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Doctors in New York have managed to keep a brain-dead man in a state of sort of suspended animation for more than a month after removing his kidneys and replacing them with one from a pig. Dr. Robert Montgomery, who directs the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, said he hopes that by showing the kidney can function successfully in a brain-dead person, it will clear the way for the Food and Drug Administration to approve clinical trials in living people. (Weintraub, 8/16)

The national system for allocating and distributing human organs for transplantation is on the verge of a transformation that advocates have sought for years. After an outcry from providers and patients and a major congressional investigation, lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act of 2023 in July. President Joe Biden, who requested an overhaul in his fiscal 2024 budget proposal, is expected to sign the bill, which would end the United Network for Organ Sharing's nearly four-decade monopoly over the system and enable other organizations to participate. (Berryman, 8/16)

Researchers are proposing using artificial intelligence technology to help diagnose autism spectrum disorder. In a recent article published in Scientific Reports, researchers from Brazil, France and Germany reportedly used magnetic resonance imaging to train a machine learning algorithm. The work – in which the "quantitative diagnostic method" is proposed – was based on brain imaging data for 500 people, with more than 240 that had been diagnosed with autism. (Musto, 8/16)

The heritable nature of schizophrenia has been known for about a century. But researchers are still trying to learn how genes that have been linked to an increased risk of the disease actually lead to schizophrenia. (Cueto, 8/16)

A research team led by the universities of Cambridge and Warwick in Britain and Fudan University in China found that teens who started smoking cigarettes by 14 years of age had significantly less grey matter in a section of the brain's left frontal lobe. Tuesday's findings, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, indicate that adolescents with less grey matter on the left frontal lobe have less cognitive function and therefore are more inclined to break rules and develop bad habits such as smoking. (Lyons, 8/16) 

Experiencing pain a year after having a heart attack is common, but new research says it may also be a clue in predicting a patient's long-term survival. According to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, people who had moderate or extreme pain were more likely to die within the next 8 years compared with adults who did not have any post-heart attack pain. (Moniuszko, 8/16)

A new meta-analysis published in The Lancet Global Health finds that nearly one in three men around the world have one or more types of genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, and about one in five have at least one kind of high-risk HPV (HR-HPV). (8/16)

The NFL is expanding use of the padded softshell caps that players have been wearing for the duration of preseason practices, as well as regular season contact practices, amid signs they're cutting down on concussions. Player safety has been under increased scrutiny, and the Guardian Caps worn by offensive and defensive linemen, tight ends and linebackers resulted in 52% fewer concussions up to the second preseason game this year, compared to an average of the same period over the previous three preseasons. (Reed, 8/16)