Monthly Archive for April, 2009
Tax Your Way Thin
The obesity epidemic in the United States has stirred emotions and inspired calls for public health initiatives to get American thin. The idea of food taxes on sugar-sweetened drinks levied to curb the consumption of such beverages is discussed in an article published by the New England Journal of Medicine. The idea of an excise tax on junk food is not new, but is up for debate again as states look for ways to reduce expenditures and increase revenues in tough economic times.
Objective Testing for Alzheimer’s Disease
The clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) at the earliest clinical stages can be difficult. Given the variability in clinical threshold at which there is functional compromise in one's social and professional life -- a necessary component to AD diagnosis -- there are several in-organic factors that affect early detection. Health professionals and biomedical scientists are searching for biomarkers, both biochemical or neuroimaging in nature, in order to objectively diagnose AD at various stages and provide invaluable prognostic information to the clinician. Whereas proteomic specialists have identified promising serum and CSF markers involved in AD pathophysiology (e.g. b-secretase, a key enzyme for amlyoid precursor protein cleavage), neuroradiologists have employed magnetic resonance in characterizing structural changes in the brain in vivo.
Free Will and the Philosophy of Science
For many years the discussion over the existence of free will was limited to philosophers and theologians. Scientists started talking about free will once science started separating as a discipline from philosophy. However, it wasn’t until the rise of functional neuroimaging that some neuroscientists started studying if the brain and deterministic brain processes could explain away free will. In short, some scientists want to discover whether or not free will is merely an illusion, an idea humans create out of an innate desire to feel in control.
Electronic Health Information – Small Steps, but No Giant Leaps
More than 5 years ago in his state of the union address, President George W. Bush announced a goal that all Americans have electronic health records within 10 years. Since then, momentum has been building towards that target, but we still have a long way to go. A recent special article published online by the New England Journal of Medicine reported that less than 2% of American hospitals have a comprehensive electronic records system in place in all major clinical units.
Popular Posts
- The Love Drug
- Women After Sex
- Fatty Acids and Suicide Risk
- Mind Games - Science's Attempts at Thought Control
- Risks of Personalized Medicine
- Is Giftedness Nothing More than Good Genes?
- Intelligence - Are You Holding Back Your Brain?
- Behind the Masks - The Mysteries of Dissociative Identity Disorder
- The NeuroSocial Network
- Inside Your Brain on Holiday
Future Posts
- Drug-Induced Mystical Experience
- Facebook – Coming to a 12-Step Program near You?
Latest Posts
- Therapeutic Analysis of Dreams – A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach
- Small Groups Make Women Stupid
- Psychotherapy and Clinical Boundaries
- The Brain’s Buying Power
- Aging Intelligently
- A Nicotine Patch a Day Keeps the Cognitive Impairment Away
- The Many Emerging Roles of Astrocytes
- Diabetes Impairs Cognition
- Media Violence Leads to Real Violence
- Intelligence – Are You Holding Back Your Brain?
Comments
- Psicologos Barcelona: Richard, tu español es muy bue
- Lage: Alexis,What evidence do yo
- Adi: Hi, with my best intentions an
- Tamara G. Suttle, M.Ed., LPC: Thanks so much, Richard, for d
- PhD: The title of this article is o
- Niobe Chacks: Well;the article is good but i
- Alexis Remm: LageI think that you don´t
- Lage: Alexis,You still never ans
- JamMiester1711: Be careful not to be miss info
- Ron: If there is such a thing as a
- Cory: How about how TV commercials t
- Caoimhin: This was extremely satisfying
