26 Jul, 2011
Nicotine Reward Reward
Removing a protein from cells located in the brain’s reward center blocks the anxiety-reducing and rewarding effects of nicotine, according to a new animal study in the July 27 issue of . The findings may help researchers better understand how nicotine affects the brain.
Nicotine works by binding to proteins called nicotinic receptors on the surface of brain cells. In the new study, researchers led by Tresa McGranahan, Stephen Heinemann, PhD, and T. K. Booker, PhD, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, found that removing a specific type of nicotinic receptor from brain cells that produce dopamine a chemical released in response to reward makes mice less likely to seek out nicotine.
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26 Jul, 2011
Arent Arent Same
Like any good, insecure high school girl, I too wanted to feel I belonged. It is during these tender teen years that we begin to form our identities as separate from those of our parents and families, and begin to test out our confidence in the cold waters of the world.
Swimming away in a hyper verbal, exquisitely sensitive girl environment, we often cling to negative bonding as one way of feeling better about ourselves. Truly, all “isms” are derived from futile, immature and destructive exercise. She is not wearing designer jeans. He has acne. Her voice is weird. He walks with a turned-in toe… the list goes on and on and gets uglier by the nano second.
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26 Jul, 2011
Rules Hiv Testing
Reflecting a 2006 CDC recommendation that HIV screening be a routine part of health care, Pennsylvania has revised its testing law following two years of intense legislative debate and lobbying. Beginning Sept. 6, pretest HIV counseling will no longer be mandated, and some test results now given in person can be delivered over the phone. However, the law, signed by Gov. Tom Corbett on July 7, states that “no positive test result shall be revealed … without affording the … immediate opportunity for individual, face-to-face counseling” about HIV and other health-related services. Further, providers can inform patients orally or in writing that HIV testing will be conducted unless they decline or opt out. Cur Read more…
26 Jul, 2011
LONDON (AP) As the surgeons cut into her neck, Marianne Marquis was thinking of the beach.As she heard the doctors’ voices, she was imagining her toes in the sand, the water lapping.Marquis had been hypnotized before surgery to have her thyroid removed. She’s among a growing number of surgical patients at the Belgian hospital, Cliniques Universitaires St. Luc in Brussels, who choose hypnosis and a local anesthetic to avoid the groggy knockout effect of general anesthesia.These patients are sedated but aware, and doctors say their recovery time is faster and their need for painkillers reduced. This method is feasible for only certain types of operations.In her case, Marquis, 53, imagined herself in a field near a beach which her anesthetist began describing by whispering into her ear about 10 minutes before surgery. Read more…
26 Jul, 2011
Children Children Medicaidchip
Dentists in the USA are much more likely to offer an appointment to children with private health insurance than those in the combined Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) dental program, researchers reported in the journal Pediatrics. Joanna Bisgaier, MSW, from the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and team set out to determine what impact insurance status might have on a dentist’s willingness to arrange an appointment for a child with a fractured front tooth. Six researchers, pretending to be mothers of a 10-year-old boy, called asking for an urgent dental appointment. They each made two calls, one four weeks after the other. Read more…