Health | WPN World People News

A long-anticipated revision of an official diagnostic guide to mental illness, known as the DSM-5, was released this week. While the new manual is being welcomed by some doctors as reflecting advancements in the understanding and diagnosis of mental disorders, critics say its definitions of psychiatric conditions are based too much on symptoms and too little on the biological causes of mental illness.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health report they have discovered in mouse studies that a small molecule released in the spinal cord triggers a process that is later experienced in the brain as the sensation of itch.

Scientists have reversed behavioral and brain abnormalities in adult mice that resemble some features of schizophrenia by restoring normal expression to a suspect gene that is over-expressed in humans with the illness.

Image shows a hair follicle in the skin surrounded by bacteria and fungi under a fluorescent microscope. The samples were obtained from skin on the back of a study participant. Fungi appear blue-green, bacteria appear pink and skin cells and the hair shaft appear yellow.

Scientists and economists say the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China has cost that country's poultry industry $6.5 billion, as consumers shun chicken and health officials make gains in controlling the deadly virus.