Secrets of Human Speech Uncovered
<p>A team of researchers at UCSF has uncovered the neurological basis of speech motor control, the complex coordinated activity of tiny brain regions that controls our lips, jaw, tongue and larynx as we speak.</p>
![](/sites/default/files/styles/news_card__image/public/legacy_files/most-read-image/speechread.jpg)
University of California San Francisco
Give to UCSF<p>A team of researchers at UCSF has uncovered the neurological basis of speech motor control, the complex coordinated activity of tiny brain regions that controls our lips, jaw, tongue and larynx as we speak.</p>
Stem cells of the aging bone marrow recycle their own molecules to survive and keep replenishing the blood and immune systems as the body ages, UCSF researchers have discovered.
<p>A new study finds that hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved over 10 years if Americans reduced their sodium consumption to the levels recommended in federal guidelines.</p>
Mothers who are exposed to particulate air pollution of the type emitted by vehicles, urban heating and coal power plants are significantly more likely to bear children of low birth weight, according to a UCSF-led international study.
Two UCSF teams have received a total of $16 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study new ways to significantly reduce childhood mortality and disease in developing nations.
Hospital MRIs may be better at predicting long-term outcomes for people with mild traumatic brain injuries than CT scans, according to a clinical trial led by researchers at UCSF and the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
William Seeley maps the path of frontotemporal dementia through the brain, correlating specific damage with behavioral change. By studying the disease from self to circuits to cells, this visionary neurologist searches for inroads to treatment.
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes, which is affiliated with UCSF, are recommending a shift in efforts to treat Alzheimer’s disease by developing drugs that target the apoE4 protein, which has long been associated with an increased risk for the disease.
A few of the many UCSF projects underway across the globe.
Five UCSF scientists – bioengineers Tejal Desai and Shuvo Roy, MD/PhD candidate Mozziyar Etemadi, microbiologist Joe DeRisi, and physician/surgeon Michael Harrison – trace their path toward five inventions that are changing the face of medicine.
People with the shortest telomeres really do have a date with the Grim Reaper, according to new data coming out of the largest and most diverse genomics, health and longevity project in the nation.
DNA sequences obtained from a handful of patients with multiple sclerosis at the UCSF Medical Center have revealed the existence of an “immune exchange” that allows the disease-causing cells to move in and out of the brain.
A preliminary UCSF study suggests a possible link between mind wandering and aging, by looking at a biological measure of longevity.
As Californians prepare to vote on Proposition 37, which would require labeling of food that’s been genetically modified, debate continues on the health implications of eating such foods.
<p>UCSF neuroscientists have found that by training on attention tests, people young and old can improve brain performance and multitasking skills.</p>
<p>Exemplary community collaborations that promote health equity in San Francisco took center stage at the Fourth Annual Partnerships Celebration sponsored by UCSF’s <a href="http://partnerships.ucsf.edu/">University Community Partnerships</a> (UCP).</p>
<p>Global health pioneer Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, addressed a packed UCSF auditorium in a special lecture about a community-based health care model that his nonprofit organization, Partners In Health, has brought to some of the world's most impoverished countries, including Haiti and Rwanda.</p>
<p>Researchers at UCSF have identified the lynchpin that activates brown fat cells, which burn fat molecules instead of storing them, making them the focus of pharmaceutical research aimed at fighting obesity.</p>
<p>A new study that represents a significant first step in exploring the potential of stem cells to treat neurological disease is a “natural outgrowth” of a longstanding culture of interdisciplinary collaboration in UCSF neonatology — a culture that UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital physicians David Rowitch and Donna Ferriero work hard to sustain.</p>
For the first time, a clinical trial led by UCSF investigators and sponsored by Stem Cells Inc., has shown that transplanted neural stem cells appear to produce myelin in the brains of four young children with an early-onset, fatal disease.
<p>Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and a professor of anatomy at UCSF, has won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of how to transform ordinary adult skin cells into cells that are capable of developing into any cell in the human body.</p>
<p>Here are answers to frequently asked questions about induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, the type of cell that has been reprogrammed from an adult cell, such as a skin or blood cell.</p>
<p>UCSF and its affiliates have been major players in the transformation of San Francisco as a leading center of innovation in health care and biosciences, according to a new report released Wednesday.</p>
<p>Although it’s proven that contraception prevents pregnancy, it’s also clear that many women who don’t want to get pregnant don’t use or don’t have access to contraception. Christine Dehlendorf, MD, MAS, a family physician based at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, used implementation science to help women navigate this issue.</p>
Starting HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral therapy reduces food insecurity and improves physical health, thereby contributing to the disruption of a lethal syndemic, UCSF and Massachusetts General Hospital researchers have found in a study focused on sub-Saharan Africa.
<p>A patient in rural Uganda is diagnosed with tuberculosis but never begins treatment. In Vietnam, someone with infectious TB might never be diagnosed because the health center is too far away. Adithya Cattamanchi, MD, is working to address challenges in Uganda and Vietnam by applying techniques of <a href="http://accelerate.ucsf.edu/training/ids">implementation </a><a href="http://accelerate.ucsf.edu/training/ids">science</a>.</p>