A.
Opioids Offer Significant Reduction in Nerve Damage
Pain
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Researchers at the University
of California, San Francisco, have shown that people
suffering from chronic pain due to nervous system
damage improved significantly after taking the morphine-like
opioid medication, levorphanol. Dr. Michael Rowbotham,
director of the UCSF Pain Clinical Research Center,
says although controversial, there is now evidence
that using opioids to treat chronic pain is a viable
treatment option.
Rowbotham:
Opioids
are controversial for treating chronic pain because
they're highly regulated substances because of their
abuse potential and because they are frequently
abused. But all the work done over the past ten
to twelve years in patients with neuropathic pain
has supported the concept that neuropathic pain
does respond to opioids.
Narrator:
Rowbotham found that study participants receiving
the higher strength capsules of levorphanol had
a significant reduction in pain.
Rowbotham:
But they achieved that by taking significantly
fewer capsules.
Narrator:
Still, Rowbotham warns that opioids are not
for everyone. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Researchers Tapped to Study Sleep Deprivation
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Under contracts with the
Navy and the Army, researchers at the University
of California, San Diego are studying how sleep
deprivation affects the brain - and why some people
can function well with little sleep. In previous
studies of the brain using functional magnetic resonance
imaging, UC San Diego researcher Greg Brown said
they made some surprising discoveries.
Brown:
We found that all regions in
the anterior portion of the brain that were active
when subjects were well-rested, remain active when
they were sleep deprived and some additional areas
of he anterior brain region also became active with
memorizing.
Narrator:
Although sleep deprivation has many adverse
effects, these findings suggest the brain can adapt
to a lack of sleep.
Brown:
The ultimate
goal would be to understand the limits of this adaptation
and the conditions under which adaptation can occur
to sleep deprivation and the conditions under which
limits to that adaptation can occur.
Narrator:
In the Army study, scientists plan to study how the
brain functions with as much as 62 hours without sleep.
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Bridging the Social and Scientific Impacts of Genomics
Narrator:
This is Science Today. With the recent completion
of the Human Genome Project, scientists are striving
to create a socially aware dialogue on the impacts
of genomics. Patricia Benner, a professor of physiological
nursing at the University of California, San Francisco,
explains the importance of bridging the social and
the scientific in this new phase.
Benner:
If we have the genomic science captivate us in a
such way that it is the only solution that shows
up, it ignores the social, environmental influences
and causes that should be attended to create a good
life.
Narrator:
On the other hand, Benner says an extreme environmentalist
position ignores the possibility that might be addressed
at the genomic level of research and intervention.
Benner:
And it is here that I think the genomic revolution
recapitulates that problem that we've had in regular
medicine - to separate the body from the mind and
isolate the medical from the social.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Why Calorie Restrictive Diets May Not Suit People
Narrator:
This is Science Today. In a society often described
as youth-obsessed, American consumers are bombarded
with anti-aging products, whether they be to erase
wrinkles or to increase lifespan. University of
California, Berkeley nutrition expert, Joanne Ikeda,
says one of the anti-aging diets gaining widespread
attention is based on calorie restriction diets
in rats that were found to increase longevity.
Ikeda:
And so based on this, there had been some anti-aging
diet books written with a claim that people can
lengthen their lifespan to 120 years or even 150
years!
Narrator:
But Ikeda says that when the calorie restriction
diets were later tested in a yearlong study of men,
the research revealed that the men became more irritable
and withdrawn.
Ikeda:
What this study tells us is when you restrict your
calorie intake, it does have profound effects on
your psychological and social well-being.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
The Revolutionary Gamma Knife Procedure
Narrator:
This is Science Today. The gamma knife is a non-invasive
procedure that delivers highly focused radiation
therapy and is used for certain brain tumors. UCLA
had the first gamma knife in North America, but
Dr. Neil Martin, the chief of UCLA's Division of
Neurosurgery, says they're now using a more modern
equivalent.
Martin:
A shaped beam computer-guided radiosurgery unit
that actually can hit the tumor with any shape field
as opposed to this fixed, spherical fields that
the gamma knife has used in the past. So no matter
what the configuration of the tumor, it could be
hit quite precisely with radiation therapy.
Narrator:
And Martin says in many cases, that's the optimal
treatment.
Martin:
Surgery is still required in the majority of cases
of brain tumors, but the surgical approach is now
much more precise. They're computer-guided, they're
minimally invasive and they're a whole different
experience than what they were fifteen years ago.
Narrator:
UCLA's Division of Neurosurgery recently celebrated
their 50th year. For Science Today, I'm Larissa
Branin.
