The first "test tube baby" was born in 1978. With advances in reproductive science, an estimated one percent of all American babies are now born each year through in vitro fertilization (IVF). But IVF and other assisted fertility treatments may be solving one problem by creating another, suggests new evidence from Tel Aviv University. ...

A study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health suggests that traumatic experiences "biologically embed" themselves in select genes, altering their functions and leading to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). "Our findings suggest a new biological model of PTSD in which alteration of genes, induced by a traumatic event, changes a person's stress response ...

In studies on cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders and other degenerative conditions, some scientists are moving away from the "nature-versus-nurture" debate and are finding you're not a creature of either genetics or environment, but both – with enormous implications for a new approach to health. The new field of "epigenetics" is rapidly revealing how people, plants, and animals do start with a ce ...

A new discovery raises hope that autism may be more easily diagnosed and that its effects may be more reversible than previously thought. In a new study appearing online in The FASEB Journal, scientists have identified a way to detect the disorder using blood and have discovered that drugs which affect the methylation state ("DNA tagging") of genes could reverse autism's effects. This type of drug is alread ...

Advanced maternal age is linked to a significantly elevated risk of having a child with autism, regardless of the father's age, according to an exhaustive study of all births in California during the 1990s by UC Davis Health System researchers. Advanced paternal age is associated with elevated autism risk only when the father is older and the mother is under 30, the study found. Published online today in th ...

Researchers, for the first time, have pinpointed a genetic hotspot that confers risk for both bipolar disorder and depression. People with either of these mood disorders were significantly more likely to have risk versions of genes at this site than healthy controls. One of the genes, which codes for part of a cell's machinery that tells genes when to turn on and off, was also found to be over-expressed in ...

Autism research continues to emerge at a steady pace. "A new, integrated interpretation of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)" was recently reported. Now, researchers have found a potential biomarker for Autism as, for the first time, inherited disruption of gene expression in a brain system for social behavior has been implicated in autism. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grantee Margaret Pericak-V ...

Dr. Philip Thorpe, Ph.D., lead researcher of the Bavituximab study [1] reviewed on this website, recently agreed to conduct an interview with The Behavioral Medicine Report. The original review of his research turned out to be a highly accessed article that justified a follow-up interview with Dr. Thorpe. I also wanted to clarify my understanding of Bavituximab and its treatment implications and to better d ...

Roulette William Smith, Ph.D. details a potentially ground breaking theory that purports to unravel the mystery surrounding the underlying causative factors of autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, and a host of other mental and physical illnesses in his paper entitled, "Inferring an Autovirulent Epigenetic Etiology for the Autism Spectrum and Schizophrenia*." Dr. Smith's theory originated from insights ...