Focus: Hidden - Missouri

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Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, can be devastating and debilitating. Researchers know that the membranes separating the skull from the brain play a key role in absorbing shock and preventing damage caused during a head impact, but the details remain largely mysterious. New research from a team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis takes a closer at this “suspension system” and the insight it could provide to prevent TBI.

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A glass-based wound care product that emerged from research by a doctoral student at Missouri University of Science and Technology has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for human use and is now available on the commercial market.

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It was the “War to End All Wars,” and America’s entrance into the conflict on April 6, 1917, dramatically shifted World War I in favor of the Allies. “The U.S. had a major impact on the outcome of World War I,” says military historian Dr. John C. McManus, the author of 12 books on war and military history.

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For years, scientists have been trying to determine what effect a gene linked to the brain chemical serotonin may have on depression in people exposed to stress. But now, analyzing information from more than 40,000 people who have been studied over more than a decade, researchers led by a team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found no evidence that the gene alters the impact stress has on depression.

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Sleep will be at a premium this weekend at Missouri University of Science and Technology as a computer science student group hosts a 24-hour artificial intelligence coding competition.

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We tend to assume that domestication is a one-way street and that, once domesticated, crop plants stay domesticated. A new study of rice shows, however, that different methods of farming change the evolutionary pressures on crop plants, and the plants easily "de-domesticate," evolving to take advantage of these opportunities.

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Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer in the United States, with nearly 135,000 cases reported in 2016. The likelihood of surviving colorectal cancer is strongly related to the stage in which it is diagnosed. Researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine looked at screening adherence rates and found that individuals with certain disabilities are less likely to receive recommended preventive screenings. The researchers hope the finding will lead to targeted interventions and increased awareness for these individuals.

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President Trump signed an executive order seeking to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which regulates carbon emissions from fossil-fuel burning power plants, primarily those that fire coal.As the EPA takes next steps to replace the plan, an engineer at Washington University in St. Louis who studies fossil fuel combustion says this week’s move will make it difficult for power providers to plan ahead.

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Motivational prompts to save tax refunds and suggested savings amounts for the tax refund can increase saving among low- and moderate-income households, finds a new experimental study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.The study was conducted as part of the Refund to Savings Initiative, a collaboration of academic researchers and tax industry experts from the Center for Social Development at the Brown School, Duke University and Intuit Inc.

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Vaginal bacteria can trigger recurrent UTIs, according to a study in mice. The findings help explain why sex is associated with UTIs. When it gets in the bladder, the vaginal bacterium Gardnerella vaginalis triggers dormant E. coli from a prior infection to re-start multiplying, causing another UTI.

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A new study of rare “beneficial” genetic mutations, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, may provide guidance on the design of new therapies intended to reduce the risk of heart attacks.

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Increases in gasoline prices are associated with increases in child maltreatment referral rates, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.“Because fluctuations in the price of gas affect the amount of disposable income available to families, the results suggest that changes in disposable income predict changes in child maltreatment,” said Michael McLaughlin, doctoral student and  author of the study “Less Money, More Problems: How Changes in Disposable Income Affect Child Maltreatment,” published in the upcoming May issue of the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.

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Missouri S&T’s humanities departments – history and political science; English and technical communication; and arts, languages, and philosophy – have received a $100,000 Humanities Connections grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to develop a series of four courses related to Latin American studies.

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Women who pursue in vitro fertilization (IVF) to become pregnant are more likely to give birth if they have health insurance that covers the procedure, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The key reason is financial rather than medical: For many people, the high cost for one IVF procedure prohibits women from seeking a second treatment if the first attempt fails. The study is published March 28 in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

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Researchers from the University of Missouri School Of Medicine recently discovered that although alligators, birds and dinosaurs have a similar skull-joint shape, this does not guarantee that their movements are the same.

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For patients with difficult-to-treat cancers, doctors increasingly rely on genomic testing of tumors to identify errors in the DNA that indicate a tumor can be targeted by existing therapies. But this approach overlooks rogue proteins that may be driving cancer cells and also could be targeted with existing treatments, according to new research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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Long before the advent of agriculture, hunter-gatherers began putting down roots in the Middle East, building more permanent homes and altering the ecological balance in ways that allowed the common house mouse to flourish, new research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates.Findings suggest the roots of animal domestication go back to human sedentism thousands of years prior to what has long been considered the dawn of agriculture.

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An engineer at Washington University in St. Louis is working to create a probiotic that would help protect the host from the negative health effects of adrenaline surges. The new probiotic could easily be mixed into yogurt or taken in pill form.

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Researchers predicted the places in the continental U.S. where Zika is most likely to be transmitted are the Mississippi delta and southern states extending northward along the Atlantic coast and in southern California.

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Star-shaped cells called astrocytes, long considered boring, “support cells,” are finally coming into their own. To everyone’s surprise they even play an important role in the body’s master clock, which schedules everything from the release of hormones to the onset of sleepiness.

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The brain hosts an extraordinarily complex network of interconnected nerve cells that are constantly exchanging electrical and chemical signals at speeds difficult to comprehend. Now, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report they have been able to achieve — with a custom-built microscope — the closest view yet of living nerve synapses.

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In new research, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have implicated a specific molecule in the self-destruction of axons, the wiring of the nervous system. Understanding just how that damage occurs may help researchers find a way to halt it.

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 735,000 Americans experience a heart attack each year. Opening a blocked coronary artery to restore blood flow to the heart prevents sudden cardiac death. However, doing so also triggers cardiac damage through oxidative stress and inflammation, which eventually can lead to heart failure. In a new study, researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine have identified a protein that can be targeted to decrease post-heart attack injury and prevent heart failure in a mouse model.

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With a series of new grants, Saint Louis University researchers will develop the potential of two nuclear receptors that control muscle metabolism.

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Osteoporosis affects more than 200 million people worldwide and is a serious public health concern, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation. Now, Pamela Hinton, associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, has published the first study in men to show that long-term, weight-bearing exercises decrease sclerostin, a protein made in the bone, and increase IGF-1, a hormone associated with bone growth. These changes promote bone formation, increasing bone density.

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A four-year study of one rare and one common lupine growing in coastal dunes showed that a native mouse steals most of the rare lupines seeds while they are still attached to the plant. The mouse is a "subsidized species," given cover for nocturnal forays by European beachgrass, originally planted to stabilize the dunes.

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Opioids, including heroin and prescription drugs, killed 33,000-plus people in 2015, more than any year on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. President Trump’s proposed budget aims to bring a $500 million increase in funding for prevention and treatment, but that amount isn’t enough to address the crisis, says an expert on substance use disorder treatment at Washington University in St.

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The fallout from the poorly received ending of the third video game in the popular series Mass Effect could doom the upcoming release of “Mass Effect: Andromeda,” say researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

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More than half of older adults have some form of hearing loss, impacting everyday life and significantly affecting their health and safety if left untreated. Hearing aids are the most common treatment for hearing loss; however, many adults fail to adjust to hearing aids and, as a result, stop using them. Now, a new hearing aid adjustment program created by Kari Lane, assistant professor in the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri, might significantly improve hearing aid wear time among older adults.

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The public is getting its first look at the Trump administration budget proposal, which includes steep cuts to federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency — with a 31-percent proposed reduction and its Office of Research and Development set to be slashed — and the National Institutes of Health decreased by nearly 20 percent.

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The MU School of Medicine is ranked seventh in the nation for the specialty of family medicine. The school’s Department of Family and Community Medicine has been ranked in the top 10 for 24 consecutive years.

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Writing in the March 17 issue of the journal Science, Missouri University of Science and Technology researchers say they have developed a way to “grow” thin layers of gold on single crystal wafers of silicon, remove the gold foils, and use them as substrates on which to grow other electronic materials.

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For the first time, new research from Washington University in St. Louis examines data from the 2007-09 financial crisis to show how the U.S. Federal Reserve can effectively assist banks in times of financial uncertainty.

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Since becoming law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been used by political parties in attempts to mobilize voters. In a new study, Jake Haselswerdt, assistant professor of political science and public affairs at the University of Missouri, found a correlation between voter turnout and Medicaid expansion, a key component of the ACA. He says that increases in Medicaid enrollment are related to considerably higher voter turnout in states that expanded Medicaid. The effect is likely due to both an increase in turnout for new Medicaid beneficiaries and a backlash effect among constituents opposed to the law and its implementation.

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While lead pipes were banned decades ago, they still supply millions of American households with water each day. A team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new way to track where dangerous lead particles might be transported in the drinking-water supply during a common abatement procedure.

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Five years into the Missouri Quality Initiative for Nursing Homes (MOQI), a program aimed at improving nursing home care, researchers at the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri are seeing significant reductions in spending and potentially avoidable hospitalizations in participating nursing homes. The results were reported in the project’s annual report, released by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and prepared by RTI International.

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More than 87,000 chemicals are available commercially in the U.S., including analogues of bisphenol A (BPA), an industrial chemical that is used in consumer products. Frederick vom Saal, a University of Missouri endocrinologist and researcher, has studied BPA and other chemicals and their effects on humans and animals for more than 20 years. Now, vom Saal has released Integrative Environmental Medicine, a comprehensive book outlining practical resources and tools, such as websites and smartphone apps, to help health care practitioners promote healthier choices for themselves and their patients.

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When an infection attacks the body for the first time, T cells of the immune system help fight off that specific pathogen. After the infection has cleared, some of the T cells that fought the microbe transition into “memory” cells that remember the pathogen and are ready to protect the body from future infections. Previous research has found that memory T cells are critical for long-term immunity, but the quantity and quality of the cells mysteriously declines with time, making some individuals more likely to be reinfected. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine have identified a molecular mechanism that operates in memory T cells that could be manipulated to produce and maintain more memory T cells in the body, a finding that could improve vaccinations and cancer immunotherapies.

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Coronary artery disease is caused by plaque buildup in the vessels that deliver blood to the heart. Narrowed or blocked coronary arteries can result in a heart attack or sudden cardiac death. A study at the University of Missouri School of Medicine revealed that ammonia plays an important role in maintaining cardiovascular health. Researchers say that non-toxic amounts of the gas could help prevent coronary artery disease.

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Itching is a highly contagious behavior. When we see someone scratch, we're likely to scratch, too. Now researchers at the Washington University Center for the Study of Itch have shown that, at least in mice, contagious itching is hardwired in the brain.

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Nearly 5,000 years ago, long before the vast east-west trade routes of the Silk Road were traversed by Marco Polo, the foundations for these trans-Asian interaction networks were being carved by nomads moving herds to lush mountain pastures, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

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A relationship between epilepsy and heightened religious experiences has been recognized since at least the 19th century. In a recent study, researchers from the University of Missouri found a neurological relationship exists between religiosity— a disposition for spiritual experience and religious activity—and epilepsy. This finding sheds light on the connection between religion and neuropsychological processes within the human brain.

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Proteins, those basic components of cells and tissues, carry out many biological functions by working with partners in networks. The dynamic nature of these networks – where proteins interact with different partners at different times and in different cellular environments – can present a challenge to scientists who study them.

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American employers increasingly rely on large datasets and computer algorithms to decide who gets interviewed, hired or promoted.While these data algorithms can help to avoid biased human decision-making, they also risk introducing new forms of bias or reinforcing existing biases.Pauline Kim, Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law at Washington University in St.

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Studies have shown that hazardous waste sites have the potential to adversely affect human health and disrupt ecological systems. Florida has the sixth highest number of hazardous waste sites, known as Superfund sites, in the United States. In 2016, the state was projected to have the second largest number of new cancer cases in the country. Researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine and the University of Florida studied cancer incidence rates in relation to Superfund sites and found a possible association. Researchers believe this discovery could help direct public health efforts in the state.

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New findings Saint Louis University scientists suggest that drugs targeting a nuclear receptor may be able to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol in an animal model.

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While President Trump and a Republican-controlled legislature look to make good on campaign promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, political reality is kicking in, says a health economist at Washington University in St. Louis.“They face a vicious Catch-22 as they attempt to replace Obamacare,” said Tim McBride, professor at the Brown School and noted expert on health reform, especially Medicare and Medicaid policy.

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Researchers report that the use of opioid pain medications may play a significant role in patient outcomes following liver transplantation.

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University of Missouri Health Care has been named one of the “150 Great Places to Work in Healthcare” by the health news publication Becker’s Hospital Review.