Sunday, August 07, 2005

New hope for schizophrenia sufferers Research Australia press release at EurekAlert - "Key research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) could lead to the first early diagnostic tool for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. 'At the moment we don't have any biological tests for these conditions,' said one of the authors, UNSW Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Philip Ward, who is based at Liverpool Hospital's Schizophrenia Research Unit. 'Our research could eventually lead to a simple, cost-effective and safe way to distinguish patients with schizophrenia from those suffering bipolar disorder. This is important because a patient can get treatment sooner and hopefully have a better outcome.' "  
  

Faulty Biological Clocks May Influence Addiction Science Daily story - "A gene that regulates the body's circadian rhythms, including sleep and wakefulness, body temperature, hormone levels, blood pressure and heart activity, may also play a central role in drug addiction, according to a recent study published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Although expressed primarily in the brain's circadian command center, biological clock genes have also been found in areas of the brain involved in reward and addiction. A team led by researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and including Northwestern University's Joseph S. Takahashi, Walter and Mary Elizabeth Glass Professor in the Life Sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, used mice lacking the Clock gene to examine the possible involvement of the biological clock system in the rewarding properties of cocaine..."