Keeping ticks off your pets

Daily News,

Experts are predicting an extremely high threat of Lyme disease this year. This warning was developed by the same group of statisticians that are responsible for forecasting severe weather.

The Northeast is the large problem area, and Massachusetts is the bull's eye for this highlighted region.

It seems as though everyone has heard of Lyme disease. This debilitating (衰弱させる）illness is just the tip of the iceberg for tick-borne disease. The Newburyport area has a reputation for ticks galore. Our popular friend, the deer tick, is high on this list. American dog ticks and the increasingly more common lone star tick are runners-up.

Each species of tick has its repertoire of transimssible disease. In Essex County, Lyme disease is the most common, with 1 in 6 dogs testing positive. 

Anaplasma is a close second, accounting for more than 20 percent of canine anaplasmosis in the country. Ehrlichia, Rocky Mountain spotted fecer and tularemia continue the list.

Ticks spread illness by attaching to animals (or humans) and feeding. As it sucks blood, the tick's body concentrates the nutritious components and spits water back into the animal. If the ticl is carrying bacteria, such as for Lyme disease, this tick spit will also infect its host.

Tick diseases are not spread directly from dog to person or vice versa. Protecting your pet and family from tick-transmitted disease means you have to prevent ticks from attaching.

Although a　vaccine　is　available　to　help　prevent　Lyme　disease　in　dogs other　tick　disease　can　only　be　avoided　by keeping the tick from attaching to your pet.

Try to avoid tick-infected areas. Wooded trails are frequently visited by common tick hosts, such as rodents, chipmunks, racoons, coyotes and white-tailed deer. However, the list of hosts is almost endless, as virtually any mammal or bird can be a tick host, depending on the tick species and its life stage.

Trimming grass and brush in  your backyard to minimize tick habitats is helpful. A wooded home environment invites wildlife, and hitchhiking ticks, to your back door.

Your pet- and his humans- should be checked daily for ticks. A fine-toothed comb for Fido and Fluffy is essential. Immature ticks can be as tiny as poppy seeds. These are difficult to find on people, and virtually impossible to find on your furry pet, Sometimes, immature deer ticks (nymphs) will be visible on the eyelid margins of cats, appearing as tiny dark grains of sand. Nevertheless, god tick checks will reveal many ticks, especially larger adult ticks.

If you find a tick on your pet, carefully remove it. Use tweezers to grasp the tick. Do not twist, squeeze or crush it. After removal, dab the area with disinfectant and wash your hands. Flush the captured tick down to the toilet to prevent it from crawling our of your trash. If this process makes you squeamish, ask your veterinary team for help.

Year-round tick prevention is recommended for cats and dogs. Contrary to popular belief, ticks survive New England winters. Effective anti-tick products are applied topically and cannot be given as  pill.

The myriad tick-prevention products can be mind-boggling. Here are some considerations during your selection:

1. Ticks are difficult critters to kill. No products is 100 percent effective. Expect to find occasional ticks on your pet regardless of what product you use.

2. Cats are not little dogs. Never use a product on cats that is labeled for dogs only. This can be deadly for Fluffy.

2. Cats are not little dogs. Never use a product on cats that is labeled for dogs only. This can be deadly for Fluffy.

3. Typical over- the counter  tick collars are poorly effective. Choose something that has a better chance of keeping the nasty critters off your sweet pet.

4. Most topical tick products need to be applied monthly. However, not all will give you satisfactory performance throughout the month.

5. It's unreasonable to expect a topical product to be unaffected by repeated swimming or bathing. Any topical product can have reduced effectiveness if Fido is bathed a lot or swims frequently.

6. certain products are more likely than others to wash off. Your veternarian can help you wade through this information.

7. Certain medicated shampoos can strip the coat of topical parasite prevention. Talk to your veterinarian before using shampoos.

8. Topical products need to be applied properly in order to maximize their effectiveness. Your veterinary team can teach you how to apply the product

correctly for optimal tick prevention. If  your pet is squirmy, ask your veterinary team for help. Most offices are happy to do this as a complementary service every month.

9. If pesticides concern you, let your veterinarian know. Pememer that ticks are difficult to kill, so options are limited. However, topical medicines (as opposed to pesticides) are available.

10. The goal is to keep your pet and family safe. Pets can bring ticks into the home, infecting two-legged family members.

Tick-borne illnesses, especially the Lyme disease is my biggest concern recently because a friend of mine unfortunately got the Lyme disease when she visited Cape Cod last summer. The disease left her, a brilliant artist as well as a researcher from South America, to give up to pursue a Ph.D., which is extremely unfortunate.I have also heard many incidences of the Lyme disease in Up State NY areas this year.

 

Late nights 'sap children's brain power'

BBC News 

Late nights and lax bedtime routines can blunt young children's minds, research suggests.

The findings on sleep patterns and brain power come from a UK study of more than 11,000 seven-year-olds.

Youngsters who had no regular bedtime or who went to bet later than 21;00 had lower scores for reading and maths. 

Lack of sleep may disrupt natural body rhythms and impair how well the brain learns new information say the study authors.

They gathered data on the children at the agas of three, five and then seven to find out how well they were doing with their learning and whether this might be related to their sleeping habits.

"Establishing a good bedtime routine early in childhood is probably best, but it's never too late" Study author Prof Sacker 
Erratic  bedtimes were most common at the age of three, when around one in five of the children went to bet at varying times. By the age of seven, more than half the children had a regular bedtime of between 19:30 and 22:30. Overall, children who had never had regular bedtimes tended to fare worse than their peers in terms of test scores for reading, maths and spatial awareness.
The impact was more obvious throughout early childhood in girls than in boys and appeared to be cumulative. The researchers, led by Prof Amanda Sacker from University College London, said it was possible that inconsistent bedtimes were a reflection of chaotic family settings and it was this, rather than disrupted sleep, that had an impact on cognitive performance in children.

"We tried to take these things into account," said Prof Sacker.
The children with late and erratic bedtimes came from more socially disadvantaged backgrounds and were less likely to be read to each night and, generally, watched more TV- often on a set in their own bedroom.
After controlling for such factors, the link between poorer mental performance and lax bedtimes remained.The findings are published in the J of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Prof Sacker said:"The rake-home message is really that routines really do seem to be important fro children." 

Establishing a good bedtime routine early in childhood is probably best, but it's never too late."
she said there was no evidence that putting children to bet much earlier than 19:30 added anything in terms of brain power.

Dr Robert Scott-Jupp of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said:"At first glance,
this research might seem to suggest that less sleep makes children less intelligent, however, it is clearly more complicated than that. While it's likely that social and biological brain development factors are inter-ralated in a complex way, in my opinion, for schoolchildren to perform their best, they should all, whatever their background, get a good night sleep."



I'm a strong believer of benefit of sleep for cognitive functions and
children need to go to bed before 21:00. This is how my bro and I were brought up.
Even though the bedtime is becoming later and later as I get older, whether taking sufficient sleep or not still makes huge differences in my life.

When I was working in Tokyo, the average sleeping hours was 3-4 hours, which is I think now  ridiculously short. Since I came to the States, my sleeping hour is becoming longer up to 6 hours on average because I found that without sufficient sleep, I can easily fall a sleep during daytime study. So, spending few more hours at night for sleep ends up improving the efficiency of my work.








 

New data confirms a dementia epidemic as the Baby Boomers age

The Observer

The findings of the Cognitive Module in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) confirms the growing prevalence of cognitive decline and future implications of an aging America- and underscores the need for individuals to talk to their doctors about memory problems. This is the first data ever released throught the BRFSS on cognitive decline and its impact.
 
According to survey results of 21 states, nearly 13 percent of Americans aged 60 years or older ( 1 in 8) reported confusion or memory loss happening more often or getting worse in the previous 12 months. Of these individuals, one-third reported that confusion or memory loss interfered with their work, social activities or ability to do household chores.

"Unfortunately, the number of people affected by dementia is growing at an alarming rate as the baby boomer population grows older," said Richard Elbein, CEO of the Alzheimer's Association, Houston& Southeast Texas Chapter. "Most people don't know when forgetting becomes a serious health problem. By putting off learning more about their condition, people impacted by dementia are being diagnosed too late and miss the opportunity to get the best help possible."

In Texas, 12.6 percent of respondents aged 60 years or older reported increased confusion or memory loss and 40 percent reported that in interfered with their daily life. Despite the know benefits of early detection, nearly 80 percent of individuals with increase memory problems in Texas have NOT discussed their symptoms with a health care provider.

"If you notice signs of memory loss in yourself or someone you know, don't ignore them,' Elbein said. "See your doctor for a checkup."
Early detection allows people to get the maximum benefit from available treatments, consider participating in a clinical trial, establish a support network and plan for the future.

Additionally, studies have shown that the ability to educate oneself and plan for the future is a tremendous asset in anticipating challenges and reducing anxiety, depression and stress- and improves quality of care by allowing for better management of other chronic conditions.

The data collected in Texas was made possible by a collaboration between the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) Alzheimer's Disease Program and its volunteer partnership, the Texas Council on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders, and the Alzheimer's Association. Through the dedicated work of volunteer members implementing the 2010-2015 Texas State Plan on Alzheimer's Disease, the first set of Texas guidelines were developed to assist health care providers in detecting, diagnosing, and treating Alzheimer's disease.

The number of individuals affected by dementia is growing at alarming rate all over the world
as the societies get aged. Huge research grant has been awarded to brain and cognitive research, yet still dementia is not a curable disease. Like this article suggests, however, being aware of the onset of dementia and preparing for upcoming symptoms will certainly beneficial for all prospective patients.

At Nebraska’s Stadium, Researchers Will Take Aim at Making Sports Safer

New York Times

If a ll goes according to Dennis Molfese's plan, the day is coming when a football player who tales a hit to the head will go to the sideline, tale off his helmet and slip on an electrode-covered mesh cap.

The team's medical staff will analyze the player's brain waves and determine within minutes whether he can safely return to the game or whether he has sustained a concussion, and if s, how severe.

Putting the finishing touches on that device is among the projects planned in the University of Nebraska's Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior, which opens this month in Memorial Stadium's expanded east side.

CB3, as it is called, it housed in the same &55 million structure that holds 28 luxury suites and an additional 6,000 seats for the football stadium, The center is one of a number of university-affiliated research center across the nation looking for better ways to diagnose and treat traumatic head injuries and make football and other spots safer.

"There has been great concussion research that's been going on for decades," said Molfese, the CB3 director. "It's disconcerting to realize just how little we really know."

Tom Osborne, Nebraska's retired football coach and athletic director, said CB3 and the adjoining Athletic Performance Lab fit his vision for what he wanted to include in the stadium expansion. The project was one of Osborne's major initiatives in his five years as the athletic director. Osborne envisioned a collaboration of the athletic and academic sides of the university. So while athletes participate in concussion studies, political science researchers might use CB3's brain-scanning technology to see if they can figure out why some people lean conservative and others liberal.

Concussions have become one of the top concerns in sports in recent years after prominent brain injuries and disease in former N.F.L. players, driven in part by some high-profile suicides. Thousands of former players are suing the league, saying that for years the N.F.L. did not do enough to protect players from concussions. The N.C.A.A is also addressing the issue.

"There are a lot of things that are very important with the N.C.A. as far as the health and safety of the students-athlete," the N.C.A.A. chief medical officer, Brain Hainline said, " and concussion is wright up there as first and foremost. It's the elephant on the table, and we, with everyone else, we have to solve it."

There are about 300, 000 sports-related concussions reported in the United States annually, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been funneled into research, with much of the money going to universities. 

Nebraska recruited Molfese, 67, away from the University of Luisville, giving him virtual carte blanche in the design and equipping  of CB3.

Molfese is among 14 experts serving on the National Academy of Sciences Institute  of Medicine Committee on Sports-Related Concussions in Youth, which will report to Congress and President Obama on brain injuries in children and young adults. He also heads a Big Ten-Ivy League partnership studying brain injuries in sports.

Nebraska's brain center is connected by a 100-foot skywalk to the new Athletic Performance lab, which will research, among other things, injury prevention and high-tech ways to maximize performance of athletes. CB3 and the performance lab will partner on some projects. 

CB3's top attraction is a type of magnetic resonance imaging machine that tracks the brain's blood flow. It is hoped that the $3 million scanner will help to better define what is a concussion.
"There's no question its's going to move the dial forward," Heinline said. "The big, hoped- for dream would be, let's have a biomarker in brain imaging. If you're to the left of that, you're safe; if you're to the tight of it, you're not. That's probably a few years out. But functional brain imaging and blood flow are going to very important of that. "

The M.R.I. machine also can be used on game days to assess injuries of all kinds.

Molfese said the sideline concussion assessment tool would be the first of what he hopes are many groundbreaking developments to come out of CB3. The device would allow medical personnel to go beyond the standard practice of asking the injured athlete questions and judge, based on his or her answers, whether it is safe for him or her to return to a  game. 

If a linebacker took a hit to the head, he would come to the sideline, and an electrode net would be placed over his head. Battery- powered brain recording equipment would measure the player's responses to stimuli.

"We can get an idea of what area of the brain is being involved in the process, whether the speed of processing is at the rate it should be," Molfese said. "The different areas of the brain that normally integrate information that normally integrate information quickly stop doing that, so that's another way we should be able to pick up whether there is an injury or not. 

Concussion is one of the measure topics in the neurosciences nowadays since concussion causes  not only acute symptoms but also chronic cognitive dysfunctions that are different from degenerative disease such as Alzheimer's disease. BU also has launched the brain center to study the impact of sports-related concussions in the brain. The idea of making the academic side and sports side related will produce huge progresses.   

BTW, it's such a cute expression "elephant on the table". I still don't get it, but something like "目の上のたんこぶ”? , I guess.

New study sheds light on exercise's impact on brain

CBS News

 http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505269_162-57592433/new-study-sheds-light-on-exercises-impact-on-brain/

Exercise can lower anxiety, but how it does so remains a mystery.
Now, an new study conducted at Princeton University, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, may offer clues as to what happens in the brain.

Conducted on mice, the study was done on two groups of the animals. The first group was given a good amount of exercise and the other was more sedentary, Upon studying their brains, researcher found both groups had formed new brain cell called neurons, but the exercisers formed more neurons that release the neurotrasmitter GABA, which has a calming effect on the brain.

 Dr. Holly Phillips noted on "CBS This Morning", that GABA is know to reduce anxiety. In fact, many prescription anxiety drugs cause the brain to release GABA. "These cells help to calm down the brain and hence fight anxiety," she said.

It's also likely, Phillips said, that the results will translate very well into humans, She said, "We've suspected for a very long time that GABA would, of course, be involved and now, there's just extra (evidence ) of that." Exercise actually changes the brain permanently, Phillips pointed out, It changes the types of cells that are there. Phillips added, "This is important because then it has lasting effects. Even 24 hours after exercise, you;re less prone to experience anxiety symptoms."

Phillips says exercising 30 minutes four days a week can help, based on other studies on exercise. She added, "For anxiety in particular, high-intensity exercise is really important and also we're always looking for natural alternatives. Some of the anti-anxiety medications can be habit-forming ad anytime we can do something where we don't need to take a medication, of course, is a good thing."

 I couldn't find the original article in the current issue.

Gamma Aminobutyric acid, or  GABA, is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. GABA plays a role in regulating neuronal excitability throughout the nervous system and modulate muscle tone of the body.It's kind a interesting that active movement of the body results in producing the neurons that create the inhibitory neurotransmuitter.

^{Even the time when I was extremely busy, I have been trying to do exercise so that I could be released from the stress I had, and my attempt has been shown as effective.  The personal experience convinces me to believe the result of the study although this has been only done on animals.}

 


 

Use it or Lose it: Mental Activity in Childhood and Adulthood thwarts Dementia

Forbes; http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/07/05/use-it-or-lose-it-mental-activity-in-childhood-and-adulthood-thwarts-dementia/

It's a curious but well-established fact that certain people whose brains look like they have Alzheimer's disease upon autopsy didn't actually have clinical symptoms to speak of during life.
Researchers have tried to account for this disconnect for some time:  the fact that one's amount of brain "gunk" -the plaques and tangles that accumulate and clog the lines of communication between brain cells-
doesn't match one's cognitive function so closely. In fact, a full third of people with significant plaques don't have symptoms of dementia.
This  phenomenon has given rise to the 'cognitive reserve' hypothesis, which suggests that some brains are better able to deal with breakdowns in machinery: Maybe they're able to better withstand their own breakdown. 
It's ironic, but possible. And of course, difficult to prove.

But now a new study in Neurology has added some fuel to the theory, finding that one's cognitive
activity throughout life- not just in adulthood, but also in childhood- is an important predictor of cognitive function, and one's risk of dementia.

In the study, the team asked 294 people above the age of 55 how often they engaged in mental activities over the course of their lives, from childhood through the present. They also gave them cognitive tests to assess their brain function throughout the average six years of follow- up, along with neurologic tests. After the participants died, all of their brains were autopsied, for evidence of tangles, plaques, Lewy bodies, and infarcts or lesions.

What they found was cognitive decline was about 15% slower for the mentally active than for people who were less so. Interestingly, bot mental activity in one's later years and in the childhood years seemed to offer some protection against cognitive decline, suggesting that what we do as kids can contribute to whatever it is that fortifies the brain against aging and Alzheimer's.

Also interesting was the fact that the greater part of the variability in cognitive decline was not dependent on the well-established  markers. There's still that great divide between what "should" be and what is . As study author Robert Wilson tells me, "That is the big question. In this study, makers of the leading causes of late life dementia accounted for one third of the variability in rates of cognitive decline, leaving two thirds unexplained".

Thought a bit mysterious, the "unexplained" two-thirds are also encouraging, since they suggest that what we do throughout our lives can greatly effect our cognitive function at the end of our lives, giving us a sort of power over the situation. "Better understanding of the factors contributing to this residual variability in cognitive aging not explained by dementia-related pathology and the neurobiological bases of the associations, " Wilson adds," could suggest novel strategies for delaying the onset of late life cognitive dysfunction".

In other words, like we've heard so many times before, use it or lose it. And as Wilson tells HealthDay, "Find a hobby that is sustainable:quilting, photography, acting in the theater, even learning Morse code. Physical 
activity is also important." So is the issue of taking care of one's mental health, since perceived stress and depression have also been linked to risk for Alzheimer's disease. As always, the brain is no simple organ, and seems to need a good balance of variables. Focusing single-pointedly on one are apparently won't cut it.

The original article; http://neurology.org/content/early/2013/07/03/WNL.0b013e31829c5e8a

After a year of struggle with SAS and stat courses, I found that it's much easier for me to  understand the
result part of the original article.

In a mixed-effects model (meaning it is the repeated regression model since the study collected the data from the same participants overtime) adjusted for age at death, sex, education, gross and microscopic infarction, neocortical Lewy bodies, amyloid burden, and tangle density (those are Independent variables in the regression model), more frequent late-life cognitive activity (estimate = 0.028, standard error [SE] = 0.008, p < 0.001) and early-life cognitive activity (estimate = 0.034, SE = 0.013, p = 0.008) were each associated with slower cognitive decline(frequent cognitive activities both late and early life were significantly associated with slower cognitive decline). The 2 measures together accounted for 14% of the residual variability in cognitive decline not related to neuropathologic burden(standardized beta estimated of the measures accounted for 14% of the residual variability). The early-life–activity association was attributable to cognitive activity in childhood (estimate = 0.027, SE = 0.012, p = 0.026) and middle age (estimate = 0.029, SE = 0.013, p = 0.025) but not young adulthood (estimate = −0.020, SE = 0.014, p = 0.163). 

The definition of "young adulthood' was not clear in the abstract, but if what it means is "high schoolers or 20's", then it would be great news for me since I spent in vain my late teenage through 20's: no cognitive and physical exercise.