Health and Medicine

For the first time ever, the International Conference on Thinking is taking place in the United States, bringing more than 250 scholars of cognition to Brown this week.

In an editorial in JAMA, two experts including Brown University dermatologist Dr. Martin Weinstock question a USPSTF determination that there isn't enough evidence to recommend that clinicians visual screen for skin cancer, such as melanoma.

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by Brown University neuroscientists proposes a new theory — backed by data from people, animal models and computational simulation — to explain how beta waves emerge in the brain.

A new study reports that a genetic variant that affects energy metabolism and fat storage partly explains why Samoans have among the world’s highest levels of obesity.

At a conference in the United Kingdom, scientists with the LUX dark matter experiment present results from the detector’s final 20-month run.

In a new paper, two scholars — one medical, one legal — propose a set of practical guidelines to prevent the bitter arguments over frozen embryos that have confounded U.S. courts.

A new analysis of survey responses from more than 100 child daycare center directors suggests that stronger nutritional guidelines, like those enforced by a federal food subsidy program for low-income kids, lead to healthier meals.

A new five-year agreement continues the formal educational partnership between the Alpert Medical School and Hope Hospice & Palliative Care.

Research that reveals what goes wrong in SMA and suggests that a mild version of the same genetic defect may protect relatives against infection, which could explain why SMA is relatively common disease.

After researchers spent years developing an artificial intelligence technology to monitor lab animal behavior, a team of recently graduated entrepreneurs is investigating its commercial potential.

Experts concerned that primary care screening for melanomas could lead to widespread misdiagnoses or overtreatment can take comfort in the results of a new study that found no such problems.

With a new five-year federal grant, the Rhode Island Center for Clinical Translational Science will strengthen connections between scientific discovery and health around the state.

Volunteers in a brain science experiment learned associations between patterns and color such that when shown the patterns later, they were still biased to perceive the color even if it wasn’t really there.

Full of practical, graphical guides for the general public and up-to-the-minute epidemiological data for healthcare providers and policymakers, a new website aims to use information to prevent overdose deaths

A large Brown University study finds patients who exhibited delirium at the time they entered a nursing home were significantly more likely to die or return to the hospital within 30 days and were less likely to recover fully if they returned home.

Seed funding of $25,000 per project will jump-start five studies related to medical concerns and basic research.

The conditions in which medical personnel and volunteers worked during the period of military rule in Egypt challenged the established understanding of medical neutrality, a new study reveals.

A large study confirms that physical activity provides Brazilians with significant cardio-metabolic health benefits, but reports that fewer than three in 10 participants are active.

In a study using tadpoles, neuroscientists tracked how the brain develops its sense of whether two sensory inputs — for example, vision and touch — happened at the same time.

In a new study in mice, researchers overcame a process by which cancer co-opts a fundamental protein into protecting it against the body’s defenses.

In a new study of hundreds of Cincinnati moms, higher levels of exposure to the common industrial chemical PFOA were linked to a greater likelihood of ending breastfeeding by three months.

Scientists studying how stress in early childhood affects the brain have new evidence from a study in male mice that a key region appears to mature faster.

A new intervention may help mitigate some of the sleep disruption, depression and anxiety that can plague some new moms during pregnancy and postpartum.

A new study suggests that if prison health providers ask women whether they have exchanged sex for drugs or money, they may find that more than one in four have, and that they are at especially high risk for health and social problems.

Destined to encounter patients with addiction to opioids, students from across the health care disciplines and from a number of Rhode Island’s colleges and universities learned to work as a team to save lives.

A study in JAMA Internal Medicine reports wide disparities in the quality of care for Medicare Advantage plan holders in Puerto Rico compared to those in the 50 states. The quality gaps exist in the context of the territory’s significant economic challenges and low and declining payments from the Medicare program.

Have trouble sleeping on your first night in a new place? A new study explains what’s going on in the brain during that “first-night effect.”

Scientists report a new degree of success in using brain scans to distinguish between adults diagnosed with autism and people without the disorder, an advance that could lead to the development of a diagnostic tool.

A new study of hundreds of emergency department visits finds that the links between substance misuse and suicide risk are complex, but that use of cocaine and alcohol together was particularly significant.

Four upcoming events, all free and open to the public, feature timely topics in public health such as women’s issues around the globe and preventing youth gun violence.

As someone who has studied nutrition and health in Samoans over the last 40 years, Brown University public health researcher Stephen McGarvey provided data for new publications on the global trends in obesity and type 2 diabetes reported in The Lancet.

A collaboration launched over lunch has now become a two-day international conference at Brown on April 8 and 9 — the goal has been to examine ways that early life stress affects the brain with the hope of assisting those working to help refugee children, such as those displaced by five years of fighting in Syria.

Brown professor of neuroscience is in Uruguay this week to be celebrated as a newly elected fellow of the International Society of Neuroethology.

Brown’s Katherine Sharkey and a consortium of researchers will combine a mobile app with genetic screening to better understand what puts women at risk for postpartum depression.

At exactly noon, a record number of Alpert Medical School students learned where they will start their medical careers. Brown University's festive Match Day event, like those held at medical schools across the country, reveals where graduating MDs will serve as medical residents.

Dr. Rami Kantor will serve an initial four-year term on a federal panel that sets recommendations for how antiretroviral medications should be used to treat and prevent HIV.

The U.S. has reached a record-high rate of twin births, and the use of in vitro fertilization is part of the reason. But in a commentary in this month’s American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Dr. Eli Adashi argues that implemented differently, IVF could instead reduce the rate toward natural levels.

From perspectives both professional and personal, six speakers convened by the School of Public Health and the Graduate Student Council Feb. 25 discussed the societal and individual damage done by racial bias. But they also shared strategies for addressing some of the systemic challenges racism poses for health and research.

A new study finds a strong correlation between new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men in Rhode Island and their use of online hookup sites. Study authors at Brown University, The Miriam Hospital, and the Rhode Island Department of Health called for operators of hookup websites and apps to work with public health officials to include more prevention messaging.

With a public lecture series, including a talk Feb. 25 and proposed curriculum enhancements for students in all four years, the Alpert Medical School plans to provide students training in mindfulness. The practice can be an effective tool to remain psychologically resilient amid the uniquely difficult experiences of medical school and professional practice.

Two potential ways of stamping out serious disease by manipulating the genomes of human embryos are under intense public debate: mitochondrial replacement therapy and germline genome editing. The UK has already approved the former. Its process could guide the U.S. as it considers allowing either or both of the techniques.

Brown University researchers investigating how mindfulness may affect cardiovascular health have measured a significant association between a high degree of ‘everyday’ mindfulness and a higher likelihood of having normal, healthy glucose levels. Their analysis showed that a lower risk of obesity and greater sense of control among more mindful people may play mediating roles.

With bright futures of their own, dozens of Alpert Medical School students every fall mentor local teens from disadvantaged high schools to help them plan their paths. Each January, mentees present the health and medical research guided by their mentors, who introduce them to health care careers and encourage them to thrive in other ways, too.

The Zika virus, best known for its strongly suspected link to fetal birth defects, has become a major health crisis in Central and South America. On Weds. Feb. 10 at 12:30, Brown University experts will gather to “separate fact from fiction” concerning the emergency.

Earthquakes that happen deep beneath the earth's surface have long been enigmatic to geologists. Now researchers from Brown University have shown strong evidence that water squeezed out of a mineral called lawsonite could trigger these mysterious quakes.

Brown University epidemiologist Joseph Braun has shown that prenatal exposure to PFAS chemicals is associated with greater adiposity in children. With a new $2-million grant from the National Institutes of Health, he will examine how the chemicals may have that effect and when exposure is most crucial.

A newly published review article finds that use of infertility treatments in the United States, ranging from medicines to in vitro fertilization, is likely hindered by widespread gaps in insurance coverage of reproductive services and technology.

Aaron Held’s research merges and draws on the expertise of two of the labs in Brown’s broad effort to combat ALS. That role has given him several opportunities to learn novel skills and new science during graduate school.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — ALS — can arise from aberrant genes. A group of five Brown University professors proposes that a cure may also come from aberrant genes — genetic mutations that suppress ALS. A new research grant supports their comprehensive investigation of ALS in flies, worms, mice and human cells.

The idea of legalizing physician assistance in the planned death of terminally ill patients is rapidly gaining political traction across the United States, write Eli Adashi and Ryan Clodfelter in the Journal of the American Medical Association.