Tunisia to auction Ben Ali’s treasures
Dec 20Published: Dec. 20, 2012 at 11:44 AM
TUNIS, Tunisia, Dec. 20 (UPI) – The Tunisian government said it will auction off art and cars Sunday that once belonged to the family of ousted dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
Tunisia representatives said they hope to raise more than $13 million from the auction.
Middle East Online said the highlight of the auction is the former president’s cars, which include a Lamborghini Gallardo LP 460.
Middle East Online said 300 jewelry items, carpets, tables, televisions and computers will be put up for sale at a hotel in Gammarth, a suburb of Tunis.
Acting Finance Minister Slim Besbes said the items belonged to Ben Ali and 114 of his relatives.
“Except [citizens] of Israel, the sale is open to everyone,” Besbes said.
Besbes said the auction will be held under tight security and $20 will be charged for entry.
Middle East Online said Ben Ali now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia with his wife after fleeing during the uprisings last year.
A New Antidepressant Inspired by Ketamine
Dec 20A promising treatment for clinical depression that works like a club drug has passed its first round of testing.
The latest “breakthrough” in depression treatment is a drug that’s supposedly able to relieve symptoms in a little over an hour. It works in patients who were previously resistant to treatment that, in any case, could take weeks to start working.Â
Related Story
The strongest effects of the new drug, which is being tested by the National Institutes of Health, only lasted for about a half-hour, sometimes lingering for two more days. But the researchers are encouraged because so far, the drug seems to be just as promising as ketamine.
Yep, that ketamine. The club drug, as a positive side effect of its other, dissociative side effects, is able to rapidly relieve symptoms of depression in the most hopeless of cases. The news from this past October was that its ability to do so was helping scientists to rethink the way they conceptualize the depressed brain. As I reported then, the focus was shifting away from the “low levels of serotonin” model of depression:
Instead, the studies reviewed here support a different theory, one which suggests that depression is the result of damage to the brain cells responsible for controlling mood. In mice, at least, this atrophy of neurons occurred in response to stress. Although the reasons stress causes this to happen are unclear, the weakening of synaptic connections appears to be at the root of depression and other stress-related disorders.
SSRIs are intended to increase brain levels of serotonin, but they do also, eventually, restore neurons. Ketamine is able to repair these synaptic connections in mice with near-miraculous speed. Indirect evidence from brain imaging supports the theory that this “synaptogensis” is the mechanism allowing for ketamine’s rapid effects in humans as well.
Reporting on these findings, Yale researchers writing in Science expressed the hope that they’d be able to develop faster-acting, longer-lasting antidepressants that work through the same mechanism, but that they’d feel more comfortable prescribing than a drug that variably causes “pleasant dream-like states, vivid imagery, hallucinations, and emergence delirium.” The promise this holds for people with depression, especially those for whom SSRIs and electroconvulsive therapy have proven ineffective, can’t be overstated.
The results from the NIH’s clinical trial are a first step in this direction. The new drug isn’t as headline-grabbing as ketamine — it’s definitely going to need a better name than its current “AZD6765″ — but when tested on 22 patients, it had a 32 percent success rate, which is approaching the 52 percent seen with ketamine. Strengthening its case, AZD6765 worked significantly better than a placebo, and had fewer ketamine-like side effects.
The trial established “proof of concept,” meaning that although there’s still much more testing and refinement to do before it can begin to be offered to the wider public, researchers are at least heading in the right direction.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/a-new-antidepressant-inspired-by-ketamine/266427/
Don’t Miss Ulta’s Biggest Cyber Monday Ever!
Dec 20A New Antidepressant Inspired by Ketamine
Dec 20A promising treatment for clinical depression that works like a club drug has passed its first round of testing.
The latest “breakthrough” in depression treatment is a drug that’s supposedly able to relieve symptoms in a little over an hour. It works in patients who were previously resistant to treatment that, in any case, could take weeks to start working.Â
Related Story
The strongest effects of the new drug, which is being tested by the National Institutes of Health, only lasted for about a half-hour, sometimes lingering for two more days. But the researchers are encouraged because so far, the drug seems to be just as promising as ketamine.
Yep, that ketamine. The club drug, as a positive side effect of its other, dissociative side effects, is able to rapidly relieve symptoms of depression in the most hopeless of cases. The news from this past October was that its ability to do so was helping scientists to rethink the way they conceptualize the depressed brain. As I reported then, the focus was shifting away from the “low levels of serotonin” model of depression:
Instead, the studies reviewed here support a different theory, one which suggests that depression is the result of damage to the brain cells responsible for controlling mood. In mice, at least, this atrophy of neurons occurred in response to stress. Although the reasons stress causes this to happen are unclear, the weakening of synaptic connections appears to be at the root of depression and other stress-related disorders.
SSRIs are intended to increase brain levels of serotonin, but they do also, eventually, restore neurons. Ketamine is able to repair these synaptic connections in mice with near-miraculous speed. Indirect evidence from brain imaging supports the theory that this “synaptogensis” is the mechanism allowing for ketamine’s rapid effects in humans as well.
Reporting on these findings, Yale researchers writing in Science expressed the hope that they’d be able to develop faster-acting, longer-lasting antidepressants that work through the same mechanism, but that they’d feel more comfortable prescribing than a drug that variably causes “pleasant dream-like states, vivid imagery, hallucinations, and emergence delirium.” The promise this holds for people with depression, especially those for whom SSRIs and electroconvulsive therapy have proven ineffective, can’t be overstated.
The results from the NIH’s clinical trial are a first step in this direction. The new drug isn’t as headline-grabbing as ketamine — it’s definitely going to need a better name than its current “AZD6765″ — but when tested on 22 patients, it had a 32 percent success rate, which is approaching the 52 percent seen with ketamine. Strengthening its case, AZD6765 worked significantly better than a placebo, and had fewer ketamine-like side effects.
The trial established “proof of concept,” meaning that although there’s still much more testing and refinement to do before it can begin to be offered to the wider public, researchers are at least heading in the right direction.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/a-new-antidepressant-inspired-by-ketamine/266427/
Sudan, South Sudan broker fragile truce
Dec 19Published: Dec. 19, 2012 at 12:59 PM
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Dec. 19 (UPI) – South African negotiator Thabo Mbeki said Sudanese leaders have agreed to take immediate steps on border security, though implementation is unclear.
Sudanese and South Sudanese leaders met in Ethiopia this week to discuss hostilities between both sides. South Sudan last year became an independent country under the terms of a peace deal that ended the Sudanese civil war. Oil disputes, ethnic fighting and border insecurity have remained problematic, however.
Mbeki, former South African president and peace negotiator for the African Union, said both sides have agreed on a demilitarized zone along their shared border.
“Now in the agreement, it says within seven days, but in reality it’s going to take longer,” he was quoted by Voice of America as saying.
The independent Sudan Tribune, meanwhile, reports that it’s unclear whether both sides were able to negotiate the disarming of South Sudan’s rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North.
SPLM-N Secretary-General Yasir Arman was quoted by the Sudanese newspaper as saying, however, the group has “expressed its readiness and unwavering commitment for an immediate humanitarian cessation of hostilities.”
Conflicts over the disputed border region of oil-rich Heglig this year nearly pushed both sides to war.