Categories
Cardiovascular
Diagnostics
Endocrinology
Health Insurance
Medical Devices
Mental Health
Nutrition
Oncology
Public Health
Sexual Health
payday loans
Popular Articles

The Multiple Health Benefits Of Dairy Foods Examined By New Science Review
WHAT: Food prices rose by 5.5 percent in the past year and are expected to increase up to an additional 4 percent in 2009. Americans are seeking to get the most out of their dollar, and since together, dairy foods provide a unique package of nine essential nutrients, they are a nutritional bang for the buck.
generic viagra online
Rare Disorder Gives Modelers First Glimpse At Immune System Development
Children born without thymus glands have given Duke University Medical Center researchers a rare opportunity to watch as a new immune system develops its population of infection-fighting T-cells.
News of the day
Pfizer To Give Away 70 Of Its Most Widely Prescribed Drugs To Those Who Lost Jobs
Pfizer on Thursday announced a new program that would provide some of its existing customers access to more than 70 types of medications at no cost if they have recently been laid off or lost their prescription drug coverage, USA Today reports. The program -- called MAINTAIN, or Medicines Assistance for Those who Are in Need -- will begin July 1. To receive the drugs, individuals must show that they have been unemployed since Jan. 1 and that they no longer have prescription drug insurance. They also must prove that they cannot pay for their medications and that they were taking a medication listed under the program for at least three months prior to losing their jobs. Those who meet the eligibility requirements would receive their medications at no cost for up to one year, or until they have insurance coverage. Pfizer will accept applications through Dec. 31 (Petrecca, USA Today, 5/15).According to the AP/Detroit News, medications listed for the new patient drug-assistance program include some of Pfizer"s "top money makers," such as the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor, the painkiller Celebrex, the fibromyalgia treatment Lyrica and the impotency treatment Viagra (Johnson, AP/Detroit News, 5/14).Ray Kerins, a spokesperson for Pfizer, declined to reveal how much the program would cost the pharmaceutical company or how many potential customers might benefit from it (Bloomberg/Miami Herald, 5/15).According to the AP/News, the program "could earn Pfizer some goodwill" after "long being a target of critics of drug industry prices and sales practices" (AP/Detroit News, 5/14). Scott Morgan, president of ad agency Brunner, said, "It goes beyond goodwill. There"s definitely a marketing strategy behind this about defending against generics and maintaining your consumer base. ... It"s a pretty savvy move" (USA Today, 5/15).
Cardiovascular

Real Time Snapshot Of The Learning Process

To learn from experience, it is essential to know whether a past action was associated with a desired outcome. Now, scientists have demonstrated how this information can be coded by a single cell. The research, published in the July 30th issue of the journal Neuron, provides strong support for a neural mechanism that allows reward signals to be combined over time to drive successful learning. The lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the basal ganglia (BG) have been shown to play a key role in flexible association learning. "We have known for some time that neurons in both areas care about response outcome - when we tell the animals whether they were correct or wrong, those neurons fire strongly. But we found that those responses can be maintained for a long time," explains lead study author, Dr. Mark H. Histed from the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. "In order to learn, you need to remember what you did before and whether that action was beneficial or not. These neurons carry that sort of memory." Dr. Histed and his colleagues, Drs. Anitha Pasupathy and Earl K. Miller from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studied the responses of neurons in the PFC and BG as animals performed a learning task where they were rewarded for making a correct association between a visual stimulus and an eye movement response. The researchers found that the activity of many of the neurons reflected the delivery (correct response) or withholding (incorrect response) of a reward and that this activity lasted for several seconds, the entire period between trials. Importantly, the researchers also observed that the outcome of a single trial impacted the neural representation of the learned association. Specifically, the response selectivity was stronger on a given trial if the previous trial had been rewarded and weaker if the previous trial was incorrect and therefore did not earn a reward. "In other words, only after successes, not failures, did brain processing and the monkeys" behavior improve", said Dr. Miller. These results show that cells in the PFC and BG not only exhibit robust and persistent signals about the outcome of behavioral responses, but that their selectivity is modulated based on trial outcome, demonstrating how behavioral outcome signals can shape learning. "Our observations may represent a snapshot of the leaning process - how single cells change their responses in real time as a result of information about what is the right action and what is the wrong one," conclude the authors. The researchers include Mark H. Histed, Anitha Pasupathy, and Earl K. Miller, of the The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA Cathleen Genova Cell Press


Add your comment:
Name:
Site address: http://
Your message:
Enter today\\\\'s date, 2 digits
(spam protection):

© Copyright 2009