A total eclipse of the sun is coming up next week, and many folks don’t know that watching it unprotected can cause permanent eye damage, a new survey finds. Nearly 30% of Americans don’t know that looking directly into a solar eclipse without proper eye protection can cause permanent distortions or blind spots in their vision, the researchers found. “The survey results highlight the need for more community education about the true dangers associated with a total eclipse,” said study author Dr. Nicholas Kman, a clinical professor of emergency medicine at the Ohio State University’s College of Medicine. “We can’t stress enough the importance of proper eye protection.” About 32 million Americans live in areas along the path of the total solar eclipse set to occur on April 8, researchers said. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun and blocks people’s view of the sun. When that happens, people in the “path of totality” will only be able to see the outer atmosphere of the sun, also known as the corona. Next week’s eclipse will start in southwest Texas and pass along the United States in a northeasterly line through parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Looking at an eclipse is the same as staring directly…  read on >  read on >

As their aging brains shrink, older dogs can suffer the same memory and thinking problems as many older humans do. But dogs are just like humans in another way — playtime and social activities can help preserve their brain function, a new study finds. Exercising, socializing, playing with toys and playing with other dogs helped a small group of beagles maintain their brains, researchers reported April 1 in the Journal of Neuroscience. Such social enrichment activities particularly helped maintain the size of the beagles’ hippocampus, a brain region tied to memory and emotion that is particularly sensitive to age-related decline, researchers said. Brain scans “showed that total hippocampal volume increased at an average rate of about 1.74% per year across treatment groups, contrasting with the age-related hippocampal volume decline” observed in previous studies, wrote the research team led by senior researcher Craig Stark, a professor of neurobiology at University of California, Irvine. For the study, researchers tracked the brain health of 43 middle-aged beagles, including 36 females and seven males, for three years as part of a study involving two potential drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. The dogs were all 6 years old at the start of the study. All dogs received daily exercise, play with a rotating set of toys and socialization. They also were allowed to play for a half-hour each day in male-only…  read on >  read on >

For folks who have battled alcohol dependency for years, any treatment that could curb or block alcohol cravings would be a huge advance. Now, research in mice is giving a glimmer of hope that just such a therapy might be possible. A compound — so far dubbed LY2444296 — appears to block a key brain cell receptor called the kappa opioid receptor (KOP), a team at the Scripps Research Institute in California reports. “Compounds designed to selectively block the KOP are very promising because this receptor is involved in a lot of mental illnesses, such as anxiety and depression,” said senior study author Rémi Martin-Fardon, an associate professor of molecular medicine at Scripps. “The KOP system is also important in alcohol use disorder, so the idea is if it’s targeted and blocked, you can stop alcohol abuse,” he explained in a Scripps news release. However, this research has so far only been conducted in mice. Experts are quick to point out that many findings seen in animals are not replicated in humans, and further study is needed. The new study was published recently in the journal Scientific Reports. Martin-Fardon’s team knew that the brain’s “KOP system” helps direct a range of brain responses including addiction, emotion, pain and reward-seeking. Alcohol intake can negatively affect KOP, as well. In the study, the Scripps team tested the…  read on >  read on >

Stem cells derived from a patient’s own fat can safely help improve sensation and movement after a spinal cord injury, a new, small study finds. Patients treated with these stem cells experienced increased sensation from pinpricks and light touches, increased muscle strength and better sphincter control, results show. “In spinal cord injury, even a mild improvement can make a significant difference in that patient’s quality of life,” said lead researcher Dr. Mohamad Bydon, a neurosurgeon with the Mayo Clinic. For the study, researchers collected a small amount of fat from the abdomen or thigh of 10 patients with traumatic spinal cord injuries. The patients all had been hurt in car crashes, falls and other traumatic accidents. Six had neck injuries and four had back injuries. Over the course of a month, researchers expanded stem cells derived from the fat until there were more than 100 million cells. They then injected the cells into the patient’s spine in the lower back. Seven of the 10 patients improved as a result of the injections, researchers said. These included two of three patients who started with no feeling or movement below the site of their spinal cord injury, results show. Only 5% of people with a complete spinal injury like that could expect to regain any feeling or movement, researchers noted. This improvement came with no serious side…  read on >  read on >

Folks suffering from dry eyes might have a problem with the naturally occurring bacteria found on the surface of their eyes, a new study suggests. There are key differences in the microbes found on dye eye patients compared to folks with normal eyes, researchers found. “Once we understand the eye microbiota properly, it will improve disease diagnosis at an early stage,” said lead researcher Alexandra Van Kley, a professor at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. Researchers found the specific bacteria species most prevalent in people with normal eyes were Streptococcus and Pedobacter. On the other hand, more Acinetobacter species were present in people with dry eye. “We think the metabolites produced by these bacteria are responsible for dry eye conditions,” researcher Pallavi Sharma, a graduate student in Van Kley’s lab, said in a university news release. “We are performing further research to understand the metabolic pathways associated with the Acinetobacter to better understand the disease.” For the study, researchers collected swab samples from the eyes of 30 volunteers, and then performed genetic analysis to determine the eye microbiome of each person. The researchers also believe that there’s a strong connection between the gut microbiome and the bacteria found in the eyes, Sharma said. “Any alteration in the gut microbiome affects other organs and can lead to disease,” Sharma said. “Therefore, we are…  read on >  read on >

Out of a host of possible risk factors for dementia, three really stood out in a new analysis: Diabetes, air pollution and alcohol. British and American researchers used brain scans to focus on a neurological network they labeled a “weak spot” in the brain. This network is known to be vulnerable to the effects of aging, as well as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other conditions. The neural network only begins to develop during adolescence, and also shows signs of degeneration earlier in old age, explained a team led by Gwenaëlle Douaud, an associate professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of Oxford. Her group examined brain scans from over 40,000 seniors, all of who also provided complex lifestyle and medical histories as part of the ongoing U.K. Biobank project. The study looked at the impact on the targeted neural network of 161 different risk factors for dementia. These included blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, weight, alcohol consumption, smoking, depressive mood, inflammation, pollution, hearing, sleep, socialization, diet, physical activity and education. Three risk factors appeared to weaken the network the most, Douaud said. “We know that a constellation of brain regions degenerates earlier in aging, and in this new study we have shown that these specific parts of the brain are most vulnerable to diabetes, traffic-related air pollution — increasingly a major player in dementia —…  read on >  read on >

ADHD stimulant medications like Ritalin or Adderall appear linked to a heightened risk for cardiomyopathy (a weakening of the heart muscle), and the risk grows with time, new research shows. However, researchers were quick to note that cardiomyopathies are rare in the young, and even with ADHD medication use the absolute risk to any one patient remains very small. Overall, folks ages 20 to 40 who were on a medication for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were 17% more likely to have cardiomyopathy at one year and 57% more likely to have cardiomyopathy at eight years, compared to their peers who weren’t taking the drugs. The study wasn’t designed to prove cause-and-effect. “The longer you leave patients on these medications, the more likely they are to develop cardiomyopathy, but the risk of that is very low,” said study lead author Pauline Gerard. She’s a second-year medical student at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “I don’t think this is a reason to stop prescribing these medications,” she said. “There’s very little increased risk of these medications over the long term; it’s a real risk, but it’s small.” The findings are slated to be presented April 7 at the American College of Cardiology annual meeting in Atlanta. The new study was based on data from 80 hospitals from across the United States, looking at people ages 20…  read on >  read on >