Health | WPN World People News

Norovirus is now the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis among children less than 5 years of age who seek medical care, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Norovirus was responsible for nearly 1 million pediatric medical care visits for 2009 and 2010 in the United States, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in treatment costs each year.

When they were infants, children who were later diagnosed with autism took longer to shift their gaze during a measure of eye movements than did infants who were not diagnosed with autism. The researchers believe that brain circuits involved with a brain structure known as the splenium of the corpus callosum (shown in this scan) may account for the differences in gaze shifting between the two groups.

People with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression can lose weight and keep it off through a modified lifestyle intervention program, a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded study reported.

WHO and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria said today that strains of tuberculosis with resistance to multiple drugs could spread widely and highlight an annual need of at least US$ 1.6 billion in international funding for treatment and prevention of the disease.

During waking hours, electrical signals travel from dendrites — antenna-like projections at one end of the cell — through the cell body. From the cell body, they then travel the length of the axon, a single long projection at the other end of the cell. This electrical signal stimulates the release of chemicals at the end of the axon, which bind to dendrites on adjacent cells, stimulating these recipient cells to fire electrical signals, and so on. When groups of cells repeatedly fire in this way, the electrical signals increase in intensity. Dr. Bukalo and her team examined electrical signals that traveled in reverse?from the cell’s axon, to the cell body, and out its many dendrites. The reverse firing, depicted in this diagram, happens during sleep and at rest, appearing to reset the cell and priming it to learn new information.