|
A.
Treatment Options for Cerebral Aneurysms
Narrator: This is Science Today. About 30
thousand Americans suffer from ruptured cerebral
aneurysms each year. This is caused by a bulge in
a blood vessel, which balloons out and weakens the
vessel wall. Clay Johnston, a professor of neurology
at the University of California, San Francisco says
once a rupture occurs, about fifty percent of patients
die and half of the patients who do survive, will
suffer some kind of permanent disability.
Johnston: Because it's so devastating when
one ruptures, there has been a lot of interest in
preventing the rupture. So very sophisticated techniques
for treating these have been developed, primarily
by neurosurgeons. More recently, too, by radiologists
and the idea there is to plug up the aneurysm.
Narrator: This is done by inserting a long
catheter into an artery in the groin area, which
reaches the neck of the aneurysm in the brain. There,
small metal coils fill up the aneurysm, ultimately
clotting it off.
Johnston: It's still in its infancy, but
it looks like it's gonna be a potentially safer
alternative for some patients.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa
Branin.
B.
A Powerful Message for Victims of Domestic Violence
Narrator: This is Science Today. There are
so many barriers when it comes to victims discussing
domestic violence. But Barbara Gerbert, a behavioral
scientist at the University of California, San Francisco,
is shedding light on how physicians have helped victims
of domestic violence speak up and ultimately seek
help.
Gerbert: Women told stories about physicians
who had seemed non-judgmental, who had asked in a
way that gave them permission to reveal what was truly
going on, who had seemed genuinely concerned and seem
to have time to listen if there was an affirmative
answer that they had been abused.
Narrator: Many of the women interviewed also
felt validated by their doctors telling them either
directly or indirectly, that they didn't deserve the
abuse.
Gerbert: We think that the main message that
we have - that validation is important for victims
of domestic violence, applies to anyone.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
A Surprising Public Health Study
Narrator: This is Science Today. Using a computer
simulation model, researchers have projected the impact
of national cholesterol guidelines between the years
2000 and 2020. Dr. Lee Goldman, a professor of medicine
at the University of California, San Francisco who
led the study, says the results were surprising.
Goldman: We found that the public health benefit
is greatest in people who already have heart disease.
And that came as a bit of a surprise to me because
one would have thought - there are five or ten million
people with heart disease, but that means there are
more than 250 million Americans without heart disease.
And you would have thought somehow that aggregate,
they would have had more benefit than five or ten
million with it.
Narrator: These projections were validated
by results in randomized trials.
Goldman: If there's some unforeseen change
in medical care - someone creates a sugar pill that
wipes out heart disease - obviously our projections
will no longer be accurate. But within the context
of what we currently know today, our projections have
proven accurate.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Finding the Key to Happiness
Narrator: This is Science Today. It seems the
sometimes elusive road to happiness may be found by
not comparing yourself to others. Research conducted
by Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University
of California, Riverside, found unhappy people tend
to be much more influenced by social comparisons.
Lyubomirsky:
Every day in our lives, we're inundated with information
about how other people are faring, relative to us.
By other people's successes and failures, their personalities,
their lifestyles, how much money they make, how attractive
they are. People who are unhappy are much more influenced
by this kind of information. They think about it a
great deal and that makes them even more unhappy.
People who are happy, while they can not ignore information
about how people are doing, they don't worry about
it too much, they just focus on themselves.
Narrator: The key for unhappy people is not
to dwell.
Lyubomirsky: If you find yourself thinking
about how your friend is more attractive than you
are or your colleague is making more money than you
are - distract yourself. Think about something else.
Do something engaging or fun.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Enriching The Brain At Any Age
Narrator: This is Science Today. A brain at any
age benefits from enrichment. Marian Diamond, a professor
and brain researcher at the University of California,
Berkeley, says that's because dendrites - the branches
on nerve cells - flourish with stimulation.
Diamond: When we stimulate a nerve cell, the
branches grow just like the fingers unwinding from
a folded hand and when we cut out the input to that
nerve cell, you lose those branches.
Narrator: Diamond has studied the brains of
rats for over 30 years and although the young benefit
the most, rats of all ages grow these new branches
when stimulated.
Diamond: Providing they were healthy, had good
diets, had clean conditions and so forth and a minimum
of stress as far as we know, we could stimulate the
branches of the nerve cells which receive the stimuli
that are coming in. These are the receptive surface,
so the more branches that you have, the more options
the nerve cell can take.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
|
