Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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mental health

Gulf residents and workers face heat exhaustion, mental stress

Residents and relief workers along the oil-ravaged Gulf of Mexico could experience a host of short- and long-term health problems, including respiratory ailments, neurological symptoms, heat exhaustion and mental stress.

Emory University environmental health expert Linda McCauley, RN, PhD, is one of more than a dozen national scientists participating in a two-day Institute of Medicine (IOM) workshop in New Orleans exploring some of the potential health risks that people in the Gulf could face.

Short term, McCauley says, there could be reports of respiratory problems from people who’ve inhaled gas fumes as well as neurological issues such as dizziness, headaches, nausea and vomiting. In addition, exposure to oil may cause eye and skin irritation.

Heat stress is also a major concern for workers in the Gulf, says McCauley, dean of Emory’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

“On some of the days it’s been so hot they’ve only allowed workers to work 12 minutes out of the hour,” she says. “A lot of new workers are being brought in [to clean up the oil]. These are workers who don’t do this for a living and may never have been exposed to this type of heat before and that’s a serious issue.”

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Posted on June 22, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Some thoughts on the pursuit of happiness

Corey Keyes, PhD

What does it truly mean to be in good mental health? How are good mental health and mental illness connected? That is, does being in good mental health simply mean the absence of mental illness, or is there more to it than that? And how do people achieve a healthy state of both body and mind?

These are some of the complex questions Emory researchers brought to the fore in a discussion over lunch last month.

Speaker Corey Keyes, an Emory sociologist, made clear the absence of illness does not necessarily mean the presence of health. He noted that the ancient Greeks batted around the subject of mental health, specifically, happiness. Some championed emotions and pleasures as a path to happiness, others tranquility, freedom and reflection. Read more

Posted on April 9, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

A new trend in medicine: redefining disease

Paul Wolpe, PhD

You may have already heard that last month Emory held its fifth annual predictive health symposium “Human Health: Molecules to Mankind.” Researchers, physicians, health care workers and members of the community from throughout the country met to learn about intriguing research and provocative commentary by health care experts.

One of those experts, Paul Wolpe, director of the Emory Center for Ethics, says health care has changed as more and more aspects of ordinary life or behaviors are being redefined as medical. For example, being drunk and disorderly has become alcoholism. Now, virtually all of life is being redefined in biological terms, he says. And that, says Wolpe, has led to an increase in health care costs. We have an enormous amount of new things that we are calling illness, and we expect our health care system to treat them, he says. “We are creating a new category of disease called pre-symptomatic.”

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Posted on January 21, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Cancer survivors may have psychological distress

Long-term survivors of cancer that developed in adulthood are at increased risk of experiencing serious psychological distress, according to a report in the July 27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

The estimated 12 million cancer survivors in the United States represent approximately 4 percent of the population.

Commenting on this week’s study, Michael Burke, MD, clinical director of psychiatric oncology at Emory Winship Cancer Institute, says only recently has the emotional wellbeing of cancer patients been given serious consideration by physicians and patients. Yet, easing the disease’s emotional burden on patients and families may improve patients’ treatment and prognosis.

Michael Burke, MD

Michael Burke, MD

Burke has conducted studies focused on the effects of the disease’s emotional burden on patients and families and whether easing that burden can improve patients’ treatment and coping skills. Burke and his colleagues offer a collaborative approach toward therapies for the emotional, psychological, and physical symptoms associated with cancer and its treatment.

A history of cancer may affect current mental health in several ways, says the Archives study author and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researcher. The researcher reports that cancer diagnosis and treatment can produce delayed detrimental effects on physical health and functioning such as secondary cancers, cardiac dysfunction, lung dysfunction, infertility, neurological complications and neurocognitive dysfunction. A cancer history, they continue, can also affect social adaptation, employment opportunities and insurance coverage. Adjusting to these functional and life limitations may create long-term psychological stress.

Emory’s Burke says to help patients cope with a diagnosis of cancer, he and his colleagues evaluate patients’ medical and personal history, environment and health behaviors, such as whether they’re getting enough exercise or increasingly using alcohol and tobacco.

Listen to Burke’s own words on Sound Science about how he helps patients cope with the emotional aspects of cancer.

Posted on July 29, 2009 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment