News by Subject Medicine & Health

Many women do not follow the recommended guidelines to avoid contraception for 18-months after bariatric surgery.

One of the largest and best-documented trials of children receiving early antiretroviral therapy -- the CHER clinical trial in South Africa -- finds ongoing white matter damage in HIV-positive children at the age of 7 years. The study aims to contribute to a better understanding of brain development in HIV-infected and exposed children, as well as the impact of long-term antiretroviral treatment.

Two recent studies led by biologists at the University of California San Diego have set the research groundwork for new avenues to treat influenza and anthrax poisoning. Published in PLOS Pathogens, the studies from Professor Ethan Bier's laboratory used a series of experiments to identify key pathways and mechanisms previously unknown or overlooked in the body's defenses, and possible treatments already developed.

Pregnant women who had low socioeconomic status during childhood and who have poor family social support appear to prematurely age on a cellular level, potentially raising the risk for complications, a new study has found.

Half a century of research on how the brain learns to integrate visual inputs from the two eyes has provided important insights in critical period regulation, leading to the conclusion that it occurs within the cortex. The Levelt group now made the surprising discovery that a brain region that passes on input from the eyes to the cortex also plays a crucial role in opening the critical period of binocular vision.

A new study found that girls and women in emergency contexts have inadequate access to safe and private facilities and supplies for menstrual hygiene management, and are provided with insufficient guidance by response teams on the basics of managing menstruation. Moreover, many staff have a limited understanding of what an improved response should entail, and instead, focus predominantly on supplies.

Most autism cases are in families with no previous history of the disorder. New mutations, that occur in offspring but not in their parents, might play a role. These mutations have now been found, not just in protein-coding genome areas, but also in regulatory regions. Many are in areas that influence gene activity in the brain's striatum, which coordinates motivation, planning and other aspects of cognition.