TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Astronauts await word of baby girl on Earth Atlantis' astronauts anxiously awaited word on the birth of one crewman's daughter Friday, as they moved more supplies into the International Space Station and geared up for another spacewalk. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Europe Pledges Billions in Climate Funding The offer of about $3 billion is an attempt to help the chances of reaching a deal at climate talks. feeds.nytimes.com |
A radical treatment for OCD Could Gamma Knife, a non-invasive brain surgery using radiation, help OCD sufferers who can't be helped by more established treatments?"One of our first patients, just 17 years old, was brought to us in a wheelchair," says Professor Christer Lindquist, a pioneer in the use of a brain surgery technique for people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), known as Gamma Knife. "This boy would set himself maths problems, which he had to solve before he could eat. His OCD had become so severe, and the maths problems he set himself so complex, that he couldn't solve them any more, so he couldn't eat."At Butler hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, Lindquist and colleagues put the boy in an MRI-like machine and passed beams of gamma radiation through his brain. These beams converged on a pinpoint-accurate spot where they created a lesion that damaged a tiny area of tissue, blocking the pathway that caused the OCD symptoms.This is modern psychosurgery, a hi-tech, experimental, descendant of the now infamous frontal lobotomy. It could offer hope to millions suffering from OCD, and other disorders such as severe depression.Over the past 10 years, Gamma Knife has become a highly effective treatment for brain tumours and there are now several Gamma Knife centres in the UK. Nick Plowman, consultant clinical oncologist at St Bartholomew's hospital, London, says that before Gamma Knife, an acoustic neuroma窶 a benign brain tumour 窶 would require a major operation. "Now you can do it in a fraction of the time, without opening the head, whilst the patient listens to music." Successful for nine out of 10 patients with this type of brain tumour, the radiation stops the tumour cells from reproducing, and in time they'll die.The surgery is also now widely used to treat certain brain conditions, such as a rare form of epilepsy and a condition called trigeminal neuralgia, where the patient experiences shooting pains in the face. Still, it could be a while before OCD sufferers will be offered Gamma Knife surgery in the UK. For this and other psychological problems, such as depression, Gamma Knife is still considered by many to be highly controversial.OCD affects around 2-3% of the UK population, and the usual treatments are medication or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). But these don't work for everyone. Joel Rose, director of the UK charity OCD Action, is not surprised that some are prepared to try experimental brain surgery. "People become paralysed," he says. "They're in a despairing state and they'll try anything to get out of it."However, many surgeons believe that we don't know enough about the brain circuits to tamper with them. "When it comes to treating OCD and other psychological disorders, Gamma Knife is totally unproven," says Plowman. It is certainly in its infancy. Lindquist carried out the first Gamma Knife treatments for OCD at Butler/Rhode Island in 1992. Since then, 56 people have had the procedure.About 60% of the patients at Rhode Island were much improved, but many were left with residual symptoms. "This might all sound lame," says Lindquist, "But you have to bear in mind that these people are suffering severely. They've been treated for years with the most advanced drugs and CBT."It can take up to a year to see any improvement, and "even if neurosurgical intervention is successful," says Richard Marsland, a psychologist at Butler who helps screen the patients, "they have to be included in an aftercare programme. Most patients acquired their OCD at an early age, and missed at least part of their normal development . . . they have to catch up."Gerry Radano, a former flight attendant from New York State, is one of the most vocal supporters of Gamma Knife for OCD. She was in three psychiatric hospitals and tried every medication available before having the surgery. "Gamma Knife is the best thing that ever happened to my OCD life," she writes on her website.But there are scare stories. One Ohio hospital stopped performing the procedure after a law suit in 2002, when a patient was left partially paralysed. "This should never happen," says Lindquist. In fact, he says "the main risks for the surgery are temporary lethargy or loss of initiative if too high a dose is given, which happens in around 10% of cases".The technique certainly could not be further from the brutal lobotomies made famous by Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. While the frontal lobotomy essentially destroys part of the brain, Gamma Knife is highly accurate and non-invasive, damaging only a minute area - 100 millimetres square - of brain tissue. It is usually done as an out-patient procedure. Some might experience a mild headache afterwards, but most report no physical problems at all."One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest did psychosurgery no favours," says Lindquist. "The treatment of psychiatric disorders is still surrounded by an aura of mysticism. We think about the psyche as something magical, and aren't willing to accept that a psychological disease could be a transmitter problem, just like Parkinson's disease." However, for OCD he admits, "it's still controversial. We have to be extremely careful that patients have exhausted all other avenues." As for the 17-year-old boy Lindquist operated on years ago? He is now a doctor himself.窶｢ This article was amended on Tuesday 15 December 2009 to clarify the size of the area of the brain affected by the Gamma Knife surgery.Obsessive-compulsive disorderHealth & wellbeingNeuroscienceMedical researchLucy Atkinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Snow has proved a real ice-breaker At last, the cold snap has given us Brits an excuse to do what comes naturally: help each otherThe man walked out of the chemist's shop, lost his footing and hit the ice with a crack that the two women inside at the fragrance section said they heard. Amazingly, he was OK, but his face registered that look of astonishment caused by only a bullet or the speed with which you are brought from confident upright locomotion to the incredibly hard ground in an ice fall. He picked himself up and brushed snow off while the two assistants cooed concern from the doorway and told him that he should put old socks over his Wellington boots because that would make them grip better, advice I somehow felt was not welcome.A beat later came the more interesting information, delivered with regretfully folded arms: they could not clear that particularly icy patch outside the shop because they had been told that it would make the business liable for any injury suffered subsequent to the clearing of said icy patch. We wondered if I cleared the path without colluding with the chemist's owner whether he would still be liable, which they thought was an interesting legal point but they weren't willing to test it.I phoned the council to find out if this was true but no one had managed to get to work. Then the Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, clarified things by saying that it was "utter nonsense that clearing the bit in front of your house means you can be sued if someone falls over", which must be true of the rest of the country too because it is only sensible; and surely we cannot absent-mindedly have deprived ourselves of the pleasure of helping each other or ourselves.From a week spent doing very little except walking, digging people out and gritting pathways, I realise that snow melts us; that ice turns out to be the icebreaker and that on the whole people love to help each other and are doing so most of the time, a point that goes almost unnoticed in our pessimistic account of society. The snow provides the pretext and makes it all much more obvious, as people shop for one another, drag cars from ditches, push them in supermarket car parks, offer an arm to an elderly stranger, and exchange glances and commonplaces about the extraordinary change that this frigid, alien beauty has wrought in us.Helping each other still comes as naturally to the British as humour, buying birdseed or digging allotments. During the first snows, drivers going down a treacherous hill into a Gloucestershire village at night were met by four or five individuals with lanterns, who guided the cars through the passable bits. Nobody knows who they were: they appeared like figures from a 19th-century ghost story and then vanished. All this week I saw owners of four-wheel drive vehicles rather hopefully patrolling the roads for people to help. Despite the snow storm on the top of the Cotswolds last Monday afternoon, every passer-by stopped to help a rather dithering bloke who was trying to drive back to Hertfordshire and had placed some dead grass under his tyres to get him up the side road.Not everyone knows how to say thank you, which I suspect is also a rather modern British thing. My friend Tom, who was pushing cars outside his local supermarket, reckoned that only 50% of drivers thanked him, which sounds a little low to me. After I and my philosopher neighbour had helped free a Tesco delivery van on an icy hill, he drove to the top, turned round and stopped his vehicle to get out and shake our hands despite the risk of becoming stuck again. Something else I noticed during the day of clearing a path and drive is that people are full of unreserved views and advice. They were divided into roughly three categories: those who say "you can do my drive/path when you've finished that!" in the fond belief that they are the first to make the remark; those who announce man-made global warming is a hoax; and those who suggest I am making things worse and should leave it to the council.But gratitude is not the point: connecting with your neighbours is one dividend of this extraordinary weather, particularly in a society that we are told by officials and politicians lacks cohesion, or is completely broken. It is at times like this that, despite their claims, we see that help and thoughtfulness can never be properly mediated by local authorities. Though we are tempted to believe that safety can be guaranteed by a fellow with a clipboard, the pavement outside the chemist or the news of another 10 or 15 centimetres proves it can't, and demonstrates we have to think for ourselves more, which, when it comes down to it, is in defiance of the dependency and helplessness that authorities subconsciously encourage in us all.Since I was a boy in the hard winter of 1963, snow has always seemed to be a mild blow against authority. It still makes me incredibly happy to see 20 teenagers, who have missed their first day at the local secondary school, sliding down a slope reserved by a disagreeable landowner for pheasant shooting. He may own the land but he doesn't own the snow on it or the extraordinary beauty of the landscape. Unsupervised, the kids were there last week in the perishing cold until well into the dusk and then they tramped home, flushed and excited, and on the way they saw a kestrel hanging like a iron crucifix in the sky, using the light of the snow to hunt for mice. It's been a terrific week for some.WeatherHuman behaviourHenry Porterguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Overfishing 'not contributing' to stinger numbers The Queensland Seafood Industry Association says there is no evidence to suggest overfishing is contributing to marine stinger numbers. abc.net.au |