Tag "health studies"

Little is known to science about the origins of dementia, except in cases stemming from such external causes as traumatic brain injuries and infections. At present, the dominant theory points to a link with Alzheimer’s — itself a disease whose causes have not been explained and that lacks reliable diagnostic criteria. Professor Vasily Vlasov of the Health Care Administration and Economics Department of the Social Sciences Faculty at HSE University explains what science currently knows about dementia.

In 2013, Russia banned smoking in public places such as cafes, restaurants and nightclubs, as well as on trains, in playgrounds, etc. Statistical analysis has revealed, however, that 26% of male and 28% of female smokers do not always comply with these smoking bans. A full report from a study by Ludmila Zasimova, Assistant Professor at the HSE Department of Applied Economics, has been published in the International Journal of Public Health.

Researchers have used machine learning to discover that the two most widespread DNA structures — stem-loops and quadruplexes — cause genome mutations that lead to cancer. The results of the study were published in BMC Cancer.

The existing approach to brain stimulation for rehabilitation after a stroke does not take into account the diversity of lesions and the individual characteristics of patients’ brains. This was the conclusion made by researchers of the Higher School of Economics and the Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Sciences in their article, ‘Predicting the Response to Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation in Stroke’.

Mobile and web-based applications available today allow patients to self-diagnose and self-prescribe treatment. Galina Polynskaya and Margarita Mesropyan have examined  to what extent patients and doctors trust such technology.

Scientists at the Higher School of Economics, the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBCh RAS), and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center created a genetic model that helps to understand how the body restrains autoimmune and oncological diseases. The researchers published their results in Nature Immunology.

Scientists at the Higher School of Economics and the Russian Academy of Science’s Koltsov Institute of Developmental Biology have developed a new methodology for identifying biomarkers (indicators) of both early- and late-stage Parkinson’s disease. Their findings were published in the journal Molecular Neurobiology.

Researchers at the Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces and the Centre for Cognition & Decision Making of the Higher School of Economics utilized electroencephalogram (EEG) and the event-related potential (ERP) technique to study neural activity during simultaneous interpretation of continuous prose. Using event-related potentials as an index of depth of attention to the sounding fragment, the researchers assessed the competition between memory and auditory perception during simultaneous interpretation. The results of the study were published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Scientists of the Higher School of Economics, Indiana University, and École normale supérieure clarified how alcohol influences the dopamine and inhibitory cells in the midbrain that are involved in the reward system and the formation of dependency on addictive drugs. The results of the study were published in the article ‘Dynamical ventral tegmental area circuit mechanisms of alcohol-dependent dopamine release’. 

An international group of collaborating scientists that includes HSE Professor Vasily Vlasov has analyzed data from 195 countries on the spread of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia between 1990 and 2016. The results have been published in the journal The Lancet Neurology.