Health and Medicine

University at Buffalo researchers are developing a system that will allow physicians to use a new form of virtual reality to store information about what they feel during an exam. That information then will be accessible to the examining physician at a later time or to consulting physicians at another location, allowing them to experience the exam as though they had performed it themselves.

A new book of old work by Charles Bernstein, David Gray Chair of Poetry at the University at Buffalo and one of the great irony producers of our age, is getting rave reviews from the national literary community.

University at Buffalo biophysicists have identified a component of venom from a very large, very hairy Chilean tarantula that blocks the action of ion channels that are responsible for cellular mechanical responses -- the cell's ability to feel. These channels or pores in the cell membrane -- called stretch-activated channels because stretching the membrane causes them to open and close -- have been implicated in functions as diverse as the senses of touch and hearing, muscle contraction and coordination, and blood pressure and volume regulation.

Working with the students and teachers at Public School 40 in the City of Buffalo, a doctoral student in educational psychology at the University at Buffalo may have developed a solution to the situation faced by students who are having difficulty achieving the new writing standards required to pass New York State’s new English Language Arts Test.

For the past two years, Lee Guterman and his colleagues in the UB Department of Neurosurgery have been working to help educate the public about stroke’s symptoms and risk factors through the Western New York Stroke Screening Program. The project has particular resonance in Buffalo and environs, where stroke risk is higher than the national average. May has been designated as “stroke month.”

Smokers who want to quit but really enjoy the taste of a cigarette may soon have a new weapon at their disposal. And if it works, it would be as easy to use as mouthwash.

Researchers in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University at Buffalo have taken the lead in the creation of a standard for measuring rehabilitation’s effectiveness that could be used by rehabilitation hospitals and other rehabilitation units as the basis for Medicare prospective payment.

Systolic blood pressure, the first -- or higher -- number in a blood-pressure reading, is the important factor in determining whether a person has hypertension, experts state in a new National Institutes of Health-sponsored clinical advisory statement released today (May 4).

The UB School of Social Work has received a $100,000 grant from the New York State Education Department to establish with the Buffalo Public Schools a program aimed at curbing student violence and helping students stay in school.

Adults afflicted with incapacitating muscle weakness and pain may be suffering from an easily treatable vitamin D deficiency, endocrinologists at the University at Buffalo have found.