School Notes: School of Medicine
March/April 2008

The medical school as theatrical muse

A collaboration between actress, playwright, and professor Anna Deavere Smith and faculty at the School of Medicine in 2000 has become part of Smith's newest one-woman play, Let Me Down Easy, which had its world premiere at Long Wharf Theatre in January. (See "Medicine as theater" for the Yale Alumni Magazine's report.) Through interviews with medical faculty, survivors of the Rwandan genocide, Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, and others, Smith's new show explores the resilience and fragility of the human body.

Let Me Down Easy grew out of interviews Smith conducted with physicians, nurses, patients, and their families at the medical school while she was a visiting professor. From those voices, Smith created Rounding it Out, an examination of how doctors and patients view and communicate with each other. Over the next seven years, Rounding it Out was broadened and expanded to become Let Me Down Easy.

Smith, a past recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, is best known for her solo stage performances depicting communities in turmoil, as well as for a recurring role on television's The West Wing.

Epilepsy could become a preventable disease

School of Medicine researchers have shown for the first time that it is possible to suppress the development of epilepsy in genetically predisposed animals, setting the stage for treating epilepsy as a preventable disease in humans. A study found that treating epilepsy-prone rats with the anti-convulsant medication ethosuximide -- before the onset of seizures -- led to a suppression of seizures for months after the treatment stopped, as well as later in life. Current treatments control seizures but do nothing to alter the underlying disease, said Hal Blumenfeld, associate professor of neurology and lead author of the study. These new findings, he said, could lead to the prevention of epilepsy in genetically susceptible people.

Breast-feeding raises the IQ in some infants, but not all

While some infants who are breast-fed have a higher IQ later in life, for others, breast-feeding doesn't make a difference. A small alteration in one gene is why. A team of Yale researchers, including Julia Kim-Cohen, assistant professor of psychology, found that breast-fed children who have one version of the FADS2 gene scored seven points higher than those with the same gene variant but who drank formula. But for children without the gene variant, there was no IQ difference associated with being fed breast milk versus formula. Researchers believe the FADS2 gene variant helps turn the fatty acids found in breast milk into compounds important to brain development.

Exercise does more than slim your waistline

Boosting an exercise-related gene in the brain works as an antidepressant in mice, a finding that suggests potential new ways to treat depression in people, School of Medicine researchers have found.

The scientists designed a microarray -- a tool that allows them to measure the expression of hundreds of genes simultaneously -- to show small changes in gene expression, particularly in the brain's hippocampus, which is sensitive to stress hormones, depression, and antidepressants. When they compared the brain activity of sedentary mice to those who were given running wheels, they found that 33 exercise-regulated genes were expressed in the mice with the wheels -- including the VGF gene, which functioned like a powerful antidepressant. "The VGF exercise-related gene and target for drug development could be even better than chemical antidepressants, because it is already present in the brain," said Ronald Duman, professor of psychiatry and senior author of the study. Depression affects 16 percent of the population in the United States, at a related cost of $83 billion a year.