ECE GYAN

An average of at least one potential concussive event occurred per game during the 2016 UEFA European Championship and nearly three quarters of the head collision incidents did not result in a medical assessment by sideline health-care personnel, according to a review published today in the journal  BMJ Open . Potential concussive events (PCEs) were defined for the study as head impact injuries (through direct contact with another athlete, ball, or object in the environment) that resulted in the athlete being unable to immediately resume play. Athletes involved in PCEs were observed for six established observable physical signs of concussion: slow to get up (defined as a duration of five or more seconds following impact); clutching of the head; disorientation; loss of consciousness; seizure-like behaviour; and signs of obvious disequilibrium. A team of trained observers, led by neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Cusimano of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, reviewed the 51 games of t...

Diseases caused by genetic changes could be detected more readily thanks to an advance in DNA analysis software. The development will make it easier to integrate genetic testing into health care systems such as the UK's National Health Service, which cares for around three million people affected by genetic diseases in the UK. The new tool can spot precise genetic changes that cause disease in the more than three billion letters of DNA code that make up the human genome. It does this by linking to a database of clinical information from people with genetic diseases to pinpoint DNA changes that are known to cause illness. The software also predicts the consequences of DNA changes, helping to identify disease-causing differences that are not already linked to a known condition. In addition, the software scans databases of genetic information from healthy people to rule out DNA differences that look as though they may cause a disease but are harmless -minimising the risk ...

Even a short stay for travelers in cities with high levels of air pollution leads to breathing problems that can take at least a week from which to recover, a new study shows. Led by researchers at NYU School of Medicine, the study is the first of its kind, say the authors, to analyze pollution-related coughing and breathing difficulties, and recovery times upon returning home, in healthy, young adults traveling internationally. Published earlier this month in the  Journal of Travel Medicine , the finding is timely given that the number of tourists travelling internationally is expected to grow to 1.8 billion by 2030, according to the World Tourism Organization. "We had several reports that tourists were feeling sick when visiting polluted cities, so it became important for us to understand what was really happening to their health," says senior study investigator Terry Gordon, PhD, a professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at NYU Langone Health. For ...

The early-stage research, led by scientists from Imperial College London and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, identified a genetic 'switch' in breast cancer cells that boosts the production of a type of internal scaffolding. This scaffolding is a type of protein, called Keratin-80, and related to the protein that helps keep hair strong. Boosting the amount of this scaffolding makes the cancer cells more rigid, which the researchers say may help the cells clump together and travel in the blood stream to other parts of the body. The researchers, who published their work in the journal  Nature Communications , studied human breast cancer cells treated with a common type of breast cancer drug called aromatase inhibitors. The team found the same switch is involved in breast cancer cells becoming resistant to the medication (meaning the drugs are no longer effective if the cancer returns). Targeting this switch with a different drug could help reverse this resista...

An international team led by scientists from Lawson Health Research Institute and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center are the first to show that Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can be used to measure how the heart uses oxygen for both healthy patients and those with heart disease. Reduced blood flow to the heart muscle is the leading cause of death in the Western world. Currently, the diagnostic tests available to measure blood flow to the heart require injection of radioactive chemicals or contrast agents that change the MRI signal and detect the presence of disease. There are small but finite associated risks and it is not recommended for a variety of patients including those with poor kidney function. More than 500,000 tests are performed each year in Canada. "This new method, cardiac functional MRI (cfMRI), does not require needles or chemicals being injected into the body," says Dr. Frank Prato, Lawson Assistant Director for Imaging. "It eliminates the existing risk...

Concussion symptoms -- such as loss of balance, hazy comprehension, sleep disturbance and ability to walk straight -- can be reversed by a new type of magnetic stimulation, research at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) shows. Magnetic stimulation using a laptop-style device for 20 minutes per day improved the ability of rodents with concussion to walk in a straight line, navigate a maze, run on a wheel, and perform cognitive tests, according to research published in the  Journal of Neurotrauma . "Concussion is a major health concern effecting all sections of society from children whose brain is still developing to older people suffering falls," said Professor Changiz Taghibiglou, who led the research. "The beauty of this therapy is not only that it is effective, but that it is non-invasive, easy to use and cost-effective." The USask team also found evidence that Low Frequency Magnetic Simulation could potentially protect the brain from future degenerat...

For some people, the thought of their partner, friend or colleague snooping through their phone, reading their texts and emails, is an automatic deal breaker. However, some relationships can survive the snooping, a new study examining the motivations behind phone snooping has found. Researchers from UBC and the University of Lisbon recruited 102 individuals and asked them to recall a past situation in which they accessed the phone of someone they know, or someone they know accessed theirs. Participants were asked to describe the events leading up to the incident, how the snooping was conducted and what happened to the relationship afterwards. Out of 46 participants who provided information about relationship outcomes, 21 said that the relationship eventually ended while 25 said the relationship survived the prying. "In cases where the relationship ended, it was either because the phone owner felt their trust was betrayed or the relationship was also experiencing difficult...

The enzyme Nocturnin, which governs daily tasks such as fat metabolism and energy usage, works in an entirely different way than previously thought, reported a team of researchers at Princeton University. The newly discovered mechanism reveals the molecular link between the enzyme's daily fluctuations and its energy-regulating role in the body, according to a study published this week in  Nature Communications . "The realization that Nocturnin works in this manner will guide our thinking about sleep, oxidative stress and metabolism, and eventually may serve as a step toward finding better treatments for metabolic diseases," said Alexei Korennykh, an associate professor of molecular biology at Princeton, who led the work. Nocturnin is part of the circadian clock that alters the metabolism and behavior of living organisms to match the body's needs at different times of the day. For example, Nocturnin levels fluctuate throughout the day, dramatically peaking when ...

New research out of Loma Linda University Health suggests that unsupportive parenting styles may have several negative health implications for children, even into their adult years. The study found that the telomeres -- protective caps on the ends of the strands of DNA -- of subjects who considered their mothers' parenting style as "cold" were on average 25% smaller compared to those who reported having a mother whose parenting style they considered "warm." Research has found that early-life stress is associated with shorter telomeres, a measurable biomarker of accelerated cellular aging and increased disease risk later in life. "Telomeres have been called a genetic clock, but we now know that as early life stress increases, telomeres shorten and the risk of a host of diseases increases, as well as premature death," said Raymond Knutsen, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and associate professor at Loma Linda University School of Public Health....

Although there is ample evidence that air pollution -- specifically airborne particulate matter -- is associated with an increased risk of premature death, it is still not known which specific particles are responsible for this effect. The Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a research centre supported by "la Caixa," participated in a study that used wild moss samples to estimate human exposure to airborne metal particles in order to analyse the relationship between atmospheric metal pollution and risk of mortality. This unique study, based on an innovative approach, has been published in the journal  Environment International . It included data from 11,382 participants belonging to the Gazel cohort who were living in rural areas throughout France, a cohort that had been followed up for 20 years. The data on mosses came from the BRAMM biovigilance programme, which collects and analyses moss samples from areas all over France situated at a distance from the ...

Many people, including educators, believe learning styles are set at birth and predict both academic and career success even though there is no scientific evidence to support this common myth, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. In two online experiments with 668 participants, more than 90 percent of them believed people learn better if they are taught in their predominant learning style, whether that is visual, auditory or tactile. But those who believed in learning styles split evenly into an "essentialist" group, with more strongly held beliefs, and a "non-essentialist" group, with more flexible beliefs about learning styles, said lead researcher Shaylene Nancekivell, PhD, a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan. "We found that some people are more likely to believe that students inherit their learning style from their parents and that learning styles affect brain function," she said. "We a...

An imbalance of functioning in attention-related brain systems may help forecast the course of teen depression, according to a study published in  Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging , published by Elsevier. Proper coordination of frontoinsular brain networks help us regulate our attention between external goals and self-focused or emotional thinking. But abnormalities in the coordination between these networks were not only evident in teens with more severe depression, but also, critically, predicted increased depressive symptoms two weeks later. "The teen years are a time of remarkable growth and opportunity, as young people forge new relationships, learn how to navigate intense emotions, and make the transition to independence. However, it is also during adolescence that a high and growing number of teens experience clinical depression and related mood problems for the first time," said first author Roselinde Kaiser, PhD, University of Color...

In July last year, South Africa became the first country to roll out a new anti-tuberculosis drug in its national programme. This new drug, called bedaquiline, is the first new anti-tuberculosis drug to be developed in four decades. It improves the survival of patients with multidrug resistant TB, potentially offering a shorter treatment time with fewer side effects. Scientists from Stellenbosch University (SU), in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians, are now trying to conserve this life-saving treatment by studying how Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes TB, can develop resistance to this drug. Their findings will be used to inform tuberculosis treatment guidelines to ensure that the right combination of anti-tuberculosis drugs are used along with bedaquiline in order to optimise patient treatment outcomes, while minimising the risk of developing resistance to the drug. "We need to protect bedaquiline from the devel...

Women who experience symptoms of depression are at risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, research led by The University of Queensland has found. UQ School of Public Health PhD scholar Xiaolin Xu said women who experienced symptoms of depression, even without a clinical diagnosis, were at risk of developing multiple chronic diseases. "These days, many people suffer from multiple chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer," Mr Xu said. "We looked at how women progress in the development of these chronic diseases before and after the onset of depressive symptoms." The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health followed healthy, middle-aged women with no previous diagnosis of depression or chronic illness over 20 years. The study found 43.2 per cent of women experienced elevated symptoms of depression and just under half the cohort reported they were diagnosed or taking treatment for depression. Women from the dep...