DNA sequencing for metabolic diseases in newborns may eventually replace the traditional method of genetic screening used to check all new babies for a group of rare, inherited diseases that can cause severe neurologic damage and death if not detected quickly. But currently, research is showing that those advanced methods of genetic tests aren't equally useful for everyone: They're less accurate for non-white families, raising concerns about how historical gaps in whose DNA gets studied produce inequities in medical care. The problems with these genetic tests are detailed in a new Stanford Med ..read more

Mare Lucas felt euphoric. As if watching a movie about her life shot from a camera high above, she saw herself giving birth to her youngest son, now 17, surrounded by a happy family. Then she watched herself birthing her oldest son, Zane, who had died by suicide in 2017 at age 18. His birth had been a particularly difficult and dangerous one, and his death created a lasting trauma -- but now all she felt was overwhelming love and joy. She soaked in the beauty of the scene. Then Lucas heard a voice over her right shoulder. "Hello Mare, can you hear my voice? Are you having happy dreams?" It was ..read more

Some of the 17 million Americans afflicted with major depressive disorder each year may soon receive a surprising new prescription from their clinician: Have fun on a virtual reality device. Engaging in activities that make you feel good may seem like overly simplistic advice, especially when directed at people with severe depression. But the science behind this idea, called "behavioral activation," is well established. Multiple studies have found that encouraging people to get outside, exercise, socialize, volunteer or immerse themselves in enjoyable activities in a prescribed, systematic way ..read more

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, behind Alzheimer's disease, and affects nearly a million people in the United States. The disease causes dopamine-producing brain cells to die and patients typically experience tremor, stiff muscles and slow movement as well as cognitive deficits. Medications to increase dopamine levels can help alleviate many of the motor symptoms -- but there is no cure. Kathleen Poston, MD, the Edward F. and Irene Thiele Pimley Professor II in Neurology and the Neurological Sciences, has dedicated her career to helping patients with Pa ..read more

We all get moody -- it's part of human nature. But if you have people in your life afflicted with bipolar disorder, you quickly realize that not all moodiness is created equally. An estimated 4.4% of adults in the U.S. -- nearly 50 million people -- will be diagnosed with a mood disorder that falls into the bipolar classification.  While there are many medications to help these people find a sweet spot between their fluctuating moods -- from a manic state of high energy to an often paralyzingly depressive low -- those pharmacological interventions are riddled with adverse effects and can ..read more

While artificial intelligence chatbots are getting better at mimicking humans, they aren't always developed with medicine in mind. That's why Stanford Medicine doctors and researchers are modifying existing chatbots to perform well in a frontier of AI-enhanced medicine: the doctor-patient interaction. These efforts to help physicians care for patients more efficiently, without compromising accuracy, could help guide how AI enters the doctor's office in the years to come. Researchers endeavored to make models that doctors could rely on to accurately document patient history or answer medical qu ..read more

At exactly 9 a.m. Pacific Time on every third Friday of March, anxious graduating medical students around the country tear open envelopes to reveal where they matched for their residencies. These three- to seven-year residency programs, usually based at hospitals, are essentially their first jobs out of medical school and the next stage of their training to become fully fledged and licensed physicians. Match Day might sound like a combination of the Oscars and one of Harry Potter's Sorting Hat ceremonies, but it's the result of an algorithm to create the ideal pairings between tens of thousand ..read more

On Jan. 31, aducanumab, a pricey drug approved for treatment of early-stage Alzheimer's disease, was withdrawn from the market. And in early March, the Food and Drug Administration delayed its decision regarding whether to approve a separate, closely similar drug. A prescient commentary by Stanford Medicine neurologist Mike Greicius, MD, in a peer-reviewed journal goes a long way toward explaining why. Decades of research have produced scant advances in countering Alzheimer's, with a patient population exceeding 6 million in the United States. Early drugs developed to counter it treated some s ..read more

For anyone over the age of 30 reading this article, here's some bad news for you: Your brain is already on the decline. The good(ish) news? From the brain's peak performance in our mid-20s, that decline is gradual, said Stanford neurologist Sharon Sha, MD. Despite common lore about aging and major lapses in memory, the effects of healthy aging on cognitive functions are actually quite subtle. For example, a young or middle-aged adult can remember a sequence of seven numbers, on average, while a person in their 60s without dementia can hold onto six digits. When asked to list as many animals as ..read more

Lillie Reed has been raising awareness about gender-based violence and the resulting trauma ever since she began studying public health as an undergraduate at Duke University. But her passion for the work grew from personal experience.  Raised in Greenville, North Carolina, Reed said her first experiences with abuse were at home and that her upbringing showed that the experience of domestic violence goes well beyond the violence. "The fear and anger and other ripple effects that violence creates ... it can feel inescapable," she said. "When you are experiencing domestic violence, even in ..read more