Video Games Used in New Treatment That May Fix 'Lazy Eye' in Older Children

A new study conducted in an eye clinic in India found that correction of amblyopia, also called "lazy eye," can be achieved in many older children, if they stick to a regimen that includes playing video games along with standard amblyopia treatment. At the 115^th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Dr. Somen Ghosh will report on the approaches that allowed about a third of his study participants, who were between 10 and 18 years old, to make significant vision gains.

By the end of the one year study, nearly 30 percent of the 100 participants achieved significant vision gains. About 60 percent showed at least some improvement. Significant gains were more likely in children who participated in Groups 3 or 4 of the four treatment regimens. Treatment Group 3 completed daily video game practice and Group 4 took the supplement citicoline, which is associated with improved brain function. Improvement was more likely in children younger than age 14 than in those 14 and older.

The prevailing wisdom has been that if amblyopia is not diagnosed and corrected before a child reaches school age, it is difficult or impossible to correct. But recently the United States-based Pediatric Eye Disease Investigation Group (PEDIG) reported significant vision gains in 27 percent of older children in a study funded by the National Eye Institute. This report motivated Dr. Ghosh to test new approaches to learn what might be particularly effective in this age group.

His study was divided into four treatment groups. Students in all groups followed a basic treatment plan that required them to wear eyeglasses that blocked the stronger eye for at least two hours a day, during which time they practiced exercises using the weaker eye. This "patching" technique is a standard amblyopia treatment that works by making the weaker eye work harder. Group one followed only the basic plan and served as the control group, while groups two, three and four received additional treatments:

• Group 2 took a supplement that contained micronutrients considered important to good vision
• Group 3 played at least one hour of video games daily using only the weaker eye
• Group 4 took the supplement citicoline, which is associated with improved brain function

Saurav Sen, a 16 year old graduate of Dr. Ghosh's clinic, received a second chance to achieve good vision. At age 13 Sen began to experience serious vision problems, which negatively impacted his school work. Other doctors had told him it was too late to correct his amblyopia. He completed the regimen assigned to treatment Group 3.t

"Playing the shooting games while using just my weaker eye was hard at first, but after a few months I could win all game levels easily," said Sen. "I'm very happy that I stuck with the program. My vision has improved a lot, so that I now have no trouble studying or taking exams. My tennis game also improved, and of course I'm now a pro PC gamer."

"The cooperation of the patient is very important, maybe even crucial, to successful treatment of amblyopia," said Dr. Ghosh. "We should never give up on our patients, even the older children, but instead offer them hope and treatment designed to help them achieve better vision."

 references from

Read More

For Midwesterners, More Boxcars Mean Cleaner Air

Shifting a fraction of truck-borne freight onto trains would have an outsized impact on air quality in the Midwest, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Much of that impact boils down to simple efficiency, according to Erica Bickford, a graduate student in UW-Madison's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. For each ton they carry, long-distance trucks go about 150 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel. Trains can move a ton more than 400 miles per gallon.

Shifting from road to rail 500 million tons of the freight passing through or to the Midwest would make a large dent in the carbon dioxide spilled into the air by the movement of goods.

"There's a 31 percent decrease in carbon dioxide produced by freight shipping in the region, and that's straight from emissions," says Bickford, who made a model of freight traffic in 10 Midwestern states from Kansas to Ohio that she presented December 8 in San Francisco at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "It's 21 million metric tons of CO₂, the equivalent of what's produced by about 4 million cars."

But carbon dioxide mixes fairly evenly in the atmosphere, spreading its effects around the globe. Bickford's study accounts for weather patterns and the way particular pollutants are distributed to determine how long other products of diesel engines -- like black carbon soot and the ozone ingredient and lung irritant nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) -- linger near their sources.

"The result is a much more thorough and local idea of the differences between truck and rail shipping," says Tracey Holloway, director of the Nelson Institute's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment and Bickford's advisor. "If you're emitting CO₂ in Indiana or India it has the same impact. But something like soot, that has local impact."

More rail traffic would mean more pollutants near the tracks, but relief near roads frequented by trucks -- a tradeoff is unbalanced in favor of more densely populated areas.

"Black carbon and NO2 are harmful to everyone's health," Bickford says. "But because more people live near roads than railroad tracks, more people would benefit from the shifts in these pollutants."

As much as 16 percent less black carbon soot would linger near roads with heavy shipping traffic, according to Bickford's model, while the increase around rail corridors would be as high as 20 percent. Nitrogen dioxide would plummet by as much as 30 percent near roads, but rise by as much as 20 percent near railroad tracks.

Holloway's research group is already working on further modeling to explore connected changes in the number of asthma and heart disease cases.

The effects of greater rail use would be particularly noticeable in the middle of the country, according to Bickford.

"We're sort of a freight crossroads in the Midwest," says Bickford, whose work was funded by the National Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education at UW-Madison. "International shipping comes into the country on the coasts and then passes through our backyard on the way to its destination."

The study limited hypothetical changes in shipping to trips of more than 400 miles to ensure a cost savings for shippers, and to cargo -- such as automobiles and non-perishable food -- that could handle the slower trip in railcars. The 500 million tons Bickford selected for travel by rail represent about 5 percent of U.S. truck freight by weight.

"These aren't pie-in-the-sky figures," Holloway says. "They are reasonable and achievable."

And they come with non-pollution benefits, like reduced traffic congestion, wear on roads and demand for diesel fuel.

"Truck freight travels on publicly-funded roads, rail traffic on privately-built tracks," Bickford says. "But these benefits could be an impetus for public investment in rail infrastructure."

 references from

Read More

British Butterfly Is Evolving to Respond to Climate Change

As global temperatures rise and climatic zones move polewards, species will need to find different environments to prevent extinction. New research, recently published in the journal Molecular Ecology, has revealed that climate change is causing certain species to move and adapt to a range of new habitats.

The study, led by academics at the Universities of Bristol and Sheffield, aimed to understand the role of evolution in helping a species to successfully track ongoing climate change.

With climate warming many species are moving further north in the UK, however, this may mean crossing a landscape with increasingly less of their preferred habitat. Evolutionary change in the ability to use geographically widespread habitats or increased ability to move longer distances can help species to track the warming climate and move northwards.

The Brown Argus butterfly is successfully expanding its distribution northwards in the UK and uses a range of distinct habitats. Using genetic techniques to detect evolutionary change, the researchers were able to show that the colonisation of new sites further north by the Brown Argus has involved significant adaptation during or following colonisation.

Furthermore, the results suggest that populations of the Brown Argus are adapted to different habitats and that pre-existing variation in habitat preference between populations has been important in allowing the colonisation of new habitats.

James Buckley, one of the researchers from the University's School of Biological Sciences, said: "To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to identify genetic evidence for evolutionary change associated with range shifts driven by recent climate change."

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)-funded study found that evolutionary change is likely to affect the success of species' responses to climate change and that maximising genetic variation in ecological traits (such as habitat preference) across species' distributions should help species to move northwards and track the changing climate across a fragmented landscape.

James added: "These findings are important as understanding the likelihood and speed of such adaptive change is important in determining the rate of species extinction with ongoing climate change."

 references from

Read More