Word: basal
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...variety and is indifferent to drugs that block estrogen since it isn't fed by estrogen in the first place. Worse, research findings released in June 2006 showed that 40% of premenopausal African-American breast-cancer patients have an even more dangerous form of ER-negative cancer called the basal-like subtype, resistant not only to estrogen but also to progesterone, another hormone that can be blocked by treatment...
...millimeter--into Stipp's brain. Guided in part by CT scans and in part by real-time readings of electrical activity that the probe encounters as it passes different neural structures, surgeons aim for the subthalamic nucleus (STN), an olive-size clump of tissue deep in the basal ganglia that helps govern motor control. For much of the morning, Stipp's right arm has been shaking violently enough to rock the table...
This work has led to research on cognitive enhancers, or compounds that may amplify connections in the prefrontal cortex to speed up the natural reversal. Such enhancement would give the higher regions of the brain a fighting chance against the amygdala, a more basal region that plays a role in priming the dopamine-reward system when certain cues suggest imminent pleasure--anything from the sight of white powder that looks like cocaine to spending time with friends you used to drink with. It's that conditioned reflex--identical to the one that caused Ivan Pavlov's famed dog to salivate...
...answer the same question at the same speed. Each test must thus be painstakingly calibrated for each subject. Not only is that impractical, but it also introduces a whole new level of variability--like trying to diagnose a fever if all of us had a different basal body temperature...
...detect skin cancers is tremendous if they're motivated," observes Dr. Robert Friedman of N.Y.U. Indeed, many newly motivated Americans went scurrying to dermatologists last week, just as Reagan's colon cancer sent them to gastroenterologists. "We had five patients walk in off the streets who identified their own basal-cell carcinomas," says Friedman. "Four of them were right." --By Claudia Wallis. Reported by Christine Gorman/New York