March 31, 2025
(MedPage Today) – Scientists have developed a device that can translate thoughts about speech into spoken words in real time. Although it’s still experimental, they hope the brain-computer interface could someday help give voice to those unable to speak. A … Read More
March 31, 2025
Journal of Bioethical Inquiry (vol. 21, no. 4, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
March 28, 2025
(UPI) – A study published Wednesday indicates that low levels of a key brain chemical among overweight patients with high-fat diets is responsible for a loss of pleasure from food. Researchers from the University of California-Berkeley say they may have … Read More
March 26, 2025
(New York Times) – After college, as her friends soared, her life became an endless round of psychiatrists, institutionalizations and outpatient programs. An incomplete list of the drugs she has been prescribed: Depakote, Prozac, Ambien, Abilify, Klonopin, Lamictal, Provigil, Lithium. … Read More
March 24, 2025
(Washington Post via MSN) – Measuring pain, one of the most fundamental tasks in medicine, remains one of the least precise, a shortcoming that helped fuel the nation’s opioid crisis. In an era of genomic medicine and artificial intelligence, doctors … Read More
March 24, 2025
(The Atlantic) – In one tiny town, more than a dozen people were diagnosed with the rare neurodegenerative disease ALS. Why? In March 2009, after a long night on duty at the hospital, Emmeline Lagrange took a deep breath and … Read More
March 24, 2025
(NPR) – Fewer than half of the claims in the top videos accurately match the scientific criteria that form an ADHD diagnosis. Many oversimplified or overstated the symptoms of ADHD and weren’t backed up by reliable sources. Many content creators … Read More
March 21, 2025
(UPI) – A team at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif., was set to connect two Parkinson’s patients to a new type of deep brain stimulation device, or “brain pacemaker,” developed by Medtronic Inc., on Friday in … Read More
March 21, 2025
(The Telegraph) – Born with a hyper-sensitive sense of smell, Joy Milne has teamed up with Professor Barran to work on diagnosing early cases of the disease Joy Milne’s life has changed immeasurably since the day she ambushed an eminent … Read More
March 20, 2025
(TIME) – Severance, the extremely popular Apple TV+ series about office workers who undergo brain surgery so that their home selves have no knowledge or memory of their working selves, and vice versa, is often described as science fiction. That’s … Read More
March 20, 2025
(Wired) – The company has partnered with Nvidia to develop “cognitive AI,” which it says will allow people with severe physical disabilities to have more natural interactions with the world around them. Neurotech company Synchron has unveiled the latest version … Read More
March 20, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – The U.S. is making progress against one of its most devastating public-health threats: drug overdoses. Over the 12 months ended in October 2024, the country saw a 25% decline in overdose deaths compared with the same … Read More
March 20, 2025
(The Economist) – Our podcast on science and technology. Scientists’ understanding of the disease has long been incomplete. Now an old idea is gaining traction Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 30 million people around the world and there is no … Read More
March 19, 2025
(Aeon) – Millions are turning to an unregulated herbal extract to curb their opioid addiction. But do the risks outweigh the benefits? Harm reduction is a contested and evolving concept that was first used in the 1980s as a shorthand … Read More
March 19, 2025
(NBC News) – The new analysis by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse also looked into how the medications are being misused. Prescriptions for ADHD medications have been spiking in recent years, with the sharpest increase among middle-aged … Read More
March 19, 2025
(BBC) – Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are back on Earth after their eight-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) unexpectedly became a nine-month enforced stay. Now, their recovery begins. “Space is by far the most extreme environment … Read More
March 19, 2025
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics (vol. 46, no. 1, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
March 18, 2025
(KFF Health News) – Kratom, which originates from the leaves of a tree native to Southeast Asia, is also touted for helping relieve pain and opioid withdrawal symptoms. But it can have wide-ranging mental and bodily effects, according to the … Read More
March 18, 2025
(Washington Post via MSN) – By 2050, there will be an estimated 25.2 million people living with Parkinson’s disease worldwide, a 112 percent increase from 2021, according to a new study published in the journal BMJ. The World Health Organization … Read More
March 17, 2025
(Washington Post via MSN) – Are AI chatbots revolutionary technologies that herald the dawn of a new era of thinking machines? Or are they just “stochastic parrots,” as the linguist Emily M. Bender memorably put it — digital mimics programmed … Read More
March 17, 2025
(The Guardian) – In a matter of minutes, I was moving in and out of programs with ease; using my eyes and hands, my arm relaxed with no nerve pain firing. I view software that shows breakthroughs in medical training, … Read More
March 17, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – The swift rise in diagnoses for everything from autism to ADHD may be doing more harm than good. What all of these diagnoses have in common is that they all have a severe form with a … Read More
March 14, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Psychiatrists and primary-care doctors regularly prescribe the drugs for everything from mild anxiety to insomnia, making benzodiazepines some of the most commonly prescribed psychiatric medications in America. The pills’ omnipresence has left a mark on pop … Read More
March 12, 2025
(Nature) – Researchers have identified 64 genes that help to shape how quickly a person’s brain ages, in one of the largest attempts to pinpoint genetic factors that influence the organ’s decline. The study, published in Science Advances on 12 … Read More
March 12, 2025
(New York Times) – Prescription drugs like lorazepam — used to treat anxiety, panic attacks and sleep disorders — play a role in popular TV shows like “The White Lotus” and “The Pitt.” This isn’t a case of Hollywood taking … Read More
