Knowledge Update

​Toronto, Nov 16 (IANS) Exercise may help improve gait, balance and reduce risks of falls in individuals living with Parkinson's disease, researchers say.

Parkinson's Disease -- a neurodegenerative disease that impacts movement, often including tremors -- affects nearly seven to 10 million persons around the world, according to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. 

Despite the progressive nature of the disease, people living with Parkinson's disease can expect to improve their physical condition by being more physically active, the researchers said.

"Exercise should be a life-long commitment to avoid physical and cognitive decline, and our research shows that this is also true for individuals with Parkinson's disease," said Christian Duval, Professor at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal in Canada. 

The study found that exercise in Parkinson's disease patients majorly benefitted physical capacities -- strength, flexibility --, physical and cognitive functional capacities -- gait, mobility, cognitive functions.

The physical activity was also effective for limb strength, endurance, flexibility or range of motion, motor control, and metabolic function in patients with Parkinson's disease. 

Exercise showed nearly 67 per cent improvement in upper limb strength, the researchers explained. 

However, physical activity seems less efficient at improving clinical symptoms of Parkinson's disease -- rigidity, tremor, posture alterations -- and psychosocial aspects of life -- quality of life and health management --, with only 50 per cent or less of results reporting positive effects. 

The impact of physical activity on cognitive functions and depression also appeared weaker, the researchers reported the in the paper published in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease. 

​New York, Nov 16 (IANS) Adverse childhood experiences such as abuse or neglect, dysfunctional homes or low socio-economic status may be associated with a risk of poor blood pressure regulation, a study has found.

The study showed that children who experienced such adverse environments in early life were far more likely to have higher blood pressure at night as well as blood pressure variability over 24 hours.

In addition they are also prone to rapid onset of hypertension -- risk factor for cardiovascular disease -- at an earlier age.

"Adverse environments in early life have been consistently associated with the increased risk of hypertension in later life," said lead author Shaoyong Su, Associate Professor at the Augusta University in Georgia, US. 

Blood pressure variability has been linked to a number of problems in adults, including decreased brain function in older adults, as well as increased risk of stroke and poorer post-stroke recovery. Likewise, early-onset hypertension and prehypertension have been linked to adverse preclinical cardiovascular disease, including left ventricular hypertrophy and evidence of increased arterial stiffness.

For the study, the team conducted periodic around-the-clock blood pressure monitoring to capture day and nighttime pressure readings in 373 participants between the ages of seven and 38 during a 23-year period. 

Those who reported childhood adversity were 17 per cent more likely to have blood pressure higher than the clinical definition of hypertension during the daytime.

Most physicians focus on average blood pressure readings, but the new findings suggest that they should also ask younger patients about childhood adversity and watch for high blood pressure variability, Su noted.

The research was presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2016 in Louisana, US.

​Washington, Nov 16 (IANS) To help learn more about the primitive building blocks of the solar system and answer questions about Earths neighbours like the moon and Mars, three federal entities in the US, including NASA, are reaffirming their commitment to search for Antarctic meteorites.

NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Smithsonian Institution (SI) recently renewed their agreement to search for, collect and curate Antarctic meteorites in a partnership known as ANSMET -- the Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program, the US space agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

The signing of this new joint agreement advances the programme for an additional decade, replacing an earlier agreement signed in 1980.

"Antarctic meteorites are posing new questions about the formation and early history of our solar system. Some of these questions are spurring new exploration of the solar system by NASA missions," Smithsonian meteorite scientist Tim McCoy said.

Since the US began searching for meteorites in Antarctica in 1976, the ANSMET programme has collected more than 23,000 specimens, dramatically increasing the number of samples available for study from Earth's moon, Mars and asteroids. 

Among them are the first meteorites discovered to come from the moon and Mars, and the well-known ALH 84001 Martian meteorite, which helped renew interest in Mars exploration in the 1990s.

Meteorites are natural objects that fall to Earth from space and survive intact so they can be collected on the ground, or -- in this case -- on ice. 

Antarctica provides a unique environment for the collection of meteorites, because the cold desert climate preserves meteorites for long periods of time, NASA said. 

​New York, Nov 15 (IANS) Insomnia may raise your risks of an irregular and often rapid heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation or arrhythmia, that can further increase your risk of stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications, researchers have found.

Insomnia is having trouble falling asleep, not getting enough sleep, or having poor sleep.

Poor sleep is also known to increase the risk for high blood pressure, obesity and stroke -- key heart disease risk factors, said researchers from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, US.

The results showed that people diagnosed with insomnia had a 29 per cent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to those without insomnia.

People who reported frequent night-time awakening -- which puts extra stress on the heart's chambers -- had about a 26 per cent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to those who did not wake up a lot.

Having less rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep than other sleep phases during the night is also linked to higher chances of developing atrial fibrillation.

"By examining the actual characteristics of sleep, such as how much REM sleep you get, it points us toward a more plausible mechanism. There could be something particular about how sleep impacts the autonomic nervous system," said lead study author Matt Christensen, a medical student at the University of Michigan.

The autonomic nervous system plays a major role in controlling heart rate and blood pressure, Christensen added.

Getting enough physical activity, avoiding too much caffeine can enhance sleep quality and may also help prevent arrhythmia, the researchers suggested.

The preliminary research was presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2016 in Louisiana, recently.

New York, Nov 15 (IANS) Experience rather than possession is more likely to give individuals a greater sense of gratitude, and will also make them more generous towards others, a study involving an Indian-origin researcher has found.

Our deeds mean more to us. "We feel more gratitude for what we've done than for what we have," said Thomas Gilovich, Professor of psychology at the Cornell University.

"Think about how you feel when you come home from buying something new," Gilovich said in the study published in the journal, Emotion.

"You might say: this new couch is cool, however, you're less likely to say: I'm so grateful for that set of shelves. 

"But when you come home from a vacation, you are likely to say: I feel so blessed I got to go," he said. 

"People say positive things about the stuff they buy, but they don't usually express gratitude for it, or they don't express it as often as they do for their experiences," Gilovich added.

The researchers looked at 1,200 customer reviews, half for experiential purchases like restaurant meals and hotel stays and half for material purchases like furniture and clothing. 

Reviewers were more likely to spontaneously mention feeling grateful for experiential purchases than material ones, the study suggested.

"One of the reason for this increased gratitude may be because experiences trigger fewer social comparisons than material possessions. 

"Consequently, experiences are more likely to foster a greater appreciation of one's own circumstances," said Jesse Walker, Researcher at the Cornell University.

The researchers also looked at how gratitude for experiences versus material purchases affected pro-social behaviour. 

In a study involving an economic game, they found that thinking about a meaningful experiential purchase caused participants to behave more generously toward others than when they thought about a material purchase.

"This link between gratitude and altruistic behaviour is intriguing," said Amit Kumar, Researcher at the University of Chicago.

"It suggests that the benefits of experiential consumption apply not only to the consumers of those purchases themselves, but to others in their orbit as well," Kumar said.

Feeling gratitude increased happiness and social cohesion, better health outcomes, and even improved sleep quality, the study revealed.

New York, Nov 12 (IANS) Traumatic stress may have different impact in the brains of adolescent boys and girls, according to a new brain-scanning study.

The study found structural differences between the sexes in one part of the insula -- a brain region -- among the youth with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- a mental health condition triggered by experiencing or seeing a terrifying event.

"The insula appears to play a key role in the development of PTSD. The difference we saw between the brains of boys and girls who have experienced psychological trauma is important because it may help explain differences in trauma symptoms between sexes," said Victor Carrion, Professor at Stanford University in California. 

"Our findings suggest it is possible that boys and girls could exhibit different trauma symptoms and that they might benefit from different approaches to treatment," added Megan Klabunde, psychologist from Stanford University.

In the study, the research team conducted MRI scans of the brains of 59 study participants aged 9-17. Thirty of them -- 14 girls and 16 boys -- had trauma symptoms, and 29 others -- the control group of 15 girls and 14 boys -- did not. 

In the control group, no differences was found in the brain structure of boys and girls. 

However, among the traumatised boys and girls, they saw differences in a portion of the insula called the anterior circular sulcus. This brain region had larger volume and surface area in traumatised boys than in boys in the control group. 

Insula's volume and surface area were smaller in girls with trauma than among girls in the control group, the researchers said.

In addition, the research also implies that traumatic stress could contribute to accelerated cortical ageing of the insula in girls who develop PTSD, Klabunde noted, adding that the study may help scientists understand how experiencing trauma could play into differences between the sexes in regulating emotions. 

The paper was published online in the journal Depression and Anxiety

New York, Nov 13 (IANS) A research team in the US has created a software that can quickly identify the information in cancer reports that would not only save time and work-hours but also reveal overlooked avenues in cancer research.

Much of the cancer-related data is drawn from electronic, text-based clinical reports that must be manually curated -- a time-intensive process -- before it can be used in research. 

"The manual model is not scalable and we need to develop new tools that can automate the information-extraction process and truly modernise cancer surveillance in the US," said Georgia Tourassi, director of the Health Data Sciences Institute at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

After experimenting with conventional natural-language-processing software, the team found an answer via deep learning -- a machine-learning technique that employs algorithms, big data and the computing power of GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) to emulate human learning and intelligence.

"Our work shows deep learning's potential for creating resources that can capture the effectiveness of cancer treatments and diagnostic procedures and give the cancer community a greater understanding of how they perform in real life," Tourassi added.

GPUs, such as those in Titan, can accelerate this training process by quickly executing many deep-learning calculations simultaneously. 

​New York, Nov 13 (IANS) Thousands of years ago, when the ancestors of modern humans made their way out of Africa to other parts of the globe, their encounter with Neanderthals and Denisovans helped the human race over the years, researchers have said.

Ancient humans met up -- and in some cases had children with -- other forms of humans, including the Neanderthals and Denisovans. This was found through the traces of those meetings remaining in the human genome.

"Our work shows that hybridisation was not just some curious side-note to human history, but had important consequences and contributed to our ancestors' ability to adapt to different environments as they dispersed throughout the world," Joshua Akey of University of Washington said in a statement.

The researchers used genome-scale maps of Neanderthal and Denisovan sequences identified in more than 1,500 geographically diverse people.

The researchers were searching for archaic DNA sequences in those human genomes at frequencies much higher than would be expected if those genes were not doing people any good.

While the vast majority of surviving Neanderthal and Denisovan sequences are found at relatively low frequencies (typically less than five per cent), the new analyses turned up 126 places in our genomes where these archaic sequences exist at much higher frequencies, reaching up to about 65 per cent. 

Seven of those regions were found in parts of the genome known to play a role in characteristics of our skin. Another 31 are involved in immunity.

"The ability to increase to such high population frequencies was most likely facilitated because these sequences were advantageous," Akey explains in paper published in the journal Current Biology.

New York, Nov 14 (IANS) Immune cells in the spleen can contribute to prolonged anxiety following psychological stress, new research has found.

The abundance of white blood cells in the spleen could be sending messages to the brain that result in behavioural changes long after experiencing repeated stress, the study conducted in mice showed.

"Our findings emphasise the possibility that the immune system represents a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of mental health conditions," said Daniel McKim from Ohio State University in the US.

In this study, the scientists determined that the immune cell changes persisted for almost a month after the mice experienced the stress.

"Stress appears to prompt the release of stem cells from the bone marrow to the spleen, where they develop into white blood cells, or monocytes, and expand over time," Jonathan Godbout, Associate Professor at Ohio State, said.

"Then the spleen becomes a reservoir of inflammatory cells," Godbout noted.

The researchers said that the spleen is now understood to be integral to the sensitisation that happens after prolonged stress in mice, leading to anxiety and other cognitive problems down the road. 

"It's like a stress memory," Godbout said.

The researchers said that the work towards explaining the complicated interplay between immunity and stress in animals that have experienced "repeated social defeat" is an effort to eventually improve the well-being of people who experience chronic psychological stress.

The research was presented at Neuroscience 2016, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, in San Diego.

New York, Nov 15 (IANS) Microsoft said its Cheyenne datacentre in Wyoming will now be powered entirely by 237 megawatts of wind energy.

"Our commitment extends beyond greening our own operations because these projects help create a greener, more reliable grid in the communities in which we operate," Brad Smith, President and Chief Legal Officer, said in a Microsoft blog post on Monday.

"That's why we are announcing our largest wind energy purchases yet - 237 megawatts of wind energy - that will allow our datacenter in Cheyenne, Wyoming to be powered entirely by wind power," Smith added.

Microsoft has also structured the purchase and partnered with the local utility in novel ways to facilitate a shift of cities and states towards a cleaner energy grid. 

Microsoft said it entered into agreements with two wind farms to power its Cheyenne datacentre from renewable sources.

Of the two partnerships, Microsoft has procured 178 megawatts from the Bloom Wind Project in Kansas through Allianz Risk Transfer (ART) to help bring this new project online and partnered with Black Hills Corp. to purchase wind power from the 59-megawatt Happy Jack and Silver Sage wind farms in Wyoming.

With these energy deals, Microsoft's total investment in wind energy projects in the US has gone up to over 500 megawatts. 

"The combined output of the Bloom and Happy Jack/Silver Sage projects will produce enough energy on an annual basis to cover the energy used at the datacenter," Smith said.