'India
emerging as liver transplant hub'
Noida: India is emerging as a global hub for liver
transplant with expanded medical facilities, an expert said here Friday.
"Around 50-60 percent of live transplant patients are
from foreign countries," said Vivek Vij, director, Liver Transplant
Programme in Fortis Hospital here.
"The reason India has emerged as a hub for liver
transplant is because of the poor medical facilities in countries like
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Cambodia and other African nations," he
added.
Vij was speaking on the occasion of Fortis Hospital becoming
the first hospital in Uttar Pradesh to perform 100 liver transplants.
"Since the inception of the hospital in 2012, Fortis
Noida has recorded a 100 percent donor and 97 percent recipient survival rate,
surpassing the international standards for safety and establishing the hospital
as a coveted centre for liver transplant."
He said the hospital has also initiated a lot of campaigns
and drives to raise awareness about liver-related diseases.
15.03.2014
Music may be
in your genes!
Washington:
Scientists have identified multiple regions in the human genome that are linked
to musical aptitude.
The
function of the candidate genes implicated in the study ranges from inner-ear
development to auditory neurocognitive processes, suggesting that musical
aptitude is affected by a combination of genes involved in the auditory
pathway, researchers said.
The
perception of music starts with specialised hair cells in the inner ear, which
transmit sounds as electronic signals through the auditory pathway to the
auditory cortex, where sounds are primarily recognised.
In
addition to simple sensory perception, the processing of music has been shown
to affect multiple other regions of the brain that play a role in emotion,
learning and memory.
Researchers
analysed genomes of 767 people, belonging to 76 families characterised by the
ability to discriminate pitch, duration and sound patterns, for single
nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP).
The
best association was found at chromosome 3 close to the GATA2 gene that
regulates the development of cochlear hair cells and the inferior colliculus
(IC) in the auditory pathway.
Researchers
said the best linkage results were obtained on chromosome 4, which contains
five genes, PCHD7, PDGFRA, KCTD8, CHRNA9 and PHOX2B, that all affect inner-ear
development and are expressed in amydala or hippocampus.
The
highest probability of linkage was obtained for pitch perception accuracy next
to the protocadherin 7 gene, PCDH7, known to be expressed in cochlear and
amygdaloid complexes.
Amygdala
is the emotional centre of the human brain and is believed to be affected by
music.
The
principal investigator of the study was Jaana Oikkonen in collaboration with
Assistant Professor Paivi Onkamo, University of Helsinki, and Professor
Veronica Vieland's group from Columbus University.
The
researchers noted that musical aptitude is a complex behavioural trait not
fully captured by the sound perception tests used in this study, and that
environmental factors, such as culture and music education, likely play an
important role here.
The
study was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
15.03.2014
Simplicity
boils down to two steps, identify the essential & eliminate the rest
Leo Babuta
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