Latest Organs Stories

A new study using brain imaging to study teen behavior indicates that adolescents who engage in dangerous activities have frontal white matter tracts that are more adult in form than their more conservative peers.The brain goes through a course of maturation during adolescence and does not reach its adult form until the mid-twenties. A long-standing theory of adolescent behavior has assumed that this delayed brain maturation is the cause of impulsive and dangerous decisions in adolescence....

Scientists at the Duke University Medical Center say they've conducted the first study of the appendix through the ages and conclude Darwin was wrong. Duke scientists and collaborators from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University conclude Charles Darwin was wrong when he called the appendix a vestigial organ. The researchers said not only does the appendix appear in nature much more frequently than previously acknowledged, but it's been around much longer than anyone had...

 A tissue-repair-and-regeneration pathway in the human body, including wound healing, is essential for the early lung to develop properly. Genetically engineered mice fail to develop lungs when two molecules in this pathway, Wnt2 and Wnt2b, are knocked out. The findings are described this week in Developmental Cell."We wanted to know the answer to a seemingly simple question: What is required to generate the lung in mammals?" asked senior author Edward Morrisey, PhD, Associate Professor...

At least five percent of the population has one or two cysts in the liver. Cysts are fluid-filled cavities. There are also many patients who have numerous cysts, which then is termed a polycystic liver. These cysts cause the liver to grow to four to six times its normal size. Until recently, surgery was the only possible treatment for these patients, but this approach leads to many complications, and the outcome is not always successful. Ultimately, these patients need a liver...

Young women with early-stage ovarian cancer can preserve fertility by keeping at least one ovary or the uterus without increasing the risk of dying from the disease, a new study finds.Although ovarian cancer occurs most often in older women, up to 17 percent of ovarian tumors occur in women age 40 or younger, many of whom have early stage disease. Surgery for ovarian cancer usually involves hysterectomy -- complete removal of the uterus and ovaries -- which not only results in the loss of...

U.S., Canadian and other scientists say they've identified a genetic link to a birth defect that causes mental retardation and sometimes autism. Researchers from the University of Chicago, University of Alberta and other institutions said their finding might lead to improved treatments for the disorder called Dandy-Walker malformation, a brain defect occurring in 1 of every 5,000 births. The scientists discovered the FOXC1 gene mediates development of the cerebellum and contributes to DWM,...

Like clockwork, brain regions in many songbird species expand and shrink seasonally in response to hormones. Now, for the first time, University of Washington neurobiologists have interrupted this natural "annual remodeling" of the brain and have shown that there is a direct link between the death of old neurons and their replacement by newly born ones in a living vertebrate.The scientists introduced a chemical into one side of sparrow brains in an area that helps control singing...

For decades, scientists assumed that the ovary alone produced steroid hormones during pregnancy. In a new study in mice, however, researchers demonstrate that once an embryo attaches to the uterine wall, the uterus itself actually synthesizes the estrogen needed to sustain the pregnancy.This is the first time that the uterus has been identified as an endocrine organ, said University of Illinois veterinary biosciences professor Indrani Bagchi, who led the study with doctoral student Amrita...

A new 3-D scaffold of living, beating heart cells is a promising step forward on the quest for viable strategies of transplanting cells into diseased hearts It is an amazing sight: What looks like a tiny beating heart is actually a piece of synthetic, gauze-like mesh, barely the size of a fingernail, floating in a Petri dish. And yet it keeps squeezing away, nice and rhythmically.Researchers at The University of Arizona's Sarver Heart Center and the Southern Arizona Veterans...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from Kenneth Beer MD: As a cosmetic dermatologist and dermatopathologist, I am trained to look at the structure and function of the skin. In my clinical practice, I see patients several times each year and keep their skin healthy. I also try to help them look their best. This may involve using lasers or other treatments to renovate the skin but it also requires maintaining the improvement once the patient gets...