The following article profiles work performed in part by ICTR researcher Pablo A. Celnik, M.D., professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurology, and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Practicing a movement does make future similar movements happen faster, but not because the brain “anticipates” demand for them Researchers in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins Medicine report that a computerized study of 36 healthy adult volunteers asked to repeat the same movement over and over became significantly faster when asked to repeat that movement on demand—a result that occurred not because they … Continue reading →

The following article details a promotion for ICTR researcher Tamar Mendelson, PhD, an expert in adolescent mental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who utilized our Biostatistics Consulting service. Associate Professor Tamar Mendelson, PhD, an expert in adolescent mental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has been appointed as a Bloomberg Professor of American Health. She will also serve, beginning in October, as the director of the School’s Center for Adolescent Health, which works with community partners to improve the health and well-being of urban youth. Mendelson holds the Dr. Ali & Rose … Continue reading →

The following article contains contributions from ICTR researcher Martin Makary, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of surgery and health policy expert at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. A Johns Hopkins expert panel of health care providers and patients have announced what is, to their knowledge, the nation’s first set of operation-specific opioid prescribing guidelines. The guidelines are based on the premise that opioid prescribing limits should be based on the operation performed rather than a blanket approach. The ranges offered for each of 20 common operations generally call for reductions from the current rates of opioid prescription, and the … Continue reading →

The hospital ranks #1 overall in Maryland, among nation’s top 10 in 13 specialty areas BALTIMORE – The Johns Hopkins Hospital is ranked #3 in the nation out of nearly 4,700 hospitals reviewed for U.S. News & World Report’s 2018–19 Best Hospitals list, which was released today. The publication also ranked 13 specialties at Johns Hopkins among the top 10 in the nation. This new overall ranking — along with the U.S. News #8 national ranking of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center — maintains Johns Hopkins’ standing as the nation’s top-ranked hospital for patients of all ages. In a congratulatory video … Continue reading →

Cognitive traits and psychiatric disorders stand apart, typically being influenced by tens of thousands of gene variants Scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have developed a powerful method for characterizing the broad patterns of genetic contributions to traits and diseases. The new method provides a “big picture” of genetic influences that should be particularly helpful in designing future genetic studies and understanding potential for genetic risk prediction. The scientists, in a study published on Aug. 13 in the journal Nature Genetics, mined existing data from genetic studies and used novel statistical techniques to obtain estimates of the numbers of … Continue reading →

The following article profiles work performed by ICTR researcher Frederick Sieber, M.D., professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say a study designed to see if reducing the amount of anesthesia reduces the risk of postoperative delirium in older patients   surprisingly found that lighter sedation failed to do so in severely ill people undergoing hip fracture repair. But the study of 200 men and women also showed that for those in relatively better health, deep sedation more than doubled the risk of postoperative delirium compared with those having … Continue reading →

Study of more than 350,000 patients hints that end-stage kidney disease patients need better cognitive monitoring and dementia prevention measures Older kidney disease patients who are sick enough to require the blood-filtering treatment known as dialysis are at high risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study led by scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study, published Aug. 9 in the Clinical Journal of the American Society for Nephrology, found evidence that older kidney disease patients had a substantially higher risk of being diagnosed with dementia than community-dwelling older adults. “The dementia risk in this population … Continue reading →