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The Medical Biochemistry Page

The Medical Biochemistry Page

http://themedicalbiochemistrypage.org/

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The human microbiome: Me, myself, us WHAT’S a man? Or, indeed, a woman? Biologically, the answer might seem obvious. Modafinil Modafinil is a wakefulness-promoting agent[3] (or eugeroic) that is approved by the United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of wakefulness disorders such as narcolepsy, shift work sleep disorder,[4][5] and excessive daytime sleepiness associated with obstructive sleep apnea.[6] In English-speaking countries it is sold under the brand names: Alertec (CA), Modavigil (AU, NZ), and Provigil (IE, ZA, UK, US). Medical uses[edit] Approved uses[edit] In 1998, modafinil was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration[7] for the treatment of narcolepsy and in 2003 for shift work sleep disorder and obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea[8] even though caffeine and amphetamine were shown to be more wakefulness promoting on the Stanford Sleepiness Test Score than modafinil.[9] EEG studies indicate caffeine, amphetamine, and modafinil to all be theta wave reducing but only modafinil to be Alpha wave promoting during wakefulness as well as theta wave increasing during sleep.[10]

100 Very Cool Facts About The Human Body The Brain The human brain is the most complex and least understood part of the human anatomy. There may be a lot we don’t know, but here are a few interesting facts that we’ve got covered. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Ever wonder how you can react so fast to things around you or why that stubbed toe hurts right away? It’s due to the super-speedy movement of nerve impulses from your brain to the rest of your body and vice versa, bringing reactions at the speed of a high powered luxury sports car.The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10-watt light bulb. How Marijuana Affects Memory: It's Not The Neurons Getting mice stoned can actually result in important scientific discoveries. Research published in March in Cell magazine reveal how marijuana impairs working memory, the short-term memory we use to hold on to and process thoughts. The classic example is of the stoner who forgets the point he was making, mid-sentence. To study exactly how cannabis affects working memory in such a fashion, Giovanni Marsicano of the University of Bordeaux in France and his colleagues removed cannabinoid receptors from neurons in mice, reports Ruth Williams at Scientific American. These receptors are proteins that respond to marijuana's chief psychoactive ingredient, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). The mice whose cannabinoid receptors had been removed from their neurons were just as forgetful as regular mice when given THC; that is to say, they were just as bad at memorizing the position of a hidden platform in a water pool.

collective intelligence course aims to improve responses to COVID-19, other crises The GovLab at NYU Tandon teams with 11 global institutions to offer free classes on effective disaster response BROOKLYN, New York, April 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Working with 11 partner institutions around the world, The Governance Lab (The GovLab) at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering today launches a massive open online course (MOOC) on “Collective Crisis Intelligence.” The course is free, open to anyone, and designed to help institutions improve disaster response through the use of data and volunteer participation. Thirteen modules have been created by leading global experts in major disasters such as the post-election violence in Kenya in 2008, the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011, the Ebola crisis in 2014, the Zika outbreak in 2016, and the current coronavirus. The course is designed to help those responding to coronavirus make use of volunteerism. More information on the courses is available at

How Hemp Got High If Genome Biology had been launched today, instead of 11 years ago, it might well have been given the alternative title of "Transcriptome Biology". While Genome Biology captured the millennial zeitgeist of genomics brought about by the project(s) to sequence the human genome, the breathtaking progress of this field in the intervening decade has brought us to a new frontier: the transcriptome. The development of RNA-seq, which applies high-throughput next-generation sequencing technology to cDNA generated from RNA samples, has resulted in an explosion of transcriptome sequences. Not only does RNA-seq benefit from higher sensitivity than microarrays, it also does not require the a priori knowledge needed for constructing chips; this flexibility has infused the transcriptome explosion with a biologically diverse character and encompassed many species not well covered by commercially available microarrays.

Homemade Bandages You may need to make a homemade bandage in an emergency situation when you have no ready-made first aid materials available. Some people also like to make their own bandages for cost or environmental reasons. Homemade bandages are much cheaper than over-the-counter alternatives, and allow you to use materials that would otherwise be thrown away. Making an Emergency Bandage Find some gauze to use as a dressing for the wound. The Hidden Costs of Automated Thinking Like many medications, the wakefulness drug modafinil, which is marketed under the trade name Provigil, comes with a small, tightly folded paper pamphlet. For the most part, its contents—lists of instructions and precautions, a diagram of the drug’s molecular structure—make for anodyne reading. The subsection called “Mechanism of Action,” however, contains a sentence that might induce sleeplessness by itself: “The mechanism(s) through which modafinil promotes wakefulness is unknown.” This approach to discovery—answers first, explanations later—accrues what I call intellectual debt. It’s possible to discover what works without knowing why it works, and then to put that insight to use immediately, assuming that the underlying mechanism will be figured out later. In some cases, we pay off this intellectual debt quickly.

3rd Anti-CGRP Treatment Galcanezumab Approved for Migraine New treatment, galcanezumab (Emgality™), designed to inhibit CGRP, reduce migraine frequency Eli Lilly and Company announced late September 2018 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved galcanezumab (Emgality™) for preventive migraine treatment in adults. This announcement comes a week after the FDA approved Teva Pharmaceutical’s fremanezumab-vfrm (AJOVY™) for migraine treatment, making it the third anti-CGRP treatment on the market. “The need for improved preventive treatment has been a long-standing priority,” said American Migraine Foundation Director Nim Lalvani. “These breakthrough treatments in the anti-CGRP class provide much-needed hope for our community of patients living with migraine.”

Methamphetamine Alters Brain Structures, Impairs Mental Flexibility A new study adds to the copious existing evidence that chronic exposure to addictive drugs alters the brain in ways that make quitting difficult. NIDA-supported researchers showed that, in monkeys, methamphetamine alters brain structures involved in decision-making and impairs the ability to suppress habitual behaviors that have become useless or counterproductive. The two effects were correlated, indicating that the structural change underlies the decline in mental flexibility. Human chronic methamphetamine users have been shown to differ from nonusers in the same ways that the post-exposure monkeys differed from their pre-exposure selves.

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