By Roger Dobson Some turn to yoga or t'ai chi, others swear by red wine. No stone has been left unturned in the age-old pursuit of a long and healthy life. But now medical researchers have concluded that the secret of longevity may lie in nothing more outlandish than what comes naturally to mothers the world over. A good old-fashioned cuddle, say the scientists, can reduce heart disease, cut down stress and promote longevity. The researchers even advise nervous public speakers to indulge in a bit of hugging before they go on stage to face their audience. At the heart of it is a so-called "cuddle hormone", oxytocin, a chemical associated with a range of health benefits, which shows a marked increase in the blood supply after just 10 minutes of warm, supportive touching. The finding might explain why married couples enjoy better health than singletons. Some studies have suggested that divorce, bereavement and social isolation damage health. But what it is about marriage that is protective, and the mechanisms involved, have been unclear. However, the scientists also found that the quality of the hug is crucial - and, for example, the celebrity embrace performed in the glare of flashlights might not count. Instead the cuddle is at its strongest in a warm, supportive relationship. © 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

Keyword: Emotions; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 7750 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The late Stanley Milgram fairly lays claim to be one of the greatest behavioural scientists of the 20th century. He derives his renown from of a series of experiments on obedience to authority, which he conducted at Yale University in 1961-2. Milgram found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks—up to 450 volts—to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific, lab coated authority commanded them to, and despite the fact that the victim did nothing to deserve such punishment. The victim was, in reality, a good actor who did not actually receive shocks, a fact that was revealed to the subjects at the end of the experiment. Milgram's interest in the study of obedience partly emerged out of a deep concern with the suffering of fellow Jews at the hands of the Nazis and an attempt to fathom how the Holocaust could have happened. His researches, like Freud's, led to profound revisions in some of the fundamental assumptions about human nature. Milgram's experiments suggested that it was not necessary to invoke "evil" as a concept to explain why so many ordinary people do terrible things. Instead his work, and that of other social psychologists, suggested that much of what we do, we do automatically. Evil often occurs simply because we do not question our acts enough; instead our rationale arises from our trust in authority figures who are in "charge." © 2005 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd

Keyword: Aggression; Emotions
Link ID: 7749 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Cathryn M. Delude Nine years ago the Food and Drug Administration approved tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) as the first, and still only, drug for treating ischemic strokes, which are caused by blood clots in the brain that starve neurons of oxygen. Yet only 3 percent of stroke victims receive this clot-busting thrombolytic, largely because they enter the emergency room within three hours of the onset of symptoms. After that, tPA's effectiveness in reducing death and disability sinks, while the relative risk of dangerous hemorrhaging rises. Recently scientists have discovered ways that could extend tPA's window of time, at least for some patients, and have found alternatives that may be both effective and safe beyond three hours. A key to a bigger tPA window was the realization among researchers that not all neurons deprived of oxygen died after three hours, as was previously assumed. Restoring blood flow can revive enough neurons to significantly improve recovery. The trick is figuring out which patients can still benefit from treatment. From the beginning, doctors used CT scans to triage patients, separating the many with ischemic stroke, who are candidates for tPA, from the few with hemorrhaging stroke, who are not. (About 80 percent of all strokes are ischemic.) But the images could not show how much of the ischemic tissue was already dead and how much was still salvageable. "We were treating patients blindly," remarks Steven Warach of the National Institutes of Health's Stroke Center. "We didn't know what was going on in the brain." © 1996-2005 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 7748 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It's human nature to sometimes regret a decision. Now scientists have identified the brain region that mediates that feeling of remorse: the medial orbitofrontal cortex. Giorgio Coricelli of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences at the National Science Research Center in Bron, France, and his colleagues designed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to monitor how people make decisions and feel about them after the fact. The team presented volunteers with two choices, one of which carried higher risk than the other, but had the potential for greater reward as well. After indicating their choices, the subjects were told the outcome of their decision. In some cases, however, the researchers also revealed what would have happened if they had chosen differently. Choosing the less lucrative option and learning the other one was better was strongly correlated with activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, which sits above the orbits of the eyes in the brain's frontal lobe. The amount of activity observed was also tied to the level of regret, which corresponded to the difference between the result of the choice made and that of the alternative outcome When participants were assigned one of two possibilities and thus felt no control over the outcomes, this activity was not observed, suggesting a feeling of personal responsibility helps govern OFC activity in addition to feelings of regret. © 1996-2005 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 7747 - Posted: 06.24.2010

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Oregon Health & Science University researchers have identified some of the key factors that prevent the repair of brain damage caused by multiple sclerosis (MS), complications of premature birth, and other diseases and conditions. The findings offer important clues about why the nervous system fails to repair itself and suggest ways that at least some forms of brain damage could be reversed. The research is published in the August edition of the scientific journal Nature Medicine. "For many years, scientists have understood that damage to the insulation-like sheath surrounding nerve cells in the brain, called myelin, is part of the disease process for MS and other brain disorders," said Larry Sherman, Ph.D., an associate scientist in the Division of Neuroscience at the Oregon National Primate Research Center and an adjunct associate professor of cell and developmental biology in the OHSU School of Medicine. "In recent years, it became clear that there were cells at the sites of this damage that should have the capacity to repair the brain and spinal cord but they fail to do so. Our studies have revealed that there is a particular signal in the damaged brain that prevents these cells from restoring lost myelin. We're hopeful that we can develop methods to counteract this process in animal models in our search for human treatments."

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 7746 - Posted: 08.08.2005

Feeling depressed and fatigued does not increase a person's risk for cancer, according to a new study. Severely exhausted people, however, do engage in behavior that is associated with a higher cancer risk. The study, published in the September 15, 2005 issue of CANCER (http:/www.interscience.wiley.com/cancer-newsroom), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, is the first prospective study using the "vital exhaustion" questionnaire to investigate this link. The concept of vital exhaustion – described as feelings of excessive fatigue and lack of energy, increased irritability and a feeling of demoralization – grew out of the field of cardiology. Studies have identified vital exhaustion as a risk factor for heart attacks and death from a heart attack. Depressive mood has also been widely blamed, at least in lay literature, as a risk factor for cancer. However, the scientific data is much more inconsistent than that for heart attacks. Two recent prospective studies failed to identify a link between depression and cancer. Corinna Bergelt, Ph.D. of the Danish Cancer Society's Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen and colleagues followed 8527 people aged 21–94 years to investigate whether depressive feelings and exhaustion were risk factors for cancer, looking at all cancers combined, smoking-related cancers, alcohol-related cancers, virus and immune-related cancers, and hormone-related cancers.

Keyword: Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 7745 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Dying in your sleep may not be as peaceful an experience as is popularly supposed, new research suggests. Scientists believe death occurring during sleep often happens because a person stops breathing. When elderly but otherwise healthy people die suddenly during sleep, doctors usually put it down to heart failure. But tests on rats suggest a different cause. Death is more likely to be due to the failure of a breathing "command centre" in the brain. Researchers focused on a brainstem region called the preBotzinger complex (preBotC) which contains specialised neurons that trigger breathing. Rats were injected with a chemical designed to target and kill more than half the preBotC neurons. The results were dramatic. Breathing stopped completely when the rats entered REM sleep - the mentally active phase of sleep characterised by dreaming - forcing the animals to wake up. Over time, the breathing lapses increased in severity and spread into non-REM, deeper sleep. Eventually they occurred when the rats were awake as well. The US scientists believe the findings, reported in the online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience, are relevant to humans. Mammalian brains are all organised in a similar fashion. Rats have about 600 of the specialised preBotC cells, and humans are thought to have a few thousand. The cells are lost as part of the ageing process, and not renewed. ©2005 Associated Newspapers Ltd ·

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 7744 - Posted: 06.24.2010

St. Paul, Minn. – Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome can be difficult to diagnose and should have guidelines for diagnostic testing, according to a study in the July 26 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. A second study found chemotherapy aggravated symptoms in one woman’s case. Fragile X syndrome is the most common inherited cause of mental retardation. Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) was recently defined as a disorder that affects carriers of the Fragile X gene, called FMR1. People with FXTAS carry the FMR1 gene and develop symptoms later in life, usually starting in their 60s and 70s. Ataxia is the inability to coordinate voluntary muscle movements. Predominantly occurring in males, FXTAS could affect as many as one in 3,000 men over age 50. Male carriers pass the gene to all daughters but none of their sons. Female carriers have a 50 percent chance of passing the gene to each child. A multi-center study found 56 people had received 98 prior diagnoses, including parkinsonism and essential tremor, before FXTAS was concluded. The researchers believe this was partly due to the recent definition of FXTAS and a lack of familiarity with the disorder. The information about previous diagnoses encouraged them to develop guidelines for diagnostic testing for FXTAS.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 7743 - Posted: 06.24.2010

There's probably not a smoker out there who won't tell you the same thing: Don't try it. That's because despite years of repeated messages in public service campaigns — smoking is a health risk — many who start find it hard to stop. A new study that uses PET scanning and a tracer chemical that binds to an enzyme, called monamine oxidase (MAO), is helping researchers track MAO in smokers and non-smokers. The findings may explain why smokers ramp up their cigarette intake over time and could offer a new tool for those struggling to quit. "The non-smoker clears these tracers, which are actually the tools we use to measure monoamine oxidase… very, very rapidly," explains Brookhaven National Laboratory chemist Joanna Fowler, who led the study. "The smoker clears these tracers much more slowly than the non-smoker." The enzyme is crucial to blood pressure and mood regulation and has two subtypes — MAO A and B. Initially Fowler tracked only MAO B. As reported in Discover Magazine, that study showed that levels of MAO B in smokers' peripheral organs — the heart, kidneys, spleen and lungs — were reduced by 40 to 50 percent compared to non-smokers. "But we do not think that... the degree to which monoamine oxidase is inhibited in peripheral organs will be detrimental to the smoker," says Fowler. © ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7742 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Unlike people, fish can regrow damaged nerve fibers in their central nervous systems. Now a study may have found the reason: The creatures lack a protein called Nogo-A that prevents nerve regeneration in mammals. Axons, or nerve fibers, are the transmission lines that conduct electrical signals throughout the body. The fibers are protected by sheaths of myelin, a fatty insulator that speeds the electrical impulses along. Damaged axons in the brain and spinal cord of mammals don't regenerate, and spinal cord injuries can therefore lead to permanent paralysis. Fish are luckier: They can regrow the axons in their central nervous system, but curiously this regeneration stops if their nerve endings come into contact with mammalian myelin. Because a protein in mammalian myelin called Nogo-A is known to inhibit central nervous system axon growth in mammals, a team of researchers led by biologist Claudia Stürmer at the University of Konstanz in Germany wondered if fish might be missing this protein. When the researchers exposed goldfish axons to rat Nogo-A, the nerves stopped growing. Furthermore, a comparison of genomes between ten species of fish, including zebrafish and pufferfish, and humans revealed that fish lack the genetic information to make Nogo-A or a similar inhibitor. The team reports its findings in the August issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution. The paper's careful study of fish phylogeny supports an existing notion that Nogo-A may be a recent evolutionary development that correlates with more complex nervous systems and more complex functions, says Stephen Strittmatter, a neurologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. "It's an important addition to our growing understanding of the role these inhibitors play," he says. --CAROLYN GRAMLING Copyright © 2005 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Regeneration; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7741 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Naila Moreira Before it moves, the robot doesn't look like much. A rickety bundle of metal plates and rods standing on two thin legs, it resembles a science fair project more than it does a major advance in technology. Only two small motors, some simple wiring at its hip, and two batteries weigh it down. Then, with a slight push off one heel, the robot steps forward and ambles along with a remarkably human gait. This graceful stride differs radically from the stiff, unnatural motion of traditional two-legged robots. Not only that, says its co-creator Andy Ruina of Cornell University, but the walker uses a small fraction of the energy required by other two-legged machines, and it runs on a control system no more complex than that of a coffee machine. In fact, Ruina says, this slender, 1-meter-tall robot, simple as it looks, introduces a new class of robotics based on the theory known as passive dynamics. The principles of passive-dynamic walking emerged in the late 1980s, pioneered by roboticist Tad McGeer, now with the InSitu Group in Bingen, Wash. While at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, McGeer showed that a humanlike frame can walk itself down a slope without requiring muscles or motors. Unlike traditional robots, which guzzle energy by using motors to control every motion, McGeer's early passive-dynamic robots relied only on gravity and the natural swinging of their limbs to move forward. Copyright ©2005 Science Service.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 7740 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Review by Rob Loftis, Ph.D. on Aug 2nd 2005 Elizabeth Lloyd's new book has attracted a lot of attention for a technical work of academic philosophy, including profiles in the New York Times and Slate, and an appearance on The View (right between an interview with television doctor Noah Wyle about the health insurance crisis in America and a tribute to Merv Griffin). Lloyd was even the subject of a joke on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update," certainly a first for the philosophic community. Lloyd's book is obviously receiving attention because her topic is, quite literally, sexy. But perhaps more importantly for the popular media, her theses are very easy to state in layman's terms. Lloyd believes that the female orgasm is a evolutionary byproduct of the male orgasm, the same way that male nipples are a byproduct of the evolution of female nipples. Furthermore, she believes that biases in the research community have prevented scientists from seeing this obvious truth, including a bias toward adaptive explanations and a nasty tendency to assume female sexuality is like male sexuality. Clearly, she has an interesting and important set of theses. On top of that, her argument has a straightforward, logical structure. She canvasses the 20 adaptive accounts that have been proposed so far and finds obvious gaps in reasoning, while the one nonadaptive account has a lot of prima facie evidence for it. It is nice to see that you can get on television with a clear and important argument. Copyright © CenterSite, LLC, 1995-2005

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 7739 - Posted: 06.24.2010

(WebMD) Women who smoke during pregnancy may be twice as likely to give birth to a child with behavioral problems like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A new study shows that smoking during pregnancy doubled the risk of having a child with ADHD or other behavioral disorders that involve hyperactivity, inattention, and acting impulsively, known as hyperkinetic disorders. Experts have long recommended that women stop smoking during pregnancy in order to reduce the risk of birth defects and other problems. But this study suggests that exposure to nicotine in the womb may also affect the development of the baby's brain and increase the risk of behavioral problems like ADHD. Researchers say ADHD and hyperkinetic disorders are the most common psychological problems diagnosed in children. The two behavioral problems include many of the same symptoms and were treated as one in the study. In the study, Danish researchers examined the association between smoking during pregnancy and ADHD in 170 children with the behavioral problem and more than 3,700 healthy children matched by age, sex, and date of birth. Initially researchers found women who smoked during pregnancy were three times as likely to have a child with ADHD as nonsmokers. ©MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7738 - Posted: 06.24.2010

As anyone whose nerves have been jangled by a baby's howl or who have been riveted by the sight of an attractive person knows, nature has evolved sensory systems to be exquisitely tuned to relevant input. A major question in neurobiology is how neurons tune the strength of their interconnections to optimally respond to such inputs. Neuronal circuitry consists of a web of neurons, each triggering others by launching bursts of neurotransmitters at targets on receiving neurons to produce nerve impulses in those targets. Neurons adjust the strength of those connections adaptively, to amplify or suppress connections. Some four decades ago, a general principle called the "efficient coding hypothesis" was formulated, holding that sensory systems adjust to efficiently represent the complex, dynamic sounds, sights, and other sensory input from the environment. Writing in the August 4, 2005, issue of Neuron, researchers led by Christian K. Machens of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Andreas Herz of Humboldt-University Berlin describe experiments with grasshopper auditory neurons that reveal new details of such sensory coding. Their findings show that "optimal stimulus ensembles" that trigger the neurons differ from those the grasshopper hears in the natural environment but largely overlap with components of natural sounds found in mating and mate-location calls. In their experiments, the researchers first played various snippets of white noise to isolated grasshopper auditory nerves and measured the electrophysiological signals reflecting the reactions of the auditory neurons to those sounds. These experiments revealed the distribution of stimuli called the "optimal stimulus ensemble" (OSE) that allowed the neurons in the system to perform optimally.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hearing
Link ID: 7737 - Posted: 08.05.2005

As children, we believed that eating carrots could help us see better, but it seems that what makes leafy greens green might keep us healthy and seeing longer. Digging into that spinach salad could help to protect you against the leading cause of blindness worldwide — cataracts — as well as helping your wasteline. "I've always been interested in the role of diet in disease," says nutrition researcher Joshua Bomser. He had a particular interest in the plant pigments that play a critical role in photosynthesis, known as Carotenoids, that are found in many of the everyday fruits and vegetables we eat. "There's been some speculation that they can prevent the development of skin cancer, as well as the development of macular degeneration and age-related cataracts," he explains. "There are about 40 carotenoids that naturally occur in the diet. Of those, only lutein and zeaxanthin accumulate in the lens of the eye." Lutein and zeaxanthin are found in vegetables like kale, spinach and collard greens. So, Bomser and his colleagues at Ohio State University wanted to find out whether these plant pigments, which are found in high concentrations in dark green leafy vegetables, could protect the lens of the eye against the damaging ultraviolet rays of the sun and prevent cataracts. "We were able to show that lutein and zeaxanthin could reduce ultraviolet radiation induced damage in the lens," Bomser says. © ScienCentral, 2000-2005

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 7736 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Laparoscopic surgeon Butch Rosser had an epiphany several years ago when a reporter sat in on one of his procedures and wrote, "I saw the work of the Nintendo surgeon." "Now that just hit me when I read that," says Rosser, who is now director of minimally invasive surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. "And I said, 'Well I am a gamer, all the way back to the days of pong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong . Is that why I can do this a little better than the average bear? Is that why this seems so natural to me? Because I navigate in a video game environment?'" Laparoscopic surgeons work by cutting very small holes in a person's skin and inserting what are essentially long joysticks — with a fiber optic camera and surgical tools attached to the end of them — into a person's body to perform "minimally invasive surgery". Without having to cut a person open to look inside, the tiny camera allows them to operate by seeing everything on a video monitor, while making post-surgery recovery much easier. The similarities between this kind of procedure and playing video games struck Rosser so much, he did his own study in 2004 where he compared the surgical skills of surgeons who played video games with those who did not. Skill was measured in a standardized laparoscopic training exercise created by Rosser called "Top Gun." © ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Intelligence
Link ID: 7735 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The levels of cocaine residue in flowing water in Italy suggest that many more people take the drug than official national estimates previously suggested. A study published today in the open access journal Environmental Health reports on a new tool used to measure the levels of a cocaine by-product excreted in urine, and present in rivers and in flowing sewage water. This new method provides evidence that about 40,000 doses of cocaine are consumed every day in the Po valley - according to official estimates for this area, only 15,000 users admit to taking the drug at least once a month. Current official estimates for illegal drug use, including cocaine, are based on population surveys, medical records and crime statistics. These methods are known to be unreliable and to under-estimate the extent of illegal drug use, mainly because they rely on users self-reporting drug use, a socially censured behaviour, which users tend to be elusive about. Ettore Zuccato, from the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, Italy, and colleagues tested a new tool to measure a cocaine residue called benzoylecgonine (BE), present in flowing river and sewage waters because it is excreted in the urine of cocaine users. The residue is a by-product of metabolism in the human body, and cannot be produced by other means. The researchers measured the levels of BE in the river Po and in the sewage water of medium-sized Italian cities. Their results show that the Po, the largest Italian river, with five million people living in its vicinity, steadily carried the equivalent of about 4 kg of cocaine per day. This would imply an average daily use of at least 27 doses of 100 mg of cocaine for every 1,000 young adults of 15 to 34 years of age – the main consumers of cocaine.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7734 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have developed a more effective way to rid surgical instruments of the infectious agents that cause CJD in humans. The twisted prion proteins are remarkably difficult to remove by standard decontamination processes. The new technique can remove prions to levels a thousand times lower than those achieved by existing methods. Details of the University of Edinburgh work are published in the Journal of General Virology. The prion responsible for vCJD is widely distributed in the tissues of the body's lymphatic and central nervous systems. The pre-symptomatic gestation period for CJD can be from a few years to decades. This has raised concerns that surgical instruments used on lymphoid tissues - such as the spleen and tonsils - could harbour the prion, and pass it on to patients on which they are subsequently used. Other forms of CJD have occasionally been transmitted by contaminated neurosurgical instruments. Studies have shown that the standards of surgical instrument cleaning and sterilisation in British hospitals vary considerably. Although the Department of Health has drawn up decontamination procedures for instruments that may have been exposed to the CJD prion, it is recognised that the guidelines are unlikely to remove all traces of infectivity. (C)BBC

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 7733 - Posted: 08.03.2005

Recent suicide attempters treated with cognitive therapy were 50 percent less likely to try to kill themselves again within 18 months than those who did not receive the therapy, report researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A targeted form of cognitive therapy designed to prevent suicide proved better at lifting depression and feelings of hopelessness than the usual care available in the community, according to Gregory Brown, Ph.D., Aaron Beck, M.D., University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues, who published their findings in the August 3, 2005 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). “Since even one previous attempt multiplies suicide risk by 38-40 times and suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for adults under 65, a proven way to prevent repeat attempts has important public health implications,” said NIMH Director Thomas Insel, M.D. To achieve a large enough sample to reliably detect differences in the effectiveness of interventions, the researchers first screened hundreds of potential suicide attempters admitted to the emergency room of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, ultimately recruiting 120 patients into the study. Averaging in their mid-thirties, 61 percent of the participants were female, 60 percent black, 35 percent white, and 5 percent Hispanic and other ethnicities. Most had attempted to kill themselves by drug overdosing (58 percent), with 17 percent by stabbing, 7 percent by jumping and 4 percent by hanging, shooting or drowning. Seventy-seven percent had major depression and 68 percent a substance use disorder.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 7732 - Posted: 06.24.2010

More than two decades after they fled the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, most Cambodian refugees who resettled in the United States remain traumatized, a study funded by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has found. Sixty-two percent suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and 51 percent from depression in the past year — six-to-seventeen times the national average for adults. The more trauma they endured, the worse their symptoms. In the August 3, 2005 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the RAND Corporation’s Grant Marshall, Ph.D., and colleagues report on their survey in the nation’s largest Cambodian community. An estimated three million of Cambodia’s seven million people died during the repression and civil wars of the l970s and most of those who survived suffered multiple traumas. Moreover, even after two decades in the U.S., the majority of the refugee community speak little or no English, are at income levels below poverty, and rely on public assistance. Since previous studies of such refugee populations have been criticized for possibly overestimating rates of mental disorders, Marshall and colleagues set out to allay such concerns by employing a more conservative approach. Native Khmer speakers conducted highly structured two-hour interviews with 490 randomly-selected former refugees, ages 35-75, in their Long Beach, CA homes, beginning in 2003. They used standardized questionnaires for gauging levels of violence exposure and alcohol use disorder and standardized diagnostic interviews to determine the prevalence of PTSD and depression.

Keyword: Depression; Stress
Link ID: 7731 - Posted: 06.24.2010