A 22-year old woman known as ‘HC’ who has had amnesia since birth has shown scientists at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute that she is impaired when it comes to retaining unfamiliar faces, but when she is shown a photo of someone familiar, like Hollywood celebrity Paris Hilton, she can more easily recall it within a few seconds. The findings were similar when HC was asked to remember familiar words, like ‘direction’, compared to less familiar words, like ‘fledgling’.

HC was deprived of oxygen in her first week of life, and as a result, the hippocampus developed poorly. It is only about half the size that it should. The hippocampus plays an important role in helping us organize both our short-term and long-term memory. Therefore, HC often has trouble
recalling events from even a few years ago.

Researchers noted that the hippocampus is indeed crucial for forming short-term memories, but
only if the material that is being remembered is brand new. If the item
is familiar to the person then there is no problem. The brain uses other parts of the brain to store the memory.

The study has been posted online in the science journal ‘Neuropsychologia’.

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Their research revealed a new and previously unsuspected role for nuclear receptor corepressor (NCoR), a transcriptional coregulatory protein found in a wide variety of cells.

“Different transcription factors stimulate genes, turning them on and off, by bringing in co-activators or co-repressors,” said Jerrold M. Olefsky, MD, associate dean for Scientific Affairs and Distinguished Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego and senior author of the study.

“All transcriptional biology is a balance of these co-activators and co-repressors,” he noted.

Olefsky and colleagues focused their attention on NCoR, which was known to be a major co-repressor of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma or PPAR-gamma, a ubiquitous protein that regulates fatty acid storage and glucose metabolism, but which also appeared to act on other receptors as well.

The scientists created a knockout mouse model whose adipocytes or fat cells lacked NCoR.

Though bred to be obese and prone to diabetes, Olefsky said the glucose tolerance improved in the NCoR knockout mice.

Moreover, they displayed enhanced insulin sensitivity in liver, muscle and fat, and decreased systemic inflammation.

Resistance to insulin, a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism, is a hallmark of diabetes, as is chronic inflammation.

“When NCoR was deleted, insulin sensitivity in the whole animal increased dramatically compared to normal obese mice, which remained insulin resistant. The sensitivity occurred not just in adipocytes, but in all cells,” added Olefsky.

The finding has been published in the November 11 issue of the journal Cell.

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Known as Auditory-Motor Mapping Training (AMMT), the novel treatment developed by researchers from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) builds on the observations that children with autism, who typically struggle with communication, as well as social interactions, often respond positively to music.

“Communication deficits are one of the core symptoms of autism,” Catherine Wan, first author of the study, said.

“It has been estimated that up to 25 percent of all children with autism are nonverbal, but surprisingly, not much is out there treatment-wise that directly helps these children to speak,” she said.

The AMMT treatment uses a combination of singing (intonation) and motor activities to strengthen a network of brain regions that is thought to be abnormal in children with autism.

“We developed AMMT, in part, because another intonation-based therapy, known as Melodic Intonation Therapy, had been successful in helping stroke patients with aphasia recover their ability to speak,” Gottfried Schlaug, senior author of the study, said.

After eight weeks of AMMT treatment (five days per week), the six children in the proof-of-concept study, who ranged in age from six to nine and were previously completely nonverbal, were able to approximate whole words and phrases.

The children could also generalize their speech production to words that were not practiced during the therapy.

“Noticeable improvements in speech were seen as early as two weeks into the treatment,” Wan said.

“More importantly, the improvements lasted as long as two months after the treatment sessions ended,” she added.

The study has been published in the journal PLoS One.

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A team of researchers led by Richard Kremer from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) suggest that a specific protein plays a key role in the progression of the disease outside of the initial tumor area.

They showed that this particular target called parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP), present at high levels in cancers, is involved in key stages of breast cancer initiation, progression and metastatic spread.

“We are hoping for a significant effect on the prevention of breast cancer recurrence, growth and development by using a strategy to decrease the production of that particular protein,” Kremer said.

To better understand the role of PTHrP in cancer development, researchers eliminated the production of the hormone from breast cells using a strategy called “conditional knockout” and then studied the progression of the tumor.

“The results showed that without the presence of PTHrP in the breast, even before the tumor developed, a reduction of 80 to 90 per cent in the growth of the tumor was observed,” he said.

“The removal of this hormone in the breast and breast tumors block not only the growth of the tumors but also its spread to different organs,” Kremer said.

The study has been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI).

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The study of nearly 15,000 high school students found that those who spent at least an hour engaging in physical activity daily were significantly more likely to report “sufficient” sleep-eight hours or more per night-than students who were inactive.

And teens who use a computer recreationally for more than two hours a day are less likely to get sufficient sleep than students who spend less time using a computer.

Earlier research has had similar findings, but this is the first large, nationally representative study to connect physical activity, sedentary behavior and sleep in high school students, claimed Kathryn Foti, M.P.H., a health scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health and lead author of the paper.

“The message for parents is that encouraging daily physical activity and limiting computer use outside of what’s necessary for schoolwork, can help students get the sleep they need,” she said.

Judith Owens, M.D., director of sleep medicine at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. stated, “It is a vital issue.”

“Insufficient sleep increases the risk of obesity, affects academic performance and has implications for safety. Chronic sleep restriction affects the immune system, the developing brain and the cardiovascular system,” she added.

The analysis also linked extensive TV watching-four or more hours daily-to insufficient sleep.

The study appeared in the latest issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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South Yorkshire’s Bronte Cassell was born 25 weeks premature and weighed just one pound. A number of medical complications meant that doctors had to fit in tubes to help her breathe. Bronte spent her first two years communicating with just hand signals or mouthing the words.

The tubes were recently removed by the doctors and the first words that she spoke were to her father and mother, “I love you daddy. I love you, mummy.”

“We just looked at each other and cried. It was the first time we had ever heard her really speak”, Bronte’s mother Hellen told the Daily Mail.

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The study, published in the academic journal Hypertension, analysed genetic material in human kidneys in a search for genes that might contribute to high blood pressure. The findings open up new avenues for future investigation into the causes of high blood pressure in humans.

The study identified key genes, messenger RNAs and micro RNAs present in the kidneys that may contribute to human hypertension. It also uncovered two microRNAs that contribute to the regulation of renin – a hormone long thought to play to part in controlling blood pressure.

Although scientists have long known that the kidneys play a role in regulating blood pressure, this is the first time that key genes involved in the process have been identified through a large, comprehensive gene expression analysis of the human kidneys. It is also the first time that researchers have identified miRNAs that control the expression of the hormone renin.

The scientists studied tissue samples from the kidneys of 15 male hypertensive patients (patients with high blood pressure) and 7 male patients with normal blood pressure, and compared their messenger RNA (mRNA) and micro RNA (miRNA).

Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule that helps in the production of protein from DNA. Genetic information is copied from DNA to mRNA strands, which provide a template from which the cell can make new proteins. MicroRNA (miRNA) is a very small molecule that helps regulate the process of converting mRNA into proteins.

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11 months after this, Jay is slimmer at 191 pounds. He achieved this by changing his diet, exercise and lifestyle.

“It started with a diet. My diet was horrible,” Wornick said. “I changed everything. I went to whole foods, fresh fruit and lean meats. I cut out all the fast food, cut out all the pizza and all the soda. That was what my diet mainly consisted of before.”

“Chicken, turkey, vegetables, lots of fruits,” Wornick said of the foods that helped him lose the weight. “I drink no regular sodas. Every morning I eat a big breakfast and my meals get smaller as the day goes on.”

“She came to me with the New Year’s resolution and something just clicked,” he said on “GMA.” “I said, “You know what, it’s now or never. Let’s do it. If it doesn’t work then nobody can blame me for not trying,’ but I’d never really tried.”

“I did it all on my own. No personal trainer, no nutritionist, no surgery, no pills. That stuff is unnecessary,” he said. “If you want to put in the hard work, if you want to put in the dedication, it will work for you,” Jay said

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