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Health Care Reform Likely Will Not Provide Coverage To Undocumented Immigrants, Sen. Baucus Says
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, on Thursday said that he supports "a version" of government-run health insurance but that such a program would not cover undocumented immigrants, the Washington Times reports. Baucus was speaking at an event sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Families USA and the National Federation of Independent Business (Haberkorn, Washington Times, 5/22). Baucus said that health care reform likely would provide coverage to between 94% and 96% of U.S. residents but that it would be "too politically explosive" to provide coverage to undocumented residents (Young, The Hill, 5/21). Undocumented immigrants account for between 15% and 22% of the estimated 47 million U.S. residents who lack health insurance, according to analyses by the Center for Immigration Studies and the U.S. Census Bureau. Baucus said the finance committee has not yet discussed whether federal funding to treat low-income, uninsured patients should be expanded to treat undocumented immigrants. "I don"t have a good answer yet to undocumented workers," Baucus said, adding, "There will still be charity care." According to the Dallas Morning News, some immigration advocates have said health reform efforts will not be complete if undocumented immigrants do not have coverage. Jaime Torres, president of Latinos for National Health Insurance, said, "In light of what"s happening now with the flu pandemic, it"s pretty clear that, for any health care system to work, it has to cover everyone residing in the United States" (Landers, Dallas Morning News, 5/22). Torres added, "It"s unfortunate that Sen. Baucus and the Congress might not have the courage to include the undocumented" (Washington Times, 5/22). A podcast and video of the press conference are available online at kff.org.
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Laser Microsurgery For Tongue Cancer Is As Effective As Invasive Open Surgery
Transoral (through-the-mouth) laser surgery to remove cancer at the base of the tongue is as effective as more invasive open surgery and may improve quality of life according to a new study by Rush University Medical Center. The study is published in the July issue of the scientific journal Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery.
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New Study Indicates Radiologists Need Standards To Ensure Optimal Visual Accuracy
Radiologists, like professional pilots for example, depend on good vision as part of their occupation. However, radiologists unlike pilots are not required to undergo regular vision testing. A new study found that approximately 50% of radiologists surveyed indicated they don"t recall ever having their vision tested or it had been 24 months or longer since their last vision exam.
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Real Time Snapshot Of The Learning Process

To learn from experience, it is essential to know whether a past action was associated with a desired outcome. Now, scientists have demonstrated how this information can be coded by a single cell. The research, published in the July 30th issue of the journal Neuron, provides strong support for a neural mechanism that allows reward signals to be combined over time to drive successful learning. The lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the basal ganglia (BG) have been shown to play a key role in flexible association learning. "We have known for some time that neurons in both areas care about response outcome - when we tell the animals whether they were correct or wrong, those neurons fire strongly. But we found that those responses can be maintained for a long time," explains lead study author, Dr. Mark H. Histed from the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. "In order to learn, you need to remember what you did before and whether that action was beneficial or not. These neurons carry that sort of memory." Dr. Histed and his colleagues, Drs. Anitha Pasupathy and Earl K. Miller from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studied the responses of neurons in the PFC and BG as animals performed a learning task where they were rewarded for making a correct association between a visual stimulus and an eye movement response. The researchers found that the activity of many of the neurons reflected the delivery (correct response) or withholding (incorrect response) of a reward and that this activity lasted for several seconds, the entire period between trials. Importantly, the researchers also observed that the outcome of a single trial impacted the neural representation of the learned association. Specifically, the response selectivity was stronger on a given trial if the previous trial had been rewarded and weaker if the previous trial was incorrect and therefore did not earn a reward. "In other words, only after successes, not failures, did brain processing and the monkeys" behavior improve", said Dr. Miller. These results show that cells in the PFC and BG not only exhibit robust and persistent signals about the outcome of behavioral responses, but that their selectivity is modulated based on trial outcome, demonstrating how behavioral outcome signals can shape learning. "Our observations may represent a snapshot of the leaning process - how single cells change their responses in real time as a result of information about what is the right action and what is the wrong one," conclude the authors. The researchers include Mark H. Histed, Anitha Pasupathy, and Earl K. Miller, of the The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA Cathleen Genova Cell Press


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