Health and Medicine

People who live through an extreme traumatic experience such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks or an airplane crash often have the capacity to bounce back or even grow to a higher level of functioning and personal strength, according to a University at Buffalo researcher and expert in the effects of horrifying trauma.

Driver education classes should be teaching young drivers that all kinds of mobile phones, both conventional and hands-free, are a dangerous distraction, says a University at Buffalo researcher, who studies driving behaviors.

New research from a University at Buffalo expert on classroom education has identified six factors that affect whether elementary, middle and high school students will engage in the activities of their schools or feel alienated.

In a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research institutions focus on one of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election: the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Are Americans gambling more and developing more gambling problems? Do gambling problems tend to concentrate in disadvantaged neighborhoods? What has been the impact of increased Internet gambling, NCAA pools, Fantasy Football and poker tournaments? These are some of the questions John W. Welte, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions, intends to answer in a new research study.

Persons with multiple sclerosis who smoked for a little as six months during their lifetime had more destruction of brain tissue and more brain atrophy than MS patients who never smoked, a study by neuroimaging specialists at the University at Buffalo has shown.

University at Buffalo researcher Catherine P. Cook-Cottone knows what works to stop the self-destructive cycle of teenage eating disorders. Now, she's expanding that protective web to help teenagers and parents cope with other demons that too often follow the wholesale pressures of growing up -- to win at sports, to be smart, to look good.

Debra Street, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo, says the history of health care reform in the U.S. is "one of lost battles" for principled approaches to creating a health care system that delivers good health care to all.

Chemists at the University at Buffalo have used rational drug design to synthesize small, cell-permeable molecules that are effective in vitro against two common types of myotonic muscular dystrophy, a result that has implications for potentially curing muscular dystrophy, as well as other diseases.

A new study of childhood obesity in the United States has found that some social factors, such as the presence of friends, may put overweight youths at greater risk of overeating.