Treatment-resistant depression affects 1 in 3 of the estimated 16.2 million adults in the U.S. who have suffered at least one major depressive episode. For them, two or more therapies have failed and the risk of suicide is much greater. It’s a grim prognosis.
There are few therapies for depression that resists treatment, which is why the FDA granted this new drug application Fast Track and Breakthrough Therapy status. On March 5, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new treatment c ...read more
An hour before we spoke, Darragh O’Carroll, an emergency room physician from Hawaii, had just given an elderly patient a sedating shot of ketamine. The man had pneumonia and was acting confused and fidgety, making him hard to treat.
“Not only it was a pain control for him when I was putting needles into his neck, but it also kept him still,” O’Carroll says. “And with very minimal risk of lowering his blood pressure.”
Ketamine’s use as an anesthetic &m ...read more
Parkinson’s disease stinks. Figuratively. But according to new research, it literally stinks too — to those who have a heightened sense of smell. Thanks to the help of one of these “super-smellers,” a team of scientists has identified subtle volatile compounds produced by Parkinson’s sufferers. These compounds could be used to make much easier, and earlier, diagnostics for the disease.
According to the CDC, Parkinson’s is the second-most common neurodegenerat ...read more
Scientific papers should have two Discussion sections - one written by the authors, and the other by an independent researcher.
According to a new paper from Michael S. Avidan, John P. A. Ioannidis and George A. Mashour, this "second discussant" system could help ensure more balanced and objective inference in science.
The authors begin by noting that while the reproducibility crisis has focussed attention on the Methods and Results sections of papers, Discussion sections are not free ...read more
Flooding characterized by the National Weather Service as "major to historic and catastrophic" is continuing across parts of the central plains and Upper Midwest.
The flooding has come in the wake of last week's "bomb cyclone," which dumped heavy rain atop snowpack with high water content. The resulting runoff has triggered record-setting flooding throughout the Missouri and Mississippi river basins.
As I'm writing this on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 19, more ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine