Improving gait and reducing fall risk in older adults with a single dose of ADHD drug
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have discovered that a single dose of methylphenidate (MPH), used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy, helps to improve balance control during walking, hence reducing the risk of falls among elderly adults. Falls in older adults are the leading cause of hip fractures and other injury-related visits to emergency rooms and of accidental death. Age-related deterioration in gait and balance is a major contributor to falls in older adults... (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)
Source: Health News from Medical News Today - July 19, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Seniors / Aging Source Type: news

Research Offers New Clue To Cause Of Human Narcolepsy
In 2000, researchers at the UCLA Center for Sleep Research published findings showing that people suffering from narcolepsy, a disorder characterized by uncontrollable periods of deep sleep, had 90 percent fewer neurons containing the neuropeptide hypocretin in their brains than healthy people. The study was the first to show a possible biological cause of the disorder... (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)
Source: Health News from Medical News Today - July 5, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Sleep / Sleep Disorders / Insomnia Source Type: news

UCLA researchers find new clue to cause of human narcolepsy
In 2000, researchers at the UCLA Center for Sleep Research published findings showing that people suffering from narcolepsy, a disorder characterized by uncontrollable periods of deep sleep, had 90 percent fewer neurons containing the neuropeptide hypocretin in their brains than healthy people. The study was the first to show a possible biological cause of the disorder.   Subsequent work by this group and others demonstrated that hypocretin is an arousing chemical that keeps us awake and elevates both mood and alertness; the death of hypocretin cells, the researchers said, helps explain the sleepiness of narcolepsy. B...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - July 2, 2013 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news

UCLA researchers find new clue to cause of human narcolepsy
(University of California - Los Angeles) UCLA researchers have found that an excess number of brain cells that produce the chemical histamine may cause the loss of other cells that produce hypocretin, the neuropeptide that keeps us awake, elevates mood and alertness, and, by their absence, explains the sleepiness of narcolepsy. (Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health)
Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health - July 2, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Source Type: news

The future of robotics: in a transhuman world, the disabled will be the ones without prosthetic limbs
Bertolt Meyer's amazing bionic hand controlled by an iPhone app is a glimpse of the advances being made in prosthetics. But in years to come, will everyone want one?Bertolt Meyer is used to being viewed as not fully human. Born with a stump where his left hand should have been, he spent his childhood wearing a hook connected to an elaborate pulley and harness. "To open the hook and grasp things I had to flex my shoulders like this," he says, striking a he-man pose. "The harness was very uncomfortable. To stop it chafing my skin, I had to wear a shirt underneath it at all times. I was always sweating."Even when, at the age ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - June 15, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Mark Honigsbaum Tags: Robots Sport Disability sport Society FutureFest Drugs in sport Technology Editorial The Observer Science Source Type: news