Chronic Alcohol Exposure is Associated with Decreased Neurogenesis, Aberrant Integration of Newborn Neurons, and Cognitive Dysfunction in Female Mice.

Background: Neurological deficits of alcohol use disorder (AUD) have been attributed to dysfunctions of specific brain structures. Studies of alcoholic patients and chronic alcohol exposure animal models consistently identify reduced hippocampal mass and cogntive dysfunctions as a key alcohol-induced brain adaptation. However, the precise substrate of chronic alcohol exposure that leads to structural and functional impairments of the hippocampus is largely unknown.

Survival in commercially insured multiple sclerosis patients and comparator subjects in the U.S.

Objective: Compare survival in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) from a U.S. commercial health insurance database with a matched cohort of non-MS subjects.

Causes of death among commercially insured multiple sclerosis patients in the United States.

Background: Information on causes of death (CODs) for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) in the United States is sparse and limited by standard categorizations of underlying and immediate CODs on death certificates. Prior research indicated that excess mortality among MS patients was largely due to greater mortality from infectious, cardiovascular, or pulmonary causes.

Objective: To analyze disease categories in order to gain insight to pathways, which lead directly to death in MS patients.

The future of drug development: advancing clinical trial design.

Declining pharmaceutical industry productivity is well recognized by drug developers, regulatory authorities and patient groups. A key part of the problem is that clinical studies are increasingly expensive, driven by the rising costs of conducting Phase II and III trials. It is therefore crucial to ensure that these phases of drug development are conducted more efficiently and cost-effectively, and that attrition rates are reduced.

The need for more efficient trial designs.

The development lifecycle of most clinical products eventually includes the requirement of clinical trials. The objective of the clinical trials usually is the demonstration of the safety and efficacy of the product. The standard methods for sample size determination of these trials have the potential to be extremely inefficient.