Petrie Dish
Why does a new study on depression have people asking their doctors about their SSRI medications? Will sequencing the human genome soon be affordable for almost everyone? On Petrie Dish, join host and veteran reporter Bonnie Petrie for deep dives into a wide range of bioscience and medicine stories.
Latest Episodes
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Research from an expert in sleep disorders at UT Health San Antonio has revealed that sleep disorders are common in the military, and the most common disorder impacts men and women in the military equally. It's COMISA, which is an acronym for comorbid insomnia and sleep apnea.
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Essential tremor affects up to 10 million U.S. adults, and for about half of patients, medication doesn’t control the shaking. UT Health San Antonio neurosurgeon Dr. Alexander Papanastassiou explains how MRI-guided focused ultrasound uses heat to target the part of the brain causing the tremor, typically reducing it by 80%.
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Petrie Dish: Measles can make the immune system forget how to fight germs it once knew how to defeatA measles infection can damage the body's defenses against pathogens to which it had built immunity through vaccination or infection. Immune amnesia can leave a person vulnerable for up to three years. An infectious diseases expert explains how you can protect yourself.
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Alcohol use disorder affects millions of Americans, but treatment options remain limited, and relapse is common. A UT Health San Antonio researcher is studying two unconventional approaches that he hopes could one day be combined into a single, more effective treatment.
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Eighty-five percent of combat veterans who received robot-guided magnetic stimulation with prolonged exposure therapy saw significant symptom relief, a substantial improvement over therapy alone.
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Kirsten Eom studies everything that goes into getting a cancer survivor from their front door to a doctor's office: insurance, transportation, follow-up care, and more. The UT Health San Antonio researcher has found that a surprising number of survivors stop seeing doctors once initial treatment ends. Now she's working to build a statewide registry to track the barriers keeping them away.
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Cooler fall temperatures mean an increase in daytime lone star tick activity in areas where sweltering summer temperatures kept them at bay. This type of tick is more aggressive than most other ticks, and it presents a unique threat to the people they bite. The sugar in their saliva can cause humans to develop a dangerous allergy to red meat.
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Only about 30% of Texans who need mental health support are getting it, and the shortage of providers is projected to worsen dramatically over the next decade. A UT Health San Antonio psychologist has developed a program that teaches counseling skills to non-specialists like community health workers, faith-based practitioners, and even doulas.
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A visit to a neighborhood library reveals what a loneliness researcher calls a "third place" in action: ESL classes, new parents bringing their toddlers to storytime, remote workers on their laptops, and neighbors who show up just to be around other people. It's one solution to the crisis explored in our two-part series on loneliness that you can 'check out' with nothing more than a library card.
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A San Antonio scientist thinks of the protein that drives most prostate cancers as a machine, and pioneers a method to visualize it for the first time. This could lead to much better treatments and, someday, prevention.