Tweet: Scientists decode songbird’s genome

Nearly all animals make sounds instinctively, but baby songbirds learn to sing in virtually the same way human infants learn to speak: by imitating a parent. Now, an international team of scientists, led by the School of Medicine, has decoded the genome of a songbird — the Australian zebra finch — to reveal intriguing clues about the genetic basis and evolution of vocal learning. 

Improving stroke care focus of new collaboration

Stroke experts at Washington University in St. Louis, Barnes-Jewish Hospital and The Rehabilitation Institute of St. Louis are forming a collaborative group to ensure that clinicians share data to improve patient care and advance the development of new treatments.

Pediatric strokes surprise parents

Stroke is commonly thought of as a concern only for older adults, but pediatric strokes annually affect 13 of every 100,000 U.S. children. In the St. Louis area, many of these patients are seen by Washington University specialists at the Pediatric Stroke Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Online book helps children understand the effects of stroke

An illustration from “When Grandpa Comes Home: A Story About Stroke,” an online book that teaches children how to cope when a relative suffers a strokeSpeedy treatment is essential to saving lives and preventing brain damage during a stroke. But the rapid pace of events also can leave patients and family members confused about what has happened and what to expect. That’s especially true for children whose parents or grandparents have a stroke. Now an online book is available to teach children about strokes.

Online book helps children understand the effects of stroke

An illustration from “When Grandpa Comes Home: A Story About Stroke,” an online book that teaches children how to cope when a relative suffers a strokeSpeedy treatment is essential to saving lives and preventing brain damage during a stroke. But the rapid pace of events also can leave patients and family members confused about what has happened and what to expect. That’s especially true for children whose parents or grandparents have a stroke. Now an online book is available to teach children about strokes at www.strokecenter.org/patients. More…

High-energy clamp simplifies heart surgery for atrial fibrillation

This illustration of the Cox-Maze procedure shows the ablation lines in the left atrium.Heart surgeons at the School of Medicine have helped usher in a new era in the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. Using radiofrequency devices — rather than a scalpel — they’ve greatly shortened the surgery and made it significantly easier to perform. WUSM surgeon Ralph J. Damiano Jr. and colleagues have played a vital role in developing the devices, which deliver high-energy waves to heart tissue and very quickly create scars or ablations.

High-energy clamp simplifies heart surgery for atrial fibrillation

This illustration of the Cox-Maze procedure shows the ablation lines in the left atrium.Heart surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have helped usher in a new era in the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. Using radiofrequency devices — rather than a scalpel — they’ve greatly shortened the surgery and made it significantly easier to perform. WUSM surgeon Ralph J. Damiano Jr. and colleagues have played a vital role in developing the devices, which deliver high-energy waves to heart tissue and very quickly create scars or ablations. More…

Drug can quickly mobilize an army of cells to repair injury

Red areas of the circled leg in the right image show increased blood flow due to angiogenic cells.To speed healing at sites of injury – such as heart muscle after a heart attack or brain tissue after a stroke – doctors would like to be able to hasten the formation of new blood vessels. One promising approach is to “mobilize” patients’ blood vessel-forming cells, called angiogenic cells, so these cells can reach the injured area. Recently, researchers at the School of Medicine demonstrated that a drug called AMD3100 can mobilize angiogenic cells from bone marrow of human patients in a matter of hours.
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