Tongue controller for the paralyzed offers greater independence

In an advance that promises to improve the lives of the more than 250,000 people in the United States who are paralyzed from the neck down, researchers announced on Wednesday that they have developed a wireless device that operates specially rigged chairs by means of a tiny titanium barbell pierced through the tongue.

Merely by moving their tongues left or right across their mouths, essentially using it as a joystick, paralyzed patients have been able to move their motorized wheelchairs, as well as computer cursors. Tapping tongue against cheek, quickly or slowly, controls the chair’s speed.

The advance “is more than just a wheelchair control,” said Jason Disanto, 39, who has been paralyzed from the neck down since a 2009 diving accident and tested the device. “It’s an independence system.”

The innovation is especially meaningful for the most seriously paralyzed. Tetraplegics cannot use a joystick to operate their wheelchairs, as people with less severe paralysis can, and in many cases cannot even use voice commands: their voices are often so weak that recognition systems work poorly or not at all.

Even more advanced assistive technologies fall short. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which translate brain waves from the scalp into electrical signals that move a motorized wheelchair or computer cursor, require intense concentration, have slow response times and are vulnerable to electronic interference. The implantable versions are more reliable but can damage brain tissue.

The most popular technology for operating a motorized wheelchair, called sip-and-puff devices and based on inhaling or exhaling into a tube, offers only four commands – forward, back, left and right—and is also slow and cumbersome.

Way faster, way more agency

Engineer Maysam Ghovanloo of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta thought he could do better. About five years ago he and his colleagues began developing the tongue-based system. An early version used magnets glued to the tongue, but they fell off. Dr Anne Laumann of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, a co-author of the new paper, had an idea: use piercing to anchor the magnets in place.

The device they came up with is a small magnetic barbell, which creates a magnetic field in the mouth. When users flick their tongues, it alters that field. The change is picked up by four small sensors on a headset with twin extensions curving around the cheeks, and relayed wirelessly to a smart phone, computer or iPod. The software translates the signals and sends them to a powered wheelchair or computer.

For the new study, published in Science Translational Medicine, Ghovanloo and his team tested the tongue system on 11 tetraplegia patients from rehabilitation centers in Chicago and Atlanta and 23 able-bodied volunteers who already wore tongue jewelry.

After just 30 minutes of training, everyone was able to move a computer cursor, clicking on targets on a laptop screen, playing video games and dialing phone numbers. Accuracy and speed improved with practice, even though subjects used the system only one day a week. After six weeks the tetraplegics were, on average, three times faster with the tongue system than with sip-and-puff, which six of the 11 (including Disanto) had been using. It was equally accurate.

Using only tongue movements, the volunteers also navigated a powered wheelchair through a 50-meter-long course with 13 turns, 24 obstacles and occasional alarms signaling “Stop! Emergency!” Here, too, on average the 11 tetraplegics drove the course three times faster with the tongue system than with sip-and-puff, and just as accurately.

“The learning was very, very fast,” Ghovanloo said. “There was a huge improvement in performance from the first session to the second.”

To Disanto, an electrical engineer, the appeal of the system is aesthetic as well as functional.

“With all the equipment that’s in my face” with the sip-and-puff system, “people saw that and not me,” he said.

The tongue system is a vast improvement, but he encouraged the researchers to go even further, and they have: they are developing a version that dispenses with the headset and instead fits inside the mouth, like a retainer.

The tongue system’s ability to operate numerous devices also promises more agency, Disanto said. He currently uses a voice-recognition system and a “head mouse” (an optical sensor that translates head movements into cursor movements) to use his computer, “but this is going to allow people like me to use one system instead of multiple ones,” he said. “I’ll be able to drive my wheelchair and connect to my computer seamlessly, and eventually connect to home devices, using it to work lights, curtains, TV and heat. I’ll be more independent.”

Those home systems already exist, with many smartphones offering apps that control home appliances, lights and heating-and-cooling systems.

“This is another example of how the field of rehab engineering and assistive devices is continuously evolving and benefiting from incorporating the emerging new technologies,” said Dr Daofen Chen, program director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The researchers plan to test the tongue system “using Atlanta as our laboratory,” said Joy Bruce, manager of spinal cord injury at the Shepherd Center, a rehab center in Atlanta where the study was conducted. “We’ll see if patients can use it to navigate in the community – taking the bus, going to work and doing other things they haven’t been able to.”

Ghovanloo’s startup company, Bionic Sciences, is working with Georgia Tech to commercialize the barbell device. The $1 million he got from the 2009 economic stimulus bill is gone, and government science funding has plummeted, so Georgia Tech is setting up a website and planning to use social media to raise money. If Ghovanloo gets the funds, he hopes to test the system in the streets of Atlanta next year

Source: GMA News

Diabetic women should monitor glucose levels before pregnancy

Women suffering from diabetes and wishing to start a family should monitor their blood glucose levels and take a daily high dose of folic acid before pregnancy to avoid risk to their baby’s health, a new study said on Wednesday. 

The risk of stillbirth – when the foetus dies in the uterus or death during the first year of birth – was over four times greater in women with diabetes than in those without the disease.

The team from Newcastle studied the outcome of over 400,000 pregnancies delivered in north of England between 1996 and 2008.

”We found that 2.7 percent of births in women with diabetes resulted in stillbirth, six times than the rate for women without diabetes, while 0.7 percent died during the first year of life, nearly double the rate in women without diabetes,” said Ruth Bell, one of the researchers.

The research also said that nearly 40 percent of deaths might have been avoided if all of the women were able to achieve good control of their blood glucose before pregnancy.

”Stillbirths and infant deaths are thankfully not common, but they could be even less common if all women with diabetes can be helped to achieve the best possible control of their blood glucose levels before becoming pregnant,” added Bell.

Source: Khaleej Times

 

New drug target to help fight malaria identified

A team of researchers has identified a key metabolic enzyme that is required by the common malaria parasites at all stages of its life cycle for survival in humans.

Co-first author Marcus C. S. Lee, PhD, associate research scientist in microbiology and immunology at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) said the study is important because most anti malarials are effective at killing the parasites only as they circulate in the bloodstream. However, the parasites can hide in the liver for years before reemerging and triggering a relapse of the disease.

The other co-first author is Case W. McNamara, PhD, research investigator at the Genomics Institute for the Novartis Research Foundation. The study leaders are Elizabeth A. Winzeler, PhD, professor of pharmacology and drug discovery at University of California San Diego, and Thierry Diagana, head of Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases in Singapore.

The enzyme, phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase (PI4K), was found by screening more than a million drug compounds against Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for the most lethal form of malaria. Using this screen, the researchers found a class of compounds known as imidazopyrazines, which are capable of killing several species of Plasmodium at each stage of the parasites’ life cycle in its vertebrate host.

The researchers identified the target of the imidazopyrazines by evolving parasite cell lines that were resistant against the drugs and then analyzing the parasites’ genomes for the changes responsible for conferring resistance. Those genetic changes pointed to the gene that encodes PI4K.

The CUMC team, led by David Fidock, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology and medical sciences (in medicine), used novel genetic tools to confirm that PI4K was being directly targeted by the imidazopyrazines.

Then, using cellular imaging, it was found that imidazopyrazines interfere with the function of PI4K on the parasite Golgi (the organelle that packages proteins for delivery to other cellular destinations). ”

The study is published in the journal Nature.

Source: top news

Modafinil could help fight depression

A new study has concluded that taking the drug modafinil, typically used to treat sleep disorders, in combination with antidepressants reduces the severity of depression more effectively than taking antidepressants alone.

The study, a collaboration between King’s College London and the Universities of Cambridge and East London, was published online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Approximately a third of depressed patients receive little or no benefit from taking antidepressants even when used in combination with psychological counselling. Furthermore, of those who respond to treatment, residual symptoms such as fatigue and trouble sleeping pose risk factors for relapse. The authors of the study believe that these individuals in particular would benefit the most from supplementing their antidepressants with modafinil.

Professor Barbara Sahakian from the University of Cambridge said, “Modafinil has actions on a number of neurotransmitter systems. This may explain why adding it to traditional anti-depressants, such as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors,has beneficial effects on the symptoms experienced by depressed patients.”

“This is good news for individuals struggling to fight depression,” said Professor Cynthia Fu who undertook the research whilst at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, and currently at the University of East London, . “Depression affects all aspects of life, leading to occupational and social disability at varying levels. It is particularly important that people receive effective treatment as the residual symptoms – e.g. fatigue, lack of concentration etc. -can persist and have a negative impact in people’s lives.”

For the research, the scientists reviewed various studies which had examined the use of modafinil as an add-on treatment for depression. The meta-analysis involved a total of 568 patients with unipolar depression and a total of 342 patients with bipolar depression. The analysis revealed that modafinil improved the severity of depression as well as remission rates. Modafinil also showed beneficial effects on fatigue and sleepiness, with the added benefit of the comparable side effects to placebo.

The research also revealed that the symptomatic benefits of modafinil might also have implications for improving the difficulty of functioning at work sometimes caused by depression. This is significant because depression is a major cause of absenteeism (absence due to sick leave) and presenteeism (present at work but not functioning as before).

Dr Muzaffer Kaser from the University of Cambridge added: “The next step is for longer trials to evaluate potential benefits of supplementing antidepressants with modafinil more comprehensively.”

Depression is a major global health problem. According to the World Health Organisation, it is estimated to be the second leading cause of disability worldwide by 2020.Recent studies revealed that depression represents more than a third of global burden of disease attributable to mental health problems*. The annual cost of mood disorders to the UK economy is estimated to be around £16 billion**.Disability caused by depression is mainly due to the negative impact on work and social functioning and its relapsing nature.

The paper ‘Modafinil Augmentation Therapy in Unipolar and Bipolar Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials’ is published in the November edition of Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 

Source: Kings College London

Five health benefits of apples

You may have heard the saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” many times, but do you know the reasons why?

1. Apples are good source of soluble fiber which helps to ease intestinal disorders and control insulin levels.

2. Flavanols and procyanidins in apples may work in the body to exert cardiovascular benefits, suggests study.

3. Apples have low calorie content, around 50-80 calories per apple, and has no fat or sodium.

4. Apples are packed with B-complex vitamins (riboflavin, thiamin, and vitamin B-6) which help in maintaining red blood cells and the nervous system.

5. Phytonutrients in apples help protect the body from the harmful effects of free radicals.

Source: Zee News

New HIV strain leads to faster AIDS development

A NEW and more aggressive strain of HIV discovered in West Africa causes significantly faster progression to AIDS, according to Swedish researchers.

The new strain of the virus that causes AIDS, called A3/02, is a fusion of the two most common HIV strains in Guinea-Bissau. It has so far only been found in West Africa.

“Individuals who are infected with the new recombinant form develop AIDS within five years, and that’s about two to two-and-a-half years faster than one of the parent (strains),” said Angelica Palm, one of the Lund University scientists responsible for the study based on a long-term follow-up of HIV-positive people in Guinea-Bissau.

Recombinant virus strains originate when a person is infected by two different strains, whose DNA fuse to create a new form.

“There have been some studies that indicate that whenever there is a so-called recombinant, it seems to be more competent or aggressive than the parental strains,” said Palm of the study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

The strain was first discovered by the Swedish team in Guinea-Bissau in 2011.

According to researchers, the speed with which A3/02 leads to people falling ill from AIDS does not impact on the effectiveness of medication on infected individuals.

“The good news is that as far as we know the medicines that are available today are equally functional on all different subtypes of variants,” Palm said.

The study warns that such recombinants may be spreading fast, especially in regions with high levels of immigration, such as Europe or the United States.

“It is highly likely that there are a large number of circulating recombinants of which we know little or nothing,” said Patrik Medstrand, professor of clinical virology at Lund University.

Some 35.3 million people around the world are living with HIV, which destroys the immune system and has caused more than 25 million deaths since AIDS first emerged in the early 1980s, according to the World Health Organisation.

Existing treatments help infected people live longer, healthier lives by delaying and subduing symptoms, but do not cure AIDS. Many people in poor communities do not have access to the life-giving drugs, and there is no vaccine.

Source: news.com

New treatment ‘could help spine injury patients walk’

Scientists say they have discovered that breathing low oxygen levels in short bursts could help improve the mobility of people with spinal cord injuries. This is according to a study published in the journal Neurology.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is defined as disruption to the nerves attached to the spinal cord in the back. When the nerves are damaged, this can lead to reduced feeling in the body and loss of mobility, such as the inability to walk.

According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC), there are approximately 12,000 new cases of spinal cord injury in the US every year.

Randy D. Trumbower, of Emory University in Atlanta, GA, and a study author of this most recent research, says that around 59% of all spinal injuries are incomplete. This means damage to the spinal cord is not absolute, so there is potential for the spinal cord to recover.

“Unfortunately, usually a person affected by this type of spinal injury seldom recovers the ability to walk normally,” Trumbower adds.

But the investigators believe their new research may give promise to those who have lost mobility as a result of spinal cord injuries.

Patients exposed to hypoxia treatment

To reach their findings, the investigators analyzed 19 individuals who suffered spine injuries between levels C2 (in the neck) and T12 (in the thoracic vertebrae) of the spine.

Participants had no joint shortening, some controlled ankle, knee and hip movements, and they had the ability to walk a minimum of one step without human help.

The subjects were split into two groups. In the first group, nine people were exposed to either hypoxia – short periods of breathing low oxygen levels – or a sham treatment (control treatment) in which they received only normal oxygen levels. After 2 weeks, they received the other treatment.

The hypoxia treatment involved subjects breathing low oxygen levels through a mask for 90 seconds, followed by 60 seconds of normal oxygen levels, and they were required to do this for 40 minutes a day for 5 days.

The second group received either the hypoxia or sham treatment, then they were asked to walk as fast as they could for 30 minutes within 1 hour of the treatment. They were also switched to the other treatment 2 weeks later.

The researchers monitored the participants’ walking speed and endurance before the study began, on the first and fifth days of treatment, and 1 and 2 weeks after treatment ceased.

Endurance ‘increased by 250%’

The findings revealed that on a 10-meter walking test, participants who received the hypoxia treatment walked an average of 3.8 seconds faster, compared with when they breathed only normal oxygen levels.

On a test of how far subjects could walk in 6 minutes, those who received the hypoxia treatment plus walking increased their endurance by an average of 100 meters – a 250% increase, compared with those who received sham treatment plus walking.

Overall, it was found that all participants showed improved walking ability. In detail, over 30% increased their walking speed by a minimum of 1/10 of a meter per second, and 70% increased their endurance by at least 50 meters.

In an editorial linked to the study, Michael G. Fehlings, of the University of Toronto in Canada, hypothesizes how the hypoxia treatment may work:

“One question this research brings to light is how a treatment that requires people to take in low levels of oxygen can help movement, let alone in those with compromised lung function and motor abilities.

A possible answer is that spinal serotonin, a neuro transmitter, sets off a cascade of changes in proteins that help restore connections in the spine.”

The investigators warn that chronic or sustained hypoxia should only be carried out by trained individuals within a supervised medical environment, or it could cause serious injury

Source: Medical News today

 

 

Fruit flies may harbor dementia cure

Researchers have taken a significant step forward in unraveling the mechanisms of Pavlovian conditioning and understanding this will help understand how memories form and, ultimately, provide better treatments to improve memory in all ages.

“Memory is essential to our daily function and is also central to our sense of self. To a large degree, we are the sum of our experiences. When memories can no longer be retrieved or we have difficulty in forming new memories, the effects are frequently tragic. In the future, our work will enable us to have a better understanding of how human memories form,” Gregg Roman, an associate professor of biology and biochemistry at University of Houston’s said.

Roman along with his team studied the brains of fruit flies (Drosophila). Within the fly brain, Roman said, there are nerve cells that play a role in olfactory learning and memory.

Roman said they found that these particular nerve cells- the gamma lobe neurons of the mushroom bodies in the insect brain- are activated by odours. Training the flies to associate an odour with an electric shock changed how these cells responded to odours by developing a modification in gamma lobe neuron activity, known as a memory trace.

They found that training caused the gamma lobe neurons to be more weakly activated by odours that were not paired with an electric shock, while the odours paired with electric shock maintained a strong activation of these neurons. Thus, the gamma lobe neurons responded more strongly to the trained odour than to the untrained odour.

The team also showed that a specific protein – the heterotrimeric G(o) protein – is naturally involved in inhibiting gamma lobe neurons.

Roman said removing the activity of this protein only within the gamma lobe neurons resulted in a loss of the memory trace and, thus, poor learning. Therefore, inhibiting the release of neurotransmitters from these neurons through the actions of the G(o) protein is key to forming the memory trace and associative memories.

The significance of using fruit flies is that while their brain structure is much simpler with far fewer neurons, the mushroom body is analogous to the perirhinal cortex in humans, which serves the same function of sensory integration and learning.

The study was published in journal Current Biology.

Times of India

Obesity Linked With Hearing Loss

Obesity is associated with a higher risk for hearing loss, according to a new study in the American Journal of Medicine.

 On the other hand, greater levels of physical activity are associated with a lower risk for hearing loss, found researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

“We often think of hearing loss as an inevitable part of the aging process, but these findings provide evidence that potentially modifiable risk factors, such as maintaining a healthy weight and staying physically active, may help in the prevention of hearing loss or delay its progression,” study researcher Sharon Curhan, M.D., Sc.M., of the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a statement.

More than 68,000 women who were part of the Nurses’ Health Study II were included in the study; their physical activity, body mass index, waist circumference and hearing loss were tracked from 1989 and 2009.

Researchers found associations between higher body mass index and waist circumference and hearing loss. Specifically, women who had a body mass index of 30 to 34 (indicative of obesity) had a 17 percent higher risk of hearing loss, compared with women who had a BMI lower than 25 (normal weight is indicated by a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, while overweight is indicated by a BMI of 25 to 29.9). And people with a BMI of 40 or greater had a 25 percent higher risk of hearing loss.

Women with a waist circumference of 80 to 88 centimeters had an 11 percent higher risk of hearing loss compared with women with a waist circumference less than 71 centimeters. And women with a waist circumference greater than 88 centimeters had a 27 percent higher risk of hearing loss.

Meanwhile, exercise seemed to decrease risk for hearing loss. Women who were the most physically active in the study had a 17 percent lower risk of hearing loss than women who were the least physically active. And it didn’t even have to be especially strenuous activity: Researchers found that walking just two hours or more a week lowered hearing loss risk 15 percent more than walking less than an hour a week.

While the study only showed an association between hearing loss and obesity, this isn’t the first time the two have been linked. A study published earlier this year in the journal The Laryngoscope showed that obese teens have a nearly doubled risk of one-sided low-frequency hearing loss, compared to their peers of normal weight. The researchers of that study speculated that a potential reason for this association is inflammation from obesity; other potential reasons include Type 2 diabetes or heart disease from obesity, which could then lead to hearing loss.

Source: Huffington post

Caraway Seed Health Benefits

Botanically called Carum carvi, caraway is a biennial plant, which belongs to the family Apiaceae. Some of the health benefits of caraway seeds are listed as under:

Caraway seeds lowers the concentration of LDL cholesterol, by preventing its re-absorption in the colon. As such, caraway seeds help in preventing a variety of cardiovascular diseases like heart attack and artery congestion.

Caraway seeds also help relieve the symptoms of bronchitis.

  • It is a rich source of anti-oxidant compounds including carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin and cryptoxanthin
  • These compounds negate the effect of free radicals produced as a result of biochemical reactions, thereby preventing the formation and proliferation of cancer cells.
  • On account of its detoxifying properties, it also helps in lowering the pace of aging. It helps in reducing the signs of aging like fine lines, patches on skin, dark spots and wrinkles.
  • They help boost immunity. It prevents the exhaustion of T-cells, which in turn prevents the strain on the immune system, thereby strengthening it and preventing against infections and diseases.
  • Help in improving the texture of the skin on account of its rich Vitamin E content.
  • They have a strong and pungent odor. As such, the seeds may be chewed to get rid of the bad breath as well as the insipid or bland taste in the mouth.
  • Also serves as a tonic for pregnant women.

They are a potent emmenagogue. The seeds regulate the menstrual cycle and regularize your periods. They also help reduce pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) like pain in lower abdomen, bloating and water retention in the body, nausea, and loss of appetite, among others.

Enhances eyesight and also improves skin and hair texture.

Prevent impotency in males by stimulating sperm production.

They are a potent carminative, which help clear up cough and phlegm from the respiratory tract and relieves congestion.

They have proven effective for lactating mothers by promoting milk secretion. Lactating women may consume caraway seeds in honey to enhance milk production for the health of the baby.

Promote the activity of glands, thereby maintaining the overall physiology of the body.

Regulate the function of kidneys, cleaning the body waste materials and toxins.

Its seed extract may also be used in the treatment of scabies.

It may also be deployed to cure ear infections and pain.

The seeds are a potent antiseptic agent, which prevents and cure infections.

It is also effective in the treatment of arthritis, rheumatism and inflammation of joints.

They may also be used to cure severe headache and migraine.

Usage of caraway seeds is an effective remedy to cure toothache and other oral afflictions.

Caraway seeds may be used as a flavoring agent in the kitchen. It may be used in sausages as well as meat preparations.

Digestive Health:

Caraway seeds are widely used to cure various digestive disorders including irritable bowel syndrome. It promotes digestion and thereby prevents indigestion and other causes of stomach afflictions. It adds bulk to the food on account of its rich dietary fiber content, which regulates bowel movement and prevents constipation. Caraway seeds may also be used as antihelmintic to remove helminthes like hook worms from the intestinal tract. It also eases dyspepsia and hysteria. Caraway seeds may also be used as appetizers.

It may be used to make caraway tea to cure gas and flatulence. It also helps prevent colic disorders.

Information & Facts:

Some of the basic information & facts about caraway seeds are as follows:

Caraway is also called Persian cumin and meridian fennel, and is a native of Asia, North Africa and Europe. The plant is cultivated annually in colder regions, while it is cultivated as a biennial plant in temperate regions. The plant grows well in warm and well-drained soil.

The caraway plant grows up to a height of 50-60 cms and bears thread-like, finely divided and feathery leaves.

They are actually fruits, which are crescent-shaped, bearing ridges. Caraway seeds (fruits) bear five ridges per seed; ridges are pale in color and texture.

It contains volatile oil, which contains chemical substances like limonene, carvone, pinen, carveol, thujone, furfurol and cumuninic aldehyde.

Some of the vital minerals present in them are iron, calcium, copper, manganese, potassium, zinc, selenium and magnesium.

Its seeds are a rich source of certain vitamins including Vitamin A, Vitamin B-complex, Vitamin C and Vitamin E.

It has a warm and peppery aroma and as such, it is widely used in culinary preparations, especially Mediterranean and European cooking.

It may be used as infusion, poultice and tincture.

Some of the caraway seed supplements are anise, fennel and cumin.

Side Effects Of Caraway Seeds

There is no scientific evidence on the side-effects of caraway seeds, and they are generally known to have positive effects on health. However, high dose of caraway seeds may lead to kidney and liver afflictions, attributed to the content of volatile oils.

Source: diet health club