Author: jplucas

Do you have trouble getting a good night’s sleep? University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are working on a gadget that can help you.

Dr. Giulio Tononi, professor of psychiatry at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health is working on a device that uses transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to stimulate the slow brain waves characteristic of deep sleep.

TMS sends a harmless magnetic pulse through your skull to alter brain activity. In experiments, sleeping volunteers immediately began reproducing the slow, deep waves seen in Stage Three and Stage Four sleep.

MADISON, Wis. — Radio frequency identification, or RFID, is a new technology that might revolutionize the way businesses and even governments track objects.

And while experts say RFID holds tremendous positive benefits for both industry and consumers, questions remain about how invasive this technology could be for people.

RFID technology uses radio waves along with microchips and antennas called tags to give an object a unique number, similar to the idea of a Social Security number for items. Receiving devices called readers then remotely track the object from a distance and download information about it, WISC-TV reported.

Meditation may train the brain to pay close attention, a new study shows.

The study comes from researchers including Richard Davidson, PhD, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

For decades Massachusetts has been fertile ground for the life sciences. Our unique concentration of extraordinary universities, teaching hospitals, research facilities, venture capital, and talent, spurred by a tradition of entrepreneurialism, provides a strong foundation for the growth in the biotech industry. These strengths have brought thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in life science investments to Massachusetts.

In meditation, people sit quietly and concentrate on their breath. As air swooshes in and out of their nostrils, they attend to each sensation. As unbidden thoughts flutter to mind, they let them go. Breathe. Let go. Breathe. Let go.

According to a study published today in the online edition of the journal PloS Biology, three months of rigorous training in this kind of meditation leads to a profound shift in how the brain allocates attention.

It appears that the ability to release thoughts that pop into mind frees the brain to attend to more rapidly changing things and events in the world at large, said the studyâ??s lead author, Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Expert meditators, he said, are better than other people at detecting such fast-changing stimuli, like emotional facial expressions.

(UNDATED) Alternative medicine is not as widely used in the United States as it is in other parts of the world. But a vexing medical problem for diabetics is prompting a Wisconsin medical researcher to put an ancient remedy to the test.

Diabetics can get foot that donâ??t heal. This can lead to amputation. The best way to prevent this hasnâ??t been found; doctors have tried everything from gel therapy to maggots.

UW Health Assistant Professor of Family Medicine Jennifer Eddy works at a clinic in Eau Claire. She wants to try something different. She says thereâ??s a broad range of options and thatâ??s usually a sign in medicine that nothing has been clearly shown to be more effective than anything else. (Third item.)

Spreading honey on a diabetic ulcer could prevent the need to amputate an infected foot, researchers say.

A doctor at the University of Wisconsin who helped about half a dozen of her diabetic patients avoid amputation has launched a controlled trial to promote the widespread use of honey therapy.

The therapy involves squeezing a thick layer of honey onto the wound after dead skin and bacteria have been removed.

Duct tape patched on windows keeps out water and mold. Clear plastic sealed over an air vent provides more insulation.

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara face a minefield of physical, financial and political barriers as they work to understand how stem cells from embryos can be used to fight disease. In this lab badly in need of upgrades, they focus on turning stem cells into a cavalry of replacement cells that can battle the eye disease of macular degeneration. Elsewhere on a campus striving to establish itself as a research nexus, scientists use stem cells from embryos, brains and even testicles in research linked to everything from Parkinson’s disease to alcoholism.

Richard J. Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, has been looking at patterns of brain activity associated with emotional regulation in a small group of older people who have participated in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. In a paper published last year, the Wisconsin team reported that older adults (the average age was 64) who regulated their emotions well showed a distinctly different pattern of brain activity than those who didnâ??t. These people apparently used their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that exerts â??executive controlâ? over certain brain functions, to tamp down activity in the amygdala, a small region deep in the brain that processes emotional content, especially fear and anxiety. In people who are poor regulators of emotion, activity in the amygdala is higher, and daily measurements of the stress hormone cortisol follow a pattern that has been associated with poor health outcomes.