Word: cordes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Though available drugs are still crude, pioneer work in brain research may lead to some astonishing new ones. A crucial discovery came when researchers located what are known as the brain's opiate receptors. These are the specific sites in the brain and spinal cord where such drugs as opium and morphine act. These and other recent discoveries open up the possibility of aiming artificial drugs at specific receptors, and perhaps duplicating the body's natural internal "drugs" that help keep normal people normal. Says Solomon Snyder, a psychiatrist and pharmacologist at Johns Hopkins University: "As a result of psychopharmacology...
...Anwar Sadat to invite himself to Cairo, Carter was on the banks of the Nile. It was a daring attempt to use the prestige of the U.S. presidency to end the months-long stalemate blocking an Egyptian-Israeli peace settlement. Even though the search for a Middle East ac cord has claimed more of the President's time than any other issue, last week's jour ney, in the words of Presidential Assistant Hamilton Jordan, demonstrated Carter's willingness to go "the final, extra mile." The goal, of course, was momentous: an end to more than 30 years of warfare...
...optimistic in the face of adversity, because of his biochemistry. The key to mankind's optimism, he argues, lies in those lately discovered substances called endorphins. These are the morphine-like chemical agents that the body itself produces, sending them into special sites of the brain and spinal cord to reduce pain. In this, says Tiger, "we may be on the way to finding a specific source for notions of personal wellbeing. Endorphins may not serve principally to reduce pain. Their major function may be to anesthetize the organism against responding too directly and forcefully to negative cognitive stimuli...
...high-pressure oxygen chamber and, most controversial, daily muscle injections of a tissue-softening enzyme called hyaluronidase. The Soviet rationale for its use: it can prevent and break down scar tissue around damaged spines, thereby presumably encouraging regrowth of healthy nerve fibers and restoring at least some of the cord's ability to transmit nerve signals...
Goldstein, for his part, thinks that much of the improvement results not from any basic change in the spinal cord's condition, but from the Soviets' strenuous physiotherapy. Says he: "Braces and boots support the body's weight and keep it upright while the walker is pushed ahead. Then the arms support the body as the legs swing forward. It's not walking. And if the strength in the arms and upper body is not kept up through continued intense rehabilitation, then it's back to the wheelchair." Sadly, he adds, for most paraplegics...