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Drug Reverses Retardation In Mice
snydeq writes "Rapamycin, a medication doctors prescribe to transplant patients to prevent organ rejection, has been used to reverse learning disorders and mild retardation associated with TSC (tuberous sclerosis complex) in mice. Because the condition is linked to autism, scientists believe the drug may be used to treat learning disabilities and short-term memory deficits in all kinds of autism as well. The scientists chose rapamycin after they realized the drug regulates one of the same proteins that the TSC gene does, just in different parts of the body. 'What was surprising is that we could give rapamycin to adult mice and reverse their condition,' said neurobiologist Alcino Silva of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. 'We did not know ... that this drug would be equally effective for the learning disabilities as it is for tissue rejection.' Rapamycin treatment leveled the playing field between normal and TSC mice in as little as three days."
make sure it doesn't wear off after a little while
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Great!!! Now how can we get this drug out to 80% of the population quickly enough?
My blog
"There are, however, the expected side effects from a drug that suppresses the immune system: impaired wound healing, infections, mouth sores and, in rare instances, skin cancer." (and every cowboy sings a sad sad song.)
that that is is that that is not is not is that it it is
That that is, is. That that is not, is not. is that it? It is.
Invenio via vel creo
NARF!!!!!
There is hope for Pinky now!
-db
Good news cowboy neal! Unfortunately, you're still fat.
Jack needs to be volunteered to be the first human test subject. If it can cure him, it'll cure anyone.
"Rapamycin costs about $1,000 per month" For the rest of your life. Wow. I guess that's still a price that someone would be willing to pay if it would benefit them.
Having studied the autistic spectrum to some degree, this provides hope for only a few of the range of autistic symptoms. To learn more, check out Autism Speaks.
Invenio via vel creo
Today's belated visit shows an increase over their previously published statistic.
Invenio via vel creo
Well besides the obvious...votes Republican and makes less the 150k a year, Laughs at Carlos Mencia jokes, and lawyers beat it through the maze?
Guessing a drug that cures those symptoms would truly be a blessing
Or two legislatures, as you prefer.
How do they know which mice are retarded or not? Give them the cheese test?
lots and lots of anti-republican comments and most of them are going to get modded way the hell up, but I bet if someone said "give this to democrats LOL" they'd get modded into oblivion
hahhhahaha captcha is "erector"
If they cure autism, what am I supposed to do to find postal codes if Billy the office cleanup boy is cured? Look them up online?
Trolling is a art,
Make sure you get plenty of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids while you're growing up (good source = cod liver oil), and you can avoid many mental problems in the first place
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
...let me say that any hope is a good hope. This condition is a far, far greater burden than you probably realize, and to date most of medical science is still groping in the dark.
My son's neurologist actually prescribed an anti-psychotic to a three-year-old boy. One that, by the way, had NEVER been tested on children and was not FDA approved for that purpose.
There are some voodoo-science options as well. Some work all the time for certain cases, while others do not work at all. Gluten-free/Casen-free diet, Omega3's, Anti-Fungals etc, etc, etc. If you take information like this to a practicing MD they are quite likely to either roll their eyes our laugh outright. Still, there are those that swear by them.
This is where we presently sit.
Imagine having a young man, totally dependent on you, who is struggling not only to fit in, but to avoid punishment for perfectly natural behaviors. Now imagine the feeling when the realization sets in that you simply will not ever be able to 'fix' him, no matter how much parenting you may apply. In fact, try though you do, at the end of the day it feels like no one has helped him at all.
Any hope is a good hope.
If so, when is someone gonna slip this to our witless president?
Now if it can cure him then it really will cure anyone.
I thought the NeoCons were evil geniuses who had tricked the US into attacking Iraq to steal the oil and set up a police state back home.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
And just in case you thought I was making that up...
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/index.php
I've been taking this drug for years. I'll tell ya, having three or four mouth sores at all times helps you lose weight! And when you can't come to work for a month because of a raging... common cold, your idiot boss totally understands!
Sigh... luckily, these days, I'm on a lower dosage (and with a different boss).
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Your estimate is high. Only 50.7% require it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_US_presidential_election [wikipedia.org]
I'm a Republican, a Bush and now McCain supporter, and have more troll points on slashdot to prove my right wing cred, and I don't find this offensive at all. Come on people, lighten up. This was -funny-. If I would have been first to the joke, I would have made the same crack going the other way. The more seriously we take our political affiliations, the more we are trapped into the political parties that really don't represent us!
After all, can't we say: "Christ, Bush is such a great oil man, that he goes and invades the world's largest untapped source of oil, and now gas is $5 / gallon."
This is my sig.
if so... consider it for mice only. I've been waiting years for something that has proven in mice, but just "never seems to cross that gap" to humans.
But then again, when you consider a does of medication that costs 3000 dollars, why would anyone want to cure such a profitable disorder?
Tuberous Sclerosis
Individuals with Tuberous Sclerosis (TS) suffer from learning and behavioral deficits akin to those observed in autism as well as epilepsy. In TS, depending on the study, up to 60% of patients also meet the diagnostic criteria for autism. The defective genes are TSC1 (hamartin) and TSC2 (tuberin) which normally function in a complex of molecules important in cell growth and division. The complex is a suppressor of mTOR signaling. The link to autism turns out to be the PTEN molecule, which similarly functions as a suppressor of mTOR signaling. Some individuals with autism have been found to have mutations in the PTEN gene. Mice deficient in the mouse PTEN gene display autism-like behaviors, as do mice that have low levels of TSC1 and TSC2. Importantly, there is a drug that can function like PTEN, TSC1 and TSC2 in suppressing mTOR -- rapamycin. In the animal models, rapamycin normalizes learning deficits and reverses some of the abnormal phenotypes. Therefore, rapamycin is undergoing clinical trials to determine whether it can be an effective medication to alleviate the symptoms of TS. (Drs. Alcino Silva, Kevin Ess and Luis Parada)
Not exactly what you asked for, but essentially the reverse relationship.
Invenio via vel creo
Cure for the internet!
I would consider it mandatory for anybody who wants to vote. Since he didn't get to be president without being voted for. He was elected twice. It's a really sad state of affairs when the country that touts the strengths of democracy, has a leader with such a low approval rating.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Can we get this drug to the majority of the US voters before November please?
How many would you have to take before you can correctly pronounce "nuclear"? Because I can think of at least one really important person who needs to learn that already.
stuff |
I've already read Flowers for Algernon
Look at you. Sitting there, presumably in full control of your faculties, able to socialize, to date, to start and raise a family, to use your time as you wish, to banter back and forth on websites, or read a book, to build a career and take pride in your accomplishments, to further your education and expand your horizons.
Do you even KNOW anybody who suffers from any of these mild-to-mid-grade mental deficiencies? And I don't mean know OF, I mean KNOW and care for?
If you did, you'd see very clearly the tragedy that is a person who much of the time seems completely healthy and normal.
Wouldn't it be GREAT if pharma would give these things away for free? Sure. But this world today is not perfect. And you can't expect just a single industry to "disarm" and go socialized. Even if it WOULD benefit us all.
There's a test you can apply here: When a pharma company spends $1bn researching a drug that ends-up a flop, should we as taxpayers refund that cash to them? If the answer is "no," then you can't begrudge them for taking profits where they can.
And as much as I hate paying $4 for gas, I could say the same about oil: I don't know about you, but 8, 9 years ago when gas was $0.85/gallon, I never decided to pay $1.50 just to help out. Oil companies collapsed and consolodated when Oil was $20/barrel and now, I can't begrudge them for taking profits where they can.
Remember, nearly all of us are shareholders in these companies, whether directly, thru a 401k, thru a pension, thru a union, thru your local government which often invests a portion of its cash-on-hand, etc.
So the drug costs $1k. That's the reality of it. To suggest that being a "slave to the pharma industry" is as bad as being a prisoner of your own reduced faculties shows an abject lack of understanding, not to mention, a serious empathy deficit.
Wake me up when they find a cure for severe retardedness. I'll buy enough for everyone at the office.
Speedy thing goes in; speedy thing comes out.
Except he voted in Roberts to the Supreme Court and not only voted him in but was one of his biggest supporters.
who will be the first charlie?
in Slashdot posts?
Algernon?
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Perhaps it is not all the fault of the school system?
I'm sure it is difficult to raise two children who are quite different in ability, but I feel like someone should point out that a number of people with an IQ of 130+ (and perhaps 65) graduate from public school and go on to do wonderful things. I would venture a guess that many people here have an IQ over 130, were incredibly bored in high school, and came through it just fine.
I have an IQ of about 140 and got Bs in high school. My parents understood that I would not be wasting a lot of effort "learning" in high school and gave me the freedom to do other things outside of school so that I would have an outlet. These opportunities were not afforded to my older brother, who has a similar IQ, and so he dropped out of high school after failing ninth grade four times.
...it works for some cases of mild retardation, not major dain bramage. You're SOL.
Is it behavioral?
... for president bush to be of use i think.
Bad enough to be a mouse in today's cruel world, but then to be retarded as well, geez!
Can someone tag this as NiHM?
Put it in the water.
As a rule, I never trust dark brown ketchup.
I am curious. How do you tell a retarded mouse from a regular mouse? (No, they don't say NARF)
Before you do, ask yourself... do you really want to give away your only advantage?
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
"As a parent of an Autistic... who has a young man ... who is struggling not only to fit in, but to avoid punishment for perfectly natural behaviours." ... and "Any hope is a good hope "
And as an adult who is Autistic, I've come to realize that we don't need to fit in. Some people will accept us the way we are and some people will not. I see no reason to have to change my behaviour to conform to the expectations of the ones who don't want to accept me the way I am. I see no reason to be insecure about who I am, simply as I fail to live up to the expectations of the ones who want me to behave a certain way.
Being different isn't wrong, even though you may have heard differently.
But what I find utterly fascinating is what you find when you ask the question, why do some people want others to fit into a certain behaviour?
The key to understanding this question is to first learn to understand the extreme form of why some people want others to conform to a certain behaviour. Then it provides a way to see the more common, but less extreme desires of some people to get others to conform.
The extreme form of this behaviour is the result of a personality disorder categorised as cluster B disorders. (Specifically HPD and NPD forms). Personality disorders are actually very common in society. (For example, its estimated that over 70% of people in prison have a cluster B disorder).
In the case of HPD, they seek attention. (Its often due to lack of parental attention during childhood resulting in an on going fear and insecurity about the need for attention. (we are still pack animals, so when someone lacks the attention of their nearest family during childhood, they end up seeking the protection of the wider pack. Our society being that wider pack. So the safest place in any pack, is to be at the centre of attention in the pack. That's why they instinctively seek attention).
When someone is relentlessly driven to seek more attention, they will often react defensively to anyone else gaining attention. They don't want others to get attention. So as autistics naturally behave differently and so naturally appear different (and so get attention by being different), this triggers a defensive reaction from the insecure attention seekers, who put down and mock anyone who gains attention over them. (Its why the whole concept of the nerd is mocked). The insecure attention seekers also achieve the goal of gaining more attention, by being the one doing the mocking put downs and insults. (Its a double win for them).
The huge irony is that its the insecure attention seekers who have the problem. (In the case of the other forms of cluster B disorders, they often combine the HPD need for attention with other insecurities such as, fear of being seen as a coward, or fear of being seen as stupid, or fear of their unresolved sexual orientation, etc.. ... "fear" being the key word). The other forms of cluster B can be ruthlessly harmful towards others, yet they are the ones who are driven by their inner fears and insecurities. These people are not the kind of people who should be allowed to define what and how others should be seen and accepted within society. The sooner everyone learns to recognised the cluster B disorders (for their own protection from them), then the sooner the world will change, very much for the better. (Unfortunately as the cluster B disorders seek attention, they then naturally seek to define what's accepted in the media, as they seek to be in the media and so in the spotlight of attention, and so its how we have got into this unfortunate situation currently).
As you are a parent of an Autistic, you need to learn to slightly change how you have been taught to perceive Autism. (Taught that is, by some people in society). Autistics have an intense desire to learn. They may focus on very narrow subjects and pursue it with a never ending intensity, that others cannot understand. But that doesn't actually make their intellige
Is that "detardation"?
Seen a bumper sticker recently that said "I like my students with autism". My immediate thought was, well I like them with ketchup. I'm thinking this teacher will have to find a new career if all of her students get cured.
Yes, Brain I am. This time I actually am. And I'm two steps ahead of you. Please try and keep up, old bean.
The End.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Um, seriously. Between the plutocratic Republicans and the spineless Democrats who won't stand up to them, Candidate Puppy might get my vote from a reasoned perspective. He can't do further harm!
(Sorry, I'm grumpy because Sen. Feinstein just sent a response to my letter about the FISA "retroactive immunity" bill ... explaining why she supports it. You see, it's important because it prevents future presidents from spying on Americans without a warrant. Why the spineless democrats absolutely refuse to take Bush to task for flaunting our laws just completely escapes me.)
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
I sympathize with your plight. But I'd ask you to try to design a system that works for kids with IQ 65 and kids with IQ 131 ... and the majority of kids with IQ near 100, all on the extremely limited budget that we have. Personalized attention costs a ton of money: I recently heard that the special ed programs in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which serve 7% of the student population, already consume nearly 50% of the district's financial resources.
Trying to expand any system to provide tailored education exactly fitted to every student's needs would require immensely greater resources than voters are willing to provide.
I'm not saying there aren't things we could do - eliminating the testing-driven NCLB initiatives would be a good start - but I don't think this problem is completely fixable until Americans are willing to prioritize education quite a bit higher in the budget.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Insert Lawnmower Man reference here
"Of Mice and Men"...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Such a sad illness, still a lot of people had funny things to say about it.
I guess unless you personally see the pain and anguish in somebody, it is just a comical illness.
but consider carefully; "one of them's a genius", but WHICH is insane?
Just got done playing portal, have to say that I was unimpressed by the ending, but loved the "song."
The cake is a lie.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I have to say that I know it is hard, but maybe he does not need fixing. Maybe he is how he needs to be. I was not very functional as a kid, but I have a very high IQ and a high paying job, a loving wife, 2 kids, etc. I was never cured, I just learned how to be myself and how to make that work. Acceptance is very difficult, but there are more paths than just a "cure".
There are people who believe Neuro Diversity is acceptable and necessary
So, yeah, Bush is a hell of an oil man. He's done wonders for the industry
See now, if we would privatized social security, our retirement accounts would be flush with loads of XOM.
This is my sig.
Have they tried treating President Bush yet?
I especially agree with this point:
I use that same point against those that argue against a progressive income tax.
The more successful you are, the more you are "standing on the shoulders of giants." The more successful you are, the more value you get from the whole of the American infrastructure. So it's only fair you pay more.
And I think the real answer here is to not try to limit their income with, say, price controls or a windfall tax. Rather, I think they should be forced to TRULY pay for the economic impact their product produces.
A cap-and-trade system in the spirit of a VAT tax: Oil companies are getting 80% of the revenue of oil, the rest goes to refiners and marketers. So 80% of the pollution derived from the oil they sell should fall under their cap.
They'll have to spend billions to purchase credits, and that money will stimulate economic activity and provide an incentive to truly invest in new energy solutions.
Again, I can't hate somebody for making a profit. We ALL want success. Bil Oil needs to learn the lesson the Clinton Administration and our States Attorneys General taught Big Tobacco. You can make billions in a dirty industry, but you have to pay your own way.
What Big Oil is getting away with seems to me like, say, I created a Waste Management service and whenever I emptied the dumpsters at a clients location, I cashed their monthly payment then dumped all the garbage at the curb for the City to haul away.
They're getting a free ride. It's BS.
(Excuse my long post. I get worked up!)
I can't imagine TSC sufferers are a big market. Then again, narcoleptics aren't a big market either, but Modafinil ("Provigil®") seems to be doing pretty well in the market. The side-effects of rapamycin seem pretty serious, but it's possible a related compound could be developed that better targets the desired brain improvements and has lesser side-effects. So the question is: what kind of effect might a drug in this class have on normal "healthy" individuals? Could it be used as a performance-enhancing drug, much as modafinil and adderall sometimes are? That would expand its market greatly and bring down the cost for TSC sufferers...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Why does this comparison between mice and people keep coming up? A mouse is a very different species, and so, does animal testing on mice have ANY medical och scientific significance at all? I doubt it.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
Finally, a way to rid the world of retarded mice.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
...it came out 8 years too late.
Autism = retardation? Nice.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
It is interesting how far people will go to make them more like themselves instead of learning to adapt to the differences of others. One of the values of people with Learning Disabilities are their ability to learn one subject to a higher level of understand then other people in their time; sometimes to a great revolutionary idea, other times not so much. Either way, seeing things from another view points normally helps people to think outside of the box where as this does not happen if people view things the same way. So, I am not sure if this is good or bad yet.
...by making Californians less retarded. Put this in their drinking water.
Help us build a better map!
still no cure for ugly