Eye Health News and Research

Latest Eye Health News and Research

Scientists use SWI to study changes in brains of college-level ice hockey players with concussion

Using susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI), researchers have identified microstructural changes in the brains of male and female college-level ice hockey players that could be due to concussive or subconcussive trauma.

4 Feb 2014

GOP considers tying debt-limit deal to repeal of part of health law

House Republicans are considering linking their support for raising the national debt to a repeal of the health law's risk corridors, which helps mitigate risk for insurers. In other news, lawmakers continue to weigh proposals to change how Medicare pays doctors and the House health appropriations subcommittee gets many new Republican faces.

4 Feb 2014

IDH1 gene mutation determines best treatment for malignant astrocytomas

Astrocytomas are the most common malignant brain tumors. While most patients' tumors prove to be quite aggressive, outcomes overall can vary widely, with some patients surviving for many years.

4 Feb 2014

Sleep recovery good following mild traumatic brain injury

Recovery from sleep disturbance following mild traumatic brain injury occurs more rapidly than depression and anxiety recovery, study findings indicate.

3 Feb 2014

Why employers may eye health law exchange plans

Premiums for plans sold through the online marketplaces are lower, across the board, than the average premiums for the majority of Americans with work-based coverage, according to a report by PwC's Health Research Institute. Meanwhile, California lawmakers criticize the hiring of people with criminal records to be insurance counselors and labor leaders continue to complain the law will undermine coverage for their members.

31 Jan 2014

Report finds that health exchange insurance purchases are a good deal; HealthCare.gov has new section

A new PricewaterhouseCoopers report finds that the average premium on an exchange is lower than the average premium of an employer-sponsored health plan. Meanwhile, the federal health online marketplace has added a new section to allow consumers who have already signed up for insurance to report life changes. Finally, news outlets provide updates on state exchanges in California, Hawaii, Connecticut, Maryland and Minnesota.

31 Jan 2014

Researchers pinpoint neural circuitry that promotes stress-induced anxiety

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, over 18 percent of American adults suffer from anxiety disorders, characterized as excessive worry or tension that often leads to other physical symptoms. Previous studies of anxiety in the brain have focused on the amygdala, an area known to play a role in fear.

31 Jan 2014

For some state legislatures, Medicaid expansion will be a hot 2014 topic

With state legislatures kicking off their 2014 sessions, the Medicaid expansion is back in play. Twenty-six states had signed onto the Medicaid expansion at the start of this year -- and that leaves nearly half the country deciding whether to make a go of it in the future.

31 Jan 2014

Aerie Pharmaceuticals announces dosing of first patients in PG324 Phase 2b study

Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of first-in-class glaucoma therapies, today announced dosing of the first patients enrolled in the Company's Phase 2b study of PG324, a novel, fixed-combination of Aerie's AR-13324 and latanoprost, a prostaglandin analogue that is the most widely prescribed glaucoma drug.

31 Jan 2014

New biological pathway-based computational model to identify genetic links with diseases

Dartmouth researchers developed a new biological pathway-based computational model, called the Pathway-based Human Phenotype Network (PHPN), to identify underlying genetic connections between different diseases as reported in BioDataMining this week.

31 Jan 2014

First Edition: January 30, 2014

Today's headlines include stories about a new poll examining how uninsured people -- one of the groups the health law was designed to help -- view the overhaul.

30 Jan 2014

REM sleep, memory and depression: an interview with Dr Penny Lewis, University of Manchester

Usually you don’t go into REM until you’ve passed through all the other stages of sleep. The stage immediately before REM is slow-wave sleep.

From The University of Manchester 29 Jan 2014

New technique enables visualisation of human autoimmune disease in animal models

Researchers at Lund University have managed to develop a technique whereby they can study the inflammatory process that takes place in the pancreas during the natural development of type 1 diabetes, allowing for real time and repeated non-invasive imaging of individual islets of Langerhans.

29 Jan 2014

PowerVision closes first tranche of Series D funding

PowerVision, Inc., a private company developing an accommodating intraocular lens, today announced the closing of the first tranche of its Series D funding round with participation from existing investors Venrock, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., Medtronic, Advanced Technology Ventures, Lexington Capital and Frazier Healthcare Ventures.

28 Jan 2014

Human visual system can retain plasticity even after extended blindness

Deprivation of vision during critical periods of childhood development has long been thought to result in irreversible vision loss.

28 Jan 2014

Viewpoints: Health overhaul helps ease inequality issues; nuns triumph over health law; deinstitutionalization's mental health legacy

Intense as it is, the current debate over rising income inequality is hardly new. ... The good news is that there's more good news than one might expect. ... In addition to avoiding making things worse, the country has adopted, at least in part, several of the policy improvements we thought made sense eight years ago. Most prominent among these was President Obama's health-care reform, which, for all its problems, promises to ease the health-care cost squeeze on middle- and lower-income Americans (1/25).

28 Jan 2014

Acute to chronic insomnia transition warns of depression risk

In patients with acute insomnia, long periods of light sleep may be the key driver to chronic insomnia and depression, research suggests.

27 Jan 2014

New method allows for large-scale generation of human embryonic stem cells

A new method allows for large-scale generation of human embryonic stem cells of high clinical quality. It also allows for production of such cells without destroying any human embryos.

27 Jan 2014

Organ and tissue donation saves lives

OneLegacy, the non-profit, federally designated organ, eye and tissue recovery agency serving the seven-country greater Los Angeles area, today issued the following statement: "Kim Pham, the 23-year-old woman who died from her injuries after being assaulted outside a Santa Ana nightclub on Jan. 18, saved five lives through the donation of her heart, kidneys, lungs, pancreas and liver to patients on the national organ transplant waiting list.

27 Jan 2014