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Jet Lag -Trends And Coping Strategies
Frequent air travelers, as well as people who fly only occasionally, are often inconvenienced by the effects of jet lag, according to research presented today at the American College of Sports Medicine"s 56th Annual Meeting in Seattle. Christopher Berger, Ph.D., Chair of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Task Force on Healthy Air Travel, "Exercise is Medicine™ On the Fly," explains that jet lag, medically called desynchronosis, is the physiological response to alterations to circadian rhythms.
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Does Size Matter? Study Shows Taller People Earn More Money, Australia
Taller men are able to earn more money than their shorter counterparts simply because taller people are perceived to be more intelligent and powerful, this according to a study published in The Economic Record by Wiley-Blackwell.
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Abortion Coverage Likely To Be Next Battle In House Health Reform Legislation
Abortion coverage could become the next "sticking point" in debates over health reform between the House leadership and conservative Democrats, the Los Angeles Times reports. During most of the battle over a health care overhaul, abortion-related issues have taken a "back seat" to clashes between House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats over the cost of the House bill (HR 3200). However, reproductive health issues are increasingly coming into play, with some other conservative Democrats threatening to withdraw support for the bill if coverage of abortion services is not explicitly excluded from receiving federal funding. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and 18 fellow Democrats in June wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stating that they "cannot support any health care proposal unless it excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan." According to the Times, Stupak has "vowed" to press Waxman to include restrictions on abortion coverage in the Energy and Commerce Committee"s version of the House bill. Abortion-rights supporter Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Rules Committee, opposes Stupak"s proposal. Slaughter spokesperson Vincent Morris said, "The starting point for Rep. Slaughter of the health care debate was protecting abortion rights."The Hyde Amendment currently prevents the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortion services. The reach of current law restrictions "grows murkier" if the government forms its own health insurance plan to compete with private insurers or creates a new market that allows the public to choose between various private plans, the Times reports. Both options are under consideration in Congress, and abortion-rights opponents fear that abortion services would be covered unless the language of the bill explicitly forbids it.Abortion-rights supporters argue that the bill would maintain the status quo, as insurance companies already are able to choose whether to cover abortion services. New government restrictions could mean that women seeking abortion coverage would have to choose a more expensive private plan rather than a lower-cost, government-subsidized option, according to abortion-rights advocates. Another concern, they say, is that insurers who currently cover abortion would discontinue that coverage to take advantage of government incentives. In a recent statement, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said, "Opponents of women"s health and health care reform are exploiting health care reform as a way to push for unprecedented prohibitions on abortion coverage in the private marketplace."The Obama administration is attempting to remain neutral on the issue, the Times reports. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs recently said that "a benefit package is better left to experts in the medical field to determine how best and what procedures to cover." The House bill currently establishes a Health Benefits Advisory Committee to recommend which "essential benefits" should be covered under any government-supported insurance plan. In an interview with CBS News last week, President Obama said that he believes it is "appropriate for us to figure out how to just deliver on the cost savings and not get distracted by the abortion debate."According to the Times, the Obama administration"s silence on the issue is "precisely what worries" antiabortion-rights advocates. Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said that Obama is "actually making an affirmative statement in favor of" federal funding for abortion services by not taking a stand on the issue (Oliphant, Los Angeles Times, 7/28).
Mental Health

Schizophrenic's Automatic Pilot Still Works

Phoning someone whilst driving to work without having to think about it. After plenty of practice, people can do a lot of things on automatic pilot and simultaneously. However, for people with schizophrenia that is a different story. Dutch researcher Tamar van Raalten investigated whether a disruption to the automation process, learning by repetition to do something on automatic pilot, explains why people with schizophrenia can process less information. She established that it is not the automation process but the processing of new information that causes problems. Van Raalten first of all investigated the role of the working memory during automation. Our working memory ensures that we remember transient pieces of information such as a telephone number. Van Raalten asked study subjects, positioned in an fMRI scanner, to perform tests in which they had to remember a series of letters. Normally your working memory is then fully active. Yet the more the tests were repeated, the lower the brain activity in the areas involved in working memory function. This activity was also not compensated for by other parts of the brain involved in (long-term) memory. By automating the letter series, the study subjects therefore released working memory capacity so that it could once again process new information. Van Raalten established that the decrease in activity was due to another function of the working memory; the restructuring of incoming information. For example, you first of all remember a telephone number as a series of independent figures. But your working memory ensures that this series is divided into chunks. Instead of 1-1-3-2-6-7-3-4-4-5, you remember 113-267-3445. In this way you only have to remember three chunks and not ten individual numbers. This characteristic ensures that once a task has become fully automated after sufficient training, it can be performed without further involvement of the working memory. As a result of this you can do other things alongside the automated task. Not two things at once Patients with schizophrenia can, however, process less information than healthy people. Their brains function less efficiently. It was expected that a faltering working memory in schizophrenia patients ensured that automation did not proceed well, as a result of which they could not release working memory capacity. However, tests on schizophrenia patients revealed that after training the brain activity decreased in the same manner as was the case for healthy study subjects. Although the working memory does not function well in schizophrenic patients, the automation of tasks proceeded without problems. It might therefore be expected that schizophrenia patients could also more easily perform a second task besides the first, automated task. Yet the released capacity of the working memory could not be used for a new task. Following this "surprise" result Van Raalten investigated where the problem could possibly be located. During new tests she discovered that the working memory in schizophrenia patients mainly struggled with the processing of information that continually changed. Consequently, schizophrenic patients may have more of a tendency to adopt automatic strategies in circumstances that demand flexible behaviour. This inability to satisfactorily process new information can lead to stereotypical behaviours, which are an important characteristic of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism. Van Raalten"s research reveals that the working memory is not solely responsible for automation. She proposes targeting future research at other systems that interact with the working memory in automation. Furthermore, medication might also play a role in the automation performed by patients. Research is currently taking place at University Medical Centre Utrecht into the role of medication in the automation process. Tamar van Raalten carried out her research at University Medical Centre Utrecht. Her research was funded by the Vidi grant of Nick Ramsey. In 2002, he received a Vidi grant from NWO for his research into the brain mechanisms underlying learning. Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research


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