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Therapist-assisted walking rehabilitation showed greater improvements in walking ability in ambulatory stroke survivors compared to robotic-assisted therapy. Post-stroke patients in both groups improved their walking ability, but the amount of improvement in the physical therapist-assisted group was greater. Robotic devices may be best reserved for acute stroke patients who have no ability to walk on their own.

A new study provides much-needed insight into the molecular mechanisms that cause arrythmia, or irregular heartbeat, and how it triggers sudden cardiac death, one of the nation's leading killers.

Intrauterine growth retardation results in a baby having a low birth weight and has been linked to the development of type 2 diabetes in adulthood. It has been suggested that IUGR alters the expression of key genes during fetal development and that this affects disease susceptibility later in life. Evidence to support this hypothesis and indicating that the changes in gene expression are permanent has now been generated using a rat model of IUGR.

Scientist have examined a new mechanism in the reproductive cycle of a certain species of mold. This mechanism protects the organism from genetic abnormalities by "silencing" unmatched genes during meiosis (sexual reproduction). The finding could have implications for higher organisms and may lead to precise "targeting" of unwanted genes, such as those from the HIV virus.

According to a new policy analysis the most common HIV prevention strategies -- condom promotion, HIV testing, treatment of other sexually transmitted infections, vaccine and microbicide research, and abstinence -- are having a limited impact on the predominantly heterosexual epidemics found in Africa.

Women and men tend to have different types of stress-related psychological disorders. Women have greater rates of depression and some types of anxiety disorders than men, while men have greater rates of alcohol-use disorders than women. A new study of emotional and alcohol-craving responses to stress has found that when men become upset, they are more likely than women to want alcohol.

While many people believe that alcohol-impaired drivers are usually alcoholics, in fact, 80 percent of AI incidents are caused by binge drinkers. A recent study conducted among college students has found that binge drinkers, even when legally intoxicated, nonetheless believe they having adequate driving abilities.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have illuminated a window into how abnormalities in microRNAs may contribute to the behavioral and neuronal deficits associated with schizophrenia and possibly other brain disorders. They uncovered a previously unknown alteration in the production of microRNAs of a mouse modeled to have the same chromosome 22q11.2 deletions previously identified in humans with schizophrenia.

Millions of American teens report experiencing weeks of hopelessness and loss of interest in normal daily activities and many of these depressed teens are using marijuana and other drugs, making their situation worse, according to a new White House report.

A tiny modification called methylation on estrogen receptors prolongs the life of these growth-driving molecules in breast cancer cells. Most breast cancers contain estrogen receptors, which enable them to grow in the presence of the hormone estrogen. Their presence can determine whether tumors will respond to the estrogen-blocking drug tamoxifen. The finding will help researchers sort out how mutations change the estrogen receptor's function and allow some breast cancers to resist tamoxifen.