Category Health/Medical

Until now, researchers had not had a good way to study how people actually experienced “epiphany learning.” In new research, scientists at The Ohio State University used eye-tracking and pupil dilation technology to see what happens as people figured out how to win a strategy game on a computer. “We could see our study participants figuring out the solution through their eye movements as they considered their options,” said Assistant Professor Ian Krajbich, Ohio State. “We could predict they were about to have an epiphany before they even knew it was coming.”

Most decision-making research has focused on reinforcement learning, where people gradually adjust their behavior in response to what they learn, Chen said...

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A team of researchers with the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Germany has tested the possibility of using sperm cells to deliver drugs to cancerous tumors in female patients. The group describes how such a technique might work, their initial test results and what they learned from their experiments. In this new effort, they looked into the idea of using a natural carrier to deliver helpful drugs to specified targets—sperm cells delivering drugs guided to tumors and other problem sites in the female reproductive tract...

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Dendritic cell vaccine supports further study in larger trials. A phase 1 study of 11 patients with glioblastoma who received injections of an investigational vaccine therapy and an approved chemotherapy showed the combination to be well tolerated while also resulting in unexpectedly significant survival increases, researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute report. Patients treated with the study drug (dose-intensified temozolomide and vaccines) were continuously monitored for toxicity and adverse events. Study patients experienced known side effects with temozolomide, including nausea, lymphopenia, thrombocytopenia and fatigue.

There were no treatment limiting a...

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The gene responsible for generating acylceramide, the key lipid in forming the skin barrier that protects us from pathogens, allergens and other harmful substances. This finding could prove crucial in developing medicines for treating atopic dermatitis and ichthyosis. Defects of the skin barrier can trigger skin diseases such as atopic dermatitis, which afflicts ~10% of the population in some developed countries. Acylceramide, a lipid only found in skin, plays a pivotal role in forming this barrier. Although most of the genes needed to generate this special lipid have been recently identified, the gene responsible in the final step to produce acylceramide has been missing...

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