NIH News

A project that maps dopamine circuits in the prefrontal cortex through optogenetic manipulation was given top honors in this year’s annual Addiction Science Awards at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) -- the world's largest science competition for high school students. The awards were presented by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and Friends of NIDA, a coalition that supports NIDA’s mission. The Intel ISEF Addiction Science Awards were presented at a ceremony Thursday night at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.

People have increasing opportunities to participate in genetic testing that can indicate their range of risk for developing a disease. Receiving these results does not appreciably drive up or diminish test recipients’ demand for potentially costly follow-up health services, according to a study performed by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and colleagues at other institutions.

Older adults who drank coffee -- caffeinated or decaffeinated -- had a lower risk of death overall than others who did not drink coffee, according a study by researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and AARP.

In an ongoing clinical trial, a paralyzed woman was able to reach for and sip from a drink on her own -- for the first time in nearly 15 years -- by using her thoughts to direct a robotic arm. The trial, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, is evaluating the safety and feasibility of an investigational device called the BrainGate neural interface system.

Common variants of the ApoE gene are strongly associated with the risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer's disease, but the gene's role in the disease has been unclear. Now, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have found that in mice, having the most risky variant of ApoE damages the blood vessels that feed the brain.

The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) announces five new members to the National Advisory Council for Nursing Research (NACNR), the institute's principal advisory board. Members of the council are drawn from the scientific and lay communities, embodying a diverse perspective from the fields of nursing, public and health policy, law, and economics. NINR, a component of the National Institutes of Health, is the primary federal agency for the support of nursing research.

There is a growing consensus that we can significantly curtail the HIV/AIDS pandemic by implementing scientifically proven HIV prevention strategies, such as voluntary medically supervised adult male circumcision, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and treatment as prevention.