood of human survivors of the H5N1 virus are effective at both preventing infection in mice and neutralising the virus in those already infected. The research had been fast-tracked for funding by the UK's Wellcome Trust and is also supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health in the US and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

The researchers found that the antibodies provided significant immunity to mice that were subsequently infected with the Vietnam strain of H5N1. This reduced significantly the amount of virus found in the lungs and almost completely prevented the virus reaching the brain or spleen. In those people in Vietnam who died from the H5N1 strain, the virus was found to have spread from the lungs; this was not the case in those who survived.

"We have shown that this technique can work to prevent and neutralize infection by the H5N1 'bird flu' virus in mice," says Dr Cameron Simmons, a Wellcome Trust researcher at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Vietnam. "We are optimistic that these antibodies, if delivered at the right time and at the right amount, could also provide a clinical benefit to humans with H5N1 infections."

"In particular, we found that it was possible to administer the treatment up to 72 hours after infection. This is particularly important as people who have become infected with the virus do not tend to report to their local healthcare facilities until several days after the onset of illness."
The antibodies were discovered in the laboratory of Professor Antonio Lanzavecchia at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Switzerland. The researchers used a new technique that allows them to rapidly reproduce human monoclonal antibodies starting from a small sample of blood.

"We can't say for certain that a pandemic influenza virus will resemble the H5N1 strain that we have been studying or that the monoclonal antibodies generated using our technique will be able to tackle such a virus," says Lanzavecchia. "Nevertheless, we are encouraged by the broad neutralizing activity of these antibodies in the lab and the moderate doses required."

Using administered antibodies has a historical precedent. During the 1918 Spanish H1N1 influenza pandemic, there were multiple reports of physicians administering blood taken from survivors to patients infected with the disease. A recent review suggested that this treatment was associated with a halving in mortality. However, directly administering blood carries a risk of infection with other blood diseases, such as Hepatitis C and HIV.


Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.