The West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute announced last week that it will open its new Innovation Center and convening its inaugural Summit from Wednesday to Thursday, May 15-16, in Morgantown.
West Virginia ranks first for fentanyl-related deaths, but it also leads the nation in a more optimistic way: its medical examiners pinpoint the cause of every drug-related death, and the relevant facts populate a unique statewide database. An interdisciplinary research team—involving the WVU School of Pharmacy, the WVU School of Public Health and the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner—analyzed data and found that fentanyl deaths are up 122 percent in the state.
Orange-lensed glasses may be a simple, affordable way to help cardiac patients recover better, suggests research by Randy Nelson, chair of the WVU Department of Neuroscience, and Courtney DeVries, the John T. and June R. Chambers Chair of Oncology Research at WVU. Using animal models, they found that exposure to white light at night triggered inflammation, killed brain cells and made death more likely in cardiac patients. Warm-toned light, however, had no effect. Now they are studying whether orange-lensed glasses improve outcomes in actual patients.
West Virginia has just half of the neurologists it needs. Headache specialists are even scarcer. David Watson, director of the WVU Headache Center, is exploring the barriers to care that people with migraine face, especially in states that—like West Virginia—are predominantly rural. His long-term goal is to attract and train so many neurologists to practice in West Virginia that no person with migraine would ever need to leave the state to seek treatment.
The West Virginia Healthy Start/Helping Appalachian Parents and Infants Project received a total of $5.47 million in continued federal funding for the next five years through the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Healthy Start Initiative: Eliminating Disparities in Perinatal Health. Healthy Start aims to improve health outcomes before, during and after pregnancy, and to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in rates of infant death as well as negative health outcomes in the first 18 months of life.
West Virginia University’s inaugural Research Week is more than a showcase of the work done at the state’s only R1 Research Institute; it’s a celebration of the faculty and students across campus who pursue ground-breaking research in all disciplines.
An effort to expand a multi-use rail-to-trail network throughout the Industrial Heartland is drawing on the expertise and work of faculty at the West Virginia University Health Research Center.
A West Virginia University researcher has discovered the suicide rate of some Medicaid-insured youth—including girls and young women—is higher than those with private insurance.
A recent study by Allison Brichacek and Candice Brown, researchers in the West Virginia University School of Medicine, suggests that stroke patients’ microbiomes—and even the structure of their guts—may still be out of kilter a month after the stroke has passed.
A West Virginia University expert in the social determinants of health is exploring barriers that keep many West Virginians from eating healthy diets that can help protect against chronic disease.