LAB GROWN PENISES FOR PEOPLE WITH CONGENITAL ABNORMALITIES

A new research has revealed that lab-grown penises for people with congenital abnormalities are ready to be tested on men.

Researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who are assessing engineered penises for safety, function and durability, hope to receive approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and to move to human testing within five years, the Guardian reported.

Anthony Atala, director of the institute, said that the rabbit studies were very encouraging, but to get approval for humans they need all the safety and quality assurance data, they need to show that the materials aren't toxic and have to spell out the manufacturing process, step by step.

The penises would be grown using a patient's own cells to avoid the high risk of immunological rejection after organ transplantation from another individual and cells taken from the remainder of the patient's penis would be grown in culture for four to six weeks.

Atala added that their target is to get the organs into patients with injuries or congenital abnormalities.

Researcher Asif Muneer said that the technology, if successful, would offer a huge advance over current treatment strategies for men with penile cancer and traumatic injuries and at present, men can have a penis reconstructed using a flap from their forearm or thigh, with a penile prosthetic implanted to simulate an erection.

He added that his concern is that they might struggle to recreate a natural erection, which is a coordinated neurophysiological process starting in the brain, so it will be their challenge if they can reproduce that function or whether this is just an aesthetic improvement.

CAN MUSIC HELP PEOPLE WITH EPILEPSY

The brains of people with epilepsy appear to react to music differently from the brains of those who do not have the disorder, a finding that could lead to new therapies to prevent seizures, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association's 123rd Annual Convention

We believe that music could potentially be used as an intervention to help people with epilepsy," said Christine Charyton, PhD, adjunct assistant professor and visiting assistant professor of neurology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, who presented the research.

Approximately 80 percent of epilepsy cases are what is known as temporal lobe epilepsy, in which the seizures appear to originate in the temporal lobe of the brain. Music is processed in the auditory cortex in this same region of the brain, which was why Charyton wanted to study the effect of music on the brains of people with epilepsy.

Charyton and her colleagues compared the musical processing abilities of the brains of people with and without epilepsy using an electroencephalogram, where electrodes are attached to the scalp to detect and record brainwave patterns. They collected data from 21 patients who were in the epilepsy monitoring unit at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center between September 2012 and May 2014.

The researchers recorded brainwave patterns while patients listened to 10 minutes of silence, followed by either Mozart's Sonata in D Major, Andante Movement II (K448) or John Coltrane's rendition of My Favorite Things, a second 10-minute period of silence, the other of the two musical pieces and finally a third 10-minute period of silence. The order of the music was randomized, meaning some participants listened to Mozart first and other participants listened to Coltrane first.

The researchers found significantly higher levels of brainwave activity in participants when they were listening to music. More important, said Charyton, brainwave activity in people with epilepsy tended to synchronize more with the music, especially in the temporal lobe, than in people without epilepsy.

"We were surprised by the findings," said Charyton. "We hypothesized that music would be processed in the brain differently than silence. We did not know if this would be the same or different for people with epilepsy."

While she does not believe music would replace current epilepsy therapy, Charyton said this research suggests music might be a novel intervention used in conjunction with traditional treatment to help prevent seizures in people with epilepsy.