It's hardly a secret that taking cocaine can change the way you feel and the way you behave. Now, a study published in the Jan. 8 issue of Science shows how it also alters the way the genes in your brain operate. Understanding this process could eventually lead to new treatments for the 1.4 million Americans with cocaine problems, and millions more around the world. The study, which was conducted on mice, is part of a hot new ...

I was driving up the Massachusetts Turnpike one evening last February when I knocked over a bottle of water. I grabbed for it, swerved inadvertently--and a few seconds later found myself blinking into the flashlight beam of a state trooper. "How much have you had to drink tonight, sir?" he demanded. Before I could help myself, I blurted out an answer that was surely a new one to him. "I haven't had a drink," I said indignantly, "since 1981." It ...

Not a week goes by without news of a lab breakthrough using rats or mice. But of all the promising medical interventions that make it to animal trials, only a fraction seem to translate into major breakthroughs for humans. Frankie Trull, president of the non-profit Foundation for Biomedical Research , explains the promise and the pitfalls of pre-clinical trials. Q: What do animal trials really tell us about humans? A: Animals are surrogates for humans. The basic reason for ...

Imagine what it must be like to stroll down a street and then suddenly lurch like a drunkard. To see double images of a coffee cup, a friend's face, a newspaper. To feel dizzy because rooms seem to spin like merry-go-rounds. The onset of such symptoms 10 years ago sent Chicago sales representative Suzanne Arens, now 39, stumbling to a neurologist. The diagnosis: multiple sclerosis. "It was devastating," she recalls. "The disease progressed to where I would have an attack ...

Reports about the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease seem almost as inexorable as the illness. Each new survey appears to uncover a higher incidence of this wasting affliction of the mind. One reason is the difficulty of diagnosis. Since there is no perfect test for the disease -- except upon autopsy -- doctors' estimates of who does or does not have it must rely on subjective assessments. As these methods improve, the number of people with the disease appears to increase. ...

It is an irony not lost on the Chinese public that the Year of the Tiger has not been good for the big cats. On Tuesday, state media reported that dozens of tigers and other endangered animals had died of malnutrition over the past two years at the Northern Forest Zoo in the Chinese city of Harbin. Workers, who later leaked the story to the media, buried their bodies in a 3-meter pit to hide the animals ...

Regardless of what we feel about the war in Iraq, most Americans feel a deep connection to the men and women in uniform who are there fighting for us. But we don't often think about the people who are caring for them on our behalf, the nurses and doctors who are putting their lives at risk to tend the wounded. People like U.S. Navy Commander Maureen Pennington. Pennington, 45, is the first nurse to lead a surgical company during combat ...

A few weeks ago, the American College of Emergency Physicians launched a campaign to derail proposed policies to reduce the use of emergency departments . ACEP's problem with the campaign is the logic that underpins it: policymakers think that ED use, in aggregate, is a costly problem and a major driver of unnecessary health care costs in the U.S. ACEP claims that rather than delivering unnecessary care, EDs treat many patients who have no alternative when ...

A fellow at New York City's Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. The study, known as AWARE , involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S. and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with ...

•SERGEANT JOEY BOZIK What's Fair Got to Do with It? Weeks after an anititank mine ripped his body apart, Sergeant Joey Bozik, 26, emerged from a coma to find himself surrounded by relatives and friends at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As soon as he grasped the extent of his injuries, Bozik asked everyone but his fiancé to leave the room. Although he and Jayme Peters had spent only a few weeks in each other's presence--they met via e-mail while ...