For The San Diego Union-Tribune
Stories for the waiting room
Here’s something to noodle. There’s an urgent need for new, more effective antidepressant medications. Before those drugs can be used in humans, they’re often tested in animal models, specifically mice.
How do you recognize a depressed mouse? According to STAT, you use a forced swim test developed in 1977: “a mouse is placed in a small tank filled with water. When the mouse stops fighting to escape and simply floats, unmoving, researchers label that mouse in a depressive state. In the ‘tail suspension test,’ a mouse is dangled by its tail in a small chamber. Again, once it stops trying to escape, it is officially depressed.”
Who wouldn’t be, just hanging around?
Some researchers are now proposing new tests be developed that aren’t so, well, inhumane and depressing.
Chip off the old brain
The futuristic notion of a brain-computer interface just got one step closer.
Synchron, a neurotechnology startup, reports that implanting its Stentrode device, which allows users to control personal devices using their thoughts, in six patients with neurodegenerative diseases, did not produce dangerous side effects.
A few participants initially reported mild headaches, but none had a serious event, such as stroke. The signal from the implant did not weaken over 12 months, nor did it migrate from its initial position in the brain, a problem with attempts by others.
The next step is to conduct trials to prove the technology’s clinical significance to the FDA. The company also recently demonstrated that people with its implant can connect with consumer technologies such as Amazon’s Alexa, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s mixed-reality headset.
(Adobe Stock)
Body of knowledge
At a mere 4 microns, sperm are the human body’s smallest cells, 20 times smaller than a human egg, which is the body’s biggest cell. A micron is 0.000039ths of an inch or one millionth of a meter. A typical human hair, by comparison, is 70 microns in diameter.
Counts
50 — Number of face transplants performed worldwide since the first in 2005
Source: JAMA Surgery
Note: For the vast majority of the transplants, the grafts were still holding and successful five to 10 years later. Patient deaths were common between 8 to 12 years after surgery, mostly due to complications from chronic immunosuppressant use.
(Adobe Stock)
Doc talk
Levator labii superioris alaeque nasi — a muscle in your face that widens the nostrils and elevates the upper lip, allowing you to snarl
(Ivan Zhdan / Adobe Stock)
Phobia of the week
Oneirophobia — fear of dreams (this is one phobia you can lose sleep over)
Observation
“She said she was approaching forty. I couldn’t help wondering from what direction.”
— Comedian Bob Hope (1903-2003)
(Adobe Stock)
Medical history
This week in 1970, Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling declared that large doses of vitamin C could ward off the common cold. He proposed that regular intake of vitamin C in amounts far higher than the officially sanctioned Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) could help prevent and shorten the duration of illness. He concluded that the optimal daily intake of vitamin C for most people is 2.3 grams to 10 grams daily.
The current RDA varies by age, pregnancy and breastfeeding status. For men age 19 and older, it’s 90 milligrams (mg) per day. Women 19 and older: 75 mg per day. Pregnant women: 85 mg per day. Breastfeeding women: 120 mg per day.
Although the medical establishment immediately voiced their strong opposition to Pauling’s idea, many lay people believed him and take large amounts of vitamin C.
It’s rare to overdose on vitamin C because the body cannot store it. Excess is excreted, but it too much can cause stomach problems, diarrhea and possibly kidney stones. Although not conclusively proven, subsequent studies suggest vitamin C can lessen and shorten the symptoms of a cold, but it does not prevent viral infection.
(Adobe Stock)
Self-exam
Q: Which of the following structures is located in the alveolar processes?
a) teeth
b) villi
c) hard palate
d) soft palate
A: a. Teeth are located in the alveolar processes. The alveolar processes are the bony ridges that support and hold the teeth in place within the oral cavity. The teeth are anchored in the alveolar sockets, which are sockets within the alveolar processes.
Epitaphs
And alien tears will fill for him
Pitys long broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
— Headstone of Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), from his poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.”
LaFee is vice president of communications for the Sanford Burnham Prebys research institute.