Publisher Health

People with early-onset dementia are often mistaken for having depression and now Australian research has discovered the cause: a profound loss of ability to experience pleasure — for example a delicious meal or beautiful sunset — related to degeneration of ‘hedonic hotspots’ in the brain where pleasure mechanisms are concentrated.
The University of Sydney-led research revealed marked degeneration, or atrophy, in frontal and striatal areas of the brain related to diminished reward-seeking, in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
The researchers believe it is the first study to demonstrate profound anhedonia — the clinical definition for a loss of ability to experience pleasure — in people with FTD.
Anhedonia is also common in people with depression, bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder and can be particularly disabling for the individual.
In the study, patients with FTD — which generally affects people aged 40-65 — displayed a dramatic decline from pre-disease onset, in contrast to patients with Alzheimer’s disease, who were not found to show clinically significant anhedonia.
The results point to the importance of considering anhedonia as a primary presenting feature of FTD, where researchers found neural drivers in areas that are distinct from apathy or depression.
The findings were published today in the leading neuroscience journal, Brain.
The paper’s senior author, Professor Muireann Irish from the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre and School of Psychology in the Faculty of Science, said despite increasing evidence of motivational disturbances, no study had previously explored the capacity to experience pleasure in people with FTD.
“Much of human experience is motivated by the drive to experience pleasure but we often take this capacity for granted.
“But consider what it might be like to lose the capacity to enjoy the simple pleasures of life — this has stark implications for the wellbeing of people affected by these neurodegenerative disorders.
“Our findings also reflect the workings of a complex network of regions in the brain, signaling potential treatments,” said Professor Irish, who also recently published a paper in Brain about moral reasoning in FTD.
“Future studies will be essential to address the impact of anhedonia on everyday activities, and to inform the development of targeted interventions to improve quality of life in patients and their families.”
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In a new study led by Yale Cancer Center, researchers have advanced a tumor-targeting and cell penetrating antibody that can deliver payloads to stimulate an immune response to help treat melanoma. The study was presented today at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) virtual annual meeting.
“Most approaches rely on direct injection into tumors of ribonucleic acids (RNAs) or other molecules to boost the immune response, but this is not practical in the clinic, especially for patients with advanced cancer,” said Peter M. Glazer, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Therapeutic Radiology at Yale, Chief of Radiation Oncology at Smilow Cancer Hospital, and senior author of the study. “In this study, we can deliver immune stimulatory RNA to tumors in vivo following systemic administration.”
RNA is a nucleic acid present in all living cells. Its principal role is to act as a messenger to carry instructions from DNA to control the synthesis of proteins, although in some viruses RNA rather than DNA carry the genetic information. In this study, using mice with melanoma tumors, members of the Glazer lab at Yale achieved almost complete tumor suppression upon intravenous injection of antibody/RNA complexes.
“These results are very encouraging,” added Glazer. “They highlight a novel approach for the systemic delivery of immunostimulatory RNAs in a targeted manner that may one day offer therapeutic advantages for difficult to treat cancers like melanoma, over current approaches.”
The lead author of the study from Yale is Elias Quijano, and a co-author, also from Yale, is Yanfeng Liu, along with Bruce Turner and Stephen Squinto of Gennea Bio.
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KAIST researchers have developed a novel nanofiber production technique called ‘centrifugal multispinning’ that will open the door for the safe and cost-effective mass production of high-performance polymer nanofibers. This new technique, which has shown up to a 300 times higher nanofiber production rate per hour than that of the conventional electrospinning method, has many potential applications including the development of face mask filters for coronavirus protection.
Nanofibers make good face mask filters because their mechanical interactions with aerosol particles give them a greater ability to capture more than 90% of harmful particles such as fine dust and virus-containing droplets.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the growing demand in recent years for a better kind of face mask. A polymer nanofiber-based mask filter that can more effectively block harmful particles has also been in higher demand as the pandemic continues.
‘Electrospinning’ has been a common process used to prepare fine and uniform polymer nanofibers, but in terms of safety, cost-effectiveness, and mass production, it has a several drawbacks. The electrospinning method requires a high-voltage electric field and electrically conductive target, and this hinders the safe and cost-effective mass production of polymer nanofibers.
In response to this shortcoming, ‘centrifugal spinning’ that utilizes centrifugal force instead of high voltage to produce polymer nanofibers has been suggested as a safer and more cost-effective alternative to the electrospinning. Easy scalability is another advantage, as this technology only requires a rotating spinneret and a collector.
However, since the existing centrifugal force-based spinning technology employs only a single rotating spinneret, productivity is limited and not much higher than that of some advanced electrospinning technologies such as ‘multi-nozzle electrospinning’ and ‘nozzleless electrospinning.’ This problem persists even when the size of the spinneret is increased.
Inspired by these limitations, a research team led by Professor Do Hyun Kim from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST developed a centrifugal multispinning spinneret with mass-producibility, by sectioning a rotating spinneret into three sub-disks. This study was published as a front cover article of ACS Macro Letters, Volume 10, Issue 3 in March 2021.
Using this new centrifugal multispinning spinneret with three sub-disks, the lead author of the paper PhD candidate Byeong Eun Kwak and his fellow researchers Hyo Jeong Yoo and Eungjun Lee demonstrated the gram-scale production of various polymer nanofibers with a maximum production rate of up to 25 grams per hour, which is approximately 300 times higher than that of the conventional electrospinning system. The production rate of up to 25 grams of polymer nanofibers per hour corresponds to the production rate of about 30 face mask filters per day in a lab-scale manufacturing system.
By integrating the mass-produced polymer nanofibers into the form of a multi-component fiber web, the researchers were able to fabricate mask filters that have comparable filtration performance with the filters used in KF80 and KF94 face masks that are currently available in the Korean market. The KF80 and KF94 masks have been approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety of Korea to filter out at least 80% and 94% of harmful particles respectively.
“When our system is scaled up from the lab scale to an industrial scale, the large-scale production of centrifugal multispun polymer nanofibers will be made possible, and the cost of polymer nanofiber-based face mask filters will also be lowered dramatically,” Kwak explained.
This work was supported by the KAIST-funded Global Singularity Research Program for 2020.

Older adults with more harmful than healthy bacteria in their gums are more likely to have evidence for amyloid beta — a key biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease — in their cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), according to new research from NYU College of Dentistry and Weill Cornell Medicine. However, this imbalance in oral bacteria was not associated with another Alzheimer’s biomarker called tau.
The study, published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, adds to the growing evidence of a connection between periodontal disease (gum disease) and Alzheimer’s. Periodontal disease — which affects 70 percent of adults 65 and older, according to CDC estimates — is characterized by chronic and systemic inflammation, with pockets between the teeth and gums enlarging and harboring bacteria.
“To our knowledge, this is the first study showing an association between the imbalanced bacterial community found under the gumline and a CSF biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease in cognitively normal older adults,” said Angela Kamer, DDS, PhD, associate professor of periodontology and implant dentistry at NYU College of Dentistry and the study’s lead author. “The mouth is home to both harmful bacteria that promote inflammation and healthy, protective bacteria. We found that having evidence for brain amyloid was associated with increased harmful and decreased beneficial bacteria.”
Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by two hallmark proteins in the brain: amyloid beta, which clumps together to form plaques and is believed to be the first protein deposited in the brain as Alzheimer’s develops, and tau, which builds up in nerve cells and forms tangles.
“The mechanisms by which levels of brain amyloid accumulate and are associated with Alzheimer’s pathology are complex and only partially understood. The present study adds support to the understanding that proinflammatory diseases disrupt the clearance of amyloid from the brain, as retention of amyloid in the brain can be estimated from CSF levels,” said the study’s senior author Mony J. de Leon, EdD, professor of neuroscience in radiology and director of the Brain Health Imaging Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine. “Amyloid changes are often observed decades before tau pathology or the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are detected.”
The researchers studied 48 healthy, cognitively normal adults ages 65 and older. Participants underwent oral examinations to collect bacterial samples from under the gumline, and lumbar puncture was used to obtain CSF in order to determine the levels of amyloid beta and tau. To estimate the brain’s expression of Alzheimer’s proteins, the researchers looked for lower levels of amyloid beta (which translate to higher brain amyloid levels) and higher levels of tau (which reflect higher brain tangle accumulations) in the CSF.
Analyzing the bacterial DNA of the samples taken from beneath the gumline under the guidance of NYU College of Dentistry microbiologist Deepak Saxena, PhD, the researchers quantified bacteria known to be harmful to oral health (e.g. Prevotella, Porphyromonas, Fretibacterium) and pro-oral health bacteria (e.g. Corynebacterium, Actinomyces, Capnocytophaga).
The results showed that individuals with an imbalance in bacteria, with a ratio favoring harmful to healthy bacteria, were more likely to have the Alzheimer’s signature of reduced CSF amyloid levels. The researchers hypothesize that because high levels of healthy bacteria help maintain bacterial balance and decrease inflammation, they may be protective against Alzheimer’s.
“Our results show the importance of the overall oral microbiome — not only of the role of ‘bad’ bacteria, but also ‘good’ bacteria — in modulating amyloid levels,” said Kamer. “These findings suggest that multiple oral bacteria are involved in the expression of amyloid lesions.”
The researchers did not find an association between gum bacteria and tau levels in this study, so it remains unknown whether tau lesions will develop later or if the subjects will develop the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. The researchers plan to conduct a longitudinal study and a clinical trial to test if improving gum health — through “deep cleanings” to remove deposits of plaque and tartar from under the gumline — can modify brain amyloid and prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
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Testing how well “good” cholesterol particles reduce inflammation may help predict who is at heightened risk to develop cardiovascular disease caused by narrowed arteries, according to research published today in the American Heart Association’s flagship journal Circulation.
Assessing levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, known as “good cholesterol,” are already a standard part of formulas used to predict cardiovascular risk. A new test of the anti-inflammatory function of HDL seems to provide additional information that is independent of the quantity of HDL. If the results are confirmed in broader populations and a test developed for clinical use, adding anti-inflammatory capacity to risk scores may improve risk prediction and help people take steps to protect themselves against heart disease.
“HDL are very complex particles with anti-atherosclerotic functions that are not reflected by measuring just the cholesterol quantity,” said senior study author Uwe J.F. Tietge, M.D., Ph.D., professor and head of the division of clinical chemistry at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. “Atherosclerosis [plaque build-up in the arteries] underlying cardiovascular disease is increasingly recognized as a disease with a strong inflammatory component, and a central biological function of HDL is to decrease inflammation.”
This study is the first to test whether better anti-inflammatory function of HDL particles protects against heart attacks and other serious heart-related events.
Participants included 680 white adults (average age of 59, 70% male) living in the Netherlands who were part of a large population study that began in 1997. All were healthy when they enrolled in the study. From the larger study participants were identified who’d had a first cardiovascular disease event before the end of the study follow-up. HDL particles were analyzed in 340 people who experienced a first fatal or non-fatal heart attack, were diagnosed with heart problems caused by narrowed heart arteries (ischemic heart disease) or who required a procedure to open clogged coronary arteries during the median 10.5-year follow-up period. These participants were matched to a control group of 340 people of the same age (within 5 years), sex, smoking status and HDL cholesterol levels who had no cardiovascular events during follow-up.
Several lab tests were performed for all participants at enrollment, including measuring the ability of isolated HDL particles to decrease the inflammatory response of endothelial cells lining blood vessels (called the anti-inflammatory capacity). Researchers also measured C-reactive protein, a substance that rises when there is more inflammation throughout the body, and cholesterol efflux capacity, a laboratory assessment of how efficiently HDL can remove cholesterol from cells that resemble those found in plaque.
The researchers found: HDL anti-inflammatory capacity was significantly higher in people who remained healthy (31.6%) than in those who experienced a cardiovascular event (27%); The association of anti-inflammatory capacity with cardiovascular events was independent of the established biomarkers of HDL cholesterol and C-reactive protein levels, and was also independent of cholesterol efflux capacity; For every 22% increase in the ability of HDL particles to suppress inflammation in endothelial cells, participants were 23% less likely to have a cardiovascular event during the next decade; The amount of protection from increased HDL anti-inflammatory capacity was higher in women than in men; and Risk prediction was improved by adding HDL anti-inflammatory capacity to the Framingham Risk Score, or by replacing HDL cholesterol levels with this new measure of HDL function.”By using a novel research tool, our results provide strong support for the concept that plaque buildup in the arteries has an inflammatory component, and that the biological properties of HDL particles have clinical relevance to cardiovascular disease risk prediction,” said Tietge.
Although the results raise intriguing possibilities for improved screening, the results must be confirmed in different populations. In addition, a simpler and hopefully automated test for anti-inflammatory capacity should be developed first, researchers said.
“The HDL cholesterol level is a good, established, simple and cost-efficient CVD risk biomarker. Our results, however, demonstrate that the anti-inflammatory capacity or assays looking at HDL function in general have the potential to provide clinically relevant information beyond the static HDL cholesterol measurements that are currently used,” Tietge said.
The findings also raise the possibility that medications to improve HDL anti-inflammatory capacity may be developed and used to lower heart disease risk.
Study limitations to be considered include that the study population was white and genetically similar, thus results are not generalizable to other race and ethnic groups. In addition, the researchers did not include stroke incidence in their analysis so conclusions cannot be drawn about HDL and stroke.
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Respiratory disease increased markedly following one of Iceland’s largest volcanic eruptions, a new study has found.
And the findings could have significant implications for actions taken to protect the health of the 800 million people globally living near active volcanoes. Indeed, only last month (March), lava burst through a crack in Iceland’s Mount Fagradalsfjall in the first eruption of its type in more than 800 years.
The new research, led by the University of Leeds and the University of Iceland, examined the health impacts of pollution caused by the Holuhraun lava eruption in 2014-2015.
It shows that following exposure to emissions that changed chemically from gas to fine particles, incidents of respiratory disease in Iceland rose by almost a quarter, and the incidence of asthma medication dispensing by a fifth.
The findings, published today (10:00 GMT 12 April) in Nature Communications, highlight the need for decision-making authorities to prepare for health issues associated with returning emissions — known as mature plumes — in the days immediately following volcanic eruptions.
The report’s co-lead author is Dr Evgenia Ilyinskaya, from the University of Leeds’ School of Earth and Environment.

Scientists from Queen Mary University of London, funded by the charity Brain Tumour Research, have found a new way to starve cancerous brain tumour cells of energy in order to prevent further growth.
The pre-clinical research in human tissue samples, human cell lines and mice could lead to changes in the way that some children with medulloblastoma are treated in the future, if the findings are confirmed in human clinical trials.
Medulloblastoma is the most common high-grade brain tumour in children. Some 70 are diagnosed in the UK each year. Survival rate is 70 per cent for those whose tumour has not spread but it is almost always fatal in cases of recurrent tumour.
The research, published in the high impact journal Nature Communications, looks at inositol hexaphosphate (IP6), a naturally occurring compound present in almost all plants and animals, and showed how it inhibits medulloblastoma and can be combined with chemotherapy to kill tumour cells.
Lead researcher Professor Silvia Marino from the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at Queen Mary University of London said: “Medulloblastoma occurs in four distinct subgroups (WNT, SHH, G3 and G4). Despite our growing knowledge of the molecular differences between these subgroups, current options are surgery together with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy for all patients. We desperately need to understand the key molecular events driving tumour growth in each subgroup to design new, less toxic, targeted treatments.”
“G4 medulloblastoma is the least understood of all subgroups, despite being the most common and associated with poor prognosis. We have identified a novel way that this type of medulloblastoma is able to adapt its metabolism and grow uncontrollably. Significantly, we have also shown how this energy supply can be blocked. These exciting results bring hope of developing new targeted treatments for patients with this aggressive paediatric brain tumour.”
Normal cells are able to switch specific genes on and off as required to control their growth. Known as epigenetics, this process can be disrupted in cancer, leading to over production of specific proteins that contribute to the development and growth of a tumour.

The US and Europe should pay a quarter of the cost each to vaccinate poorer nations, a former UK prime minister has claimed.Gordon Brown said the G7 and other wealthier nations “should pay their share” to help parts of Africa and Asia.He said it should not be left to a “whip round” to deal with a “disease that has got be to be brought under control”.

Many Americans increased their alcohol intake during the pandemic, with women and parents of young children disproportionately affected.For most of her life, Andrea Carbone, a 51-year-old paralegal living in Florida, wasn’t a big drinker. But when the pandemic struck, she worried constantly about her job, her health and the safety of her children.While many people were able to work from home last year, Ms. Carbone, was required to go into the office. Some mornings she would cry in her car as she drove along deserted roads and highways to get to her office in downtown Tampa, which looked, she said, “like a ghost town.”As her stress levels soared, so did her alcohol intake. Before the pandemic, Ms. Carbone would have a glass of red wine with dinner most nights. But by May, her intake had climbed substantially. “I noticed I was having a glass of wine as soon as I got home, then a glass with dinner, then we’d sit down to watch TV and I’d have another glass or two,” she said. “By the end of the night I was drinking a bottle.”Ms. Carbone is far from alone. The widespread fear, frustration and social isolation surrounding the tumultuous events of the past year — the pandemic, civil unrest, political upheaval — caused stress levels to skyrocket, with many people increasing their alcohol intake. Women and parents of young children seem to have been hit particularly hard. A nationwide survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association in February found that one in four adults reported drinking more this past year to manage their stress. That rate more than doubled among those who had children between the ages of 5 and 7.Another study published in JAMA Network Open in October found that Americans increased the frequency of their alcohol consumption by 14 percent compared to a year earlier. But the same study found a 41 percent increase in the number of days on which women drank heavily, defined as having four or more drinks in a couple of hours.“Women have disproportionately left the labor force entirely compared to men; they have disproportionately taken on the work around the house, the child care, and the child’s education,” said Michael S. Pollard, the lead author of the JAMA study and a senior sociologist at the RAND Corporation. “So, it stands to reason that women would increase their alcohol use disproportionately as well.”The psychological damage from the past year has caused sharp declines in physical health, including widespread weight gain and disruptions in sleep. Hospitals around the country have reported an increase in admissions for hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver failure and other forms of alcohol-related diseases. Almost no group has been spared.Driftwood Recovery, an addiction and mental health rehabilitation center in Texas, has had so many requests for treatment this past year that it has a two-month waiting list. Vanessa Kennedy, Driftwood’s director of psychology, said that many of her clients are parents who started drinking heavily as they struggled to balance their day jobs with home-schooling and other parental responsibilities.“They’re used to having their kids go off happily to school and having an experienced teacher teach their children while they go to work and focus on performing well and providing financial support for their family,” said Dr. Kennedy. “Their work roles are conflicting with their parenting roles, and it’s been difficult for them to create space and do those things well.”Dr. Kennedy has treated a wide range of patients who turned to excessive drinking this past year. Some lost their jobs or shuttered their businesses, which left them without daily structure and the means to provide for their families. Others were college students who felt socially disconnected when they were sent home to do virtual schooling, or older adults who drank because they were depressed that they could not see their loved ones or hug their grandchildren.Before last year, Gordon Mueller, a retiree who lives in Rochester, N.Y., rarely consumed more than one or two drinks a day. But when the pandemic struck and the economy and stock market stumbled, Mr. Mueller was consumed by anxiety as he followed the news and worried about his retirement account. As Mr. Mueller sheltered in place at home with his wife, his alcohol intake escalated to seven drinks a day: vodka cocktails in the afternoon, wine with dinner, and a whisky nightcap before bed. “We had no idea if we were going to financially get through this thing, let alone get sick and potentially die,” he said. “It was just a lot of fear and boredom. Those were the two emotions.”Ms. Carbone now uses an app to track her alcohol intake and has at least two “dry” days a week.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesBut many people have found novel ways to rein in their drinking. In December, Mr. Mueller turned to Moderation Management, an online community that helps people who want to cut back on their drinking but not necessarily abstain. He started attending Zoom calls with other members and using the organization’s private Facebook group to learn tips and advice to reduce his drinking. Then, in January, he decided to give up alcohol for a while to see how he would feel.“I’m happy to say that I haven’t had a drink this year, and I feel a lot better: I sleep better, and I can get more things done,” he said. “The nice thing about this moderation group is that it’s not an all-or-nothing ‘You can never drink again or you’re a failed alcoholic’ approach.”In Tampa, Ms. Carbone started using a popular app called Cutback Coach, which helps people track their alcohol intake and set goals and reminders so they can develop healthier drinking habits. Using the app, Ms. Carbone makes a plan for how much she will drink each week. The app tracks her daily intake, sends her notifications about her goals, and updates her on her progress, including all the calories she avoided and the money she saved by drinking less. She now has at least two “dry” days per week and has cut her drinking in half.“Seeing the progress that I’ve made makes me feel good and makes me keep doing it,” she said. “I sleep a lot better. I wake up less at night. I wake up feeling less sluggish, less tired, and I’ve been going to the gym more regularly, whereas before I couldn’t drag myself there.”For people who want to reduce their drinking, here are some simple tips that might help.Try PrecommitmentRather than relying on willpower alone, make a plan every Sunday to limit your drinking to a specific amount each day of the week and stick to it. This is a tactic known as precommitment, which Cutback Coach uses to help its thousands of members. The idea behind it is that you increase your chances of success by committing to a plan and restricting your ability to back out later on. Some other examples of precommitment are deciding not to keep junk food in your house and encouraging yourself to exercise by scheduling a workout with a friend. Studies show that precommitment is an effective way to change behavior.Find Social SupportTalk to your spouse, a friend or a family member about your plan to drink less. They can hold you accountable and help you find healthier ways to manage your stress. Make a plan to go for a walk with your friend or partner at the end of the day, for example, instead of opening a bottle. “You might find that you have a buddy who says, ‘why don’t we go play tennis or do something else to unwind after work,’” said Dr. Kennedy. “There are a lot of benefits to trying healthy activities instead of the wine.”Create ObstaclesSet up rules to slow your drinking. Mary Reid, the executive director of Moderation Management, follows a simple rule that helps her avoid drinking heavily: Each glass of wine she drinks has to last at least one hour. “My strongest tool is timing my drinks,” she said. “We always tell new members that we do have stop buttons, but we just ignore them.” Dr. Kennedy at Driftwood employs a similar rule. She tells people to alternate every alcoholic drink they have with a glass of water.Change Your RoutineSome people drink more out of habit than an actual desire for alcohol. Try substituting sparkling water or another beverage for your usual drink. Mr. Mueller used to have a cocktail every night while watching the evening news. But when he cut back on alcohol, he switched to drinking a cup of tea or nonalcoholic beer while watching the news and realized he just needed a beverage to sip. “Now I still have a glass in my hand but it doesn’t have alcohol,” he said. “It’s almost like having a glass in your hand is the habit and not the alcohol.”

“This crisis affects more or less everyone, and poetry can help us process difficult feelings like loss, sadness, anger, lack of hope.”Many, perhaps most, of us have spent this past year struggling to find ways to mourn the losses, weather the stresses and revive the pleasures stolen by the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ve monitored Zoom funerals, weddings, graduations, christenings, bar and bat mitzvahs, alternately laughing and weeping at inanimate screens as we tried to make sense of a world turned upside down.But I wonder how many have turned to poetry as a source of comfort, release, connection, understanding, inspiration and acceptance. This being National Poetry Month, there’s no better time than the present to do so.One person who has long valued poetry as both a personal and professional aid is Dr. Norman Rosenthal, a psychiatrist in Rockville, Md., who pioneered the use of light therapy for seasonal affective disorder. A clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School, Dr. Rosenthal said he has used poems as a therapeutic assistant, with rewarding results among his patients.“I have loved poetry ever since I was able to read, and it has been a personal source of comfort and solace to me at different times in my life,” he told me. “As a therapist, I have collected poems along the way that I thought had the power to heal, inspire or, at the very least, bring joy.”Now anyone can access and benefit from the short poems he has found to be so therapeutic and the soul-restoring messages he has gleaned from them. Dr. Rosenthal has compiled them in a new book, “PoetryRx: How 50 Inspiring Poems Can Heal and Bring Joy to Your Life,” complete with helpful takeaways and discussions of the circumstances under which they were written. (The book will be published next month by Gildan Media.)While we herald vaccines as potential saviors from the threat of a devastating virus, Dr. Rosenthal said, “Poetry can serve as a vaccine for the soul.” In a world that is so marred by loss and deprived of pleasure, he believes poetry can help fill in the gaps, offering a brief retreat from a troubled world and hope for a better future.For Margaret Shryer, a Minnesota great-grandmother, poetry has been like a good friend, a reliable source of inspiration and consolation that has helped her remain sane during the many Covid months mostly confined to her apartment in a senior residence.“Poetry generally picks me up,” she told me. “There’s a nugget of truth in every poem, and I flip through them to find ones that resonate with me and will get me going. I read them aloud. Every time you go back to a poem, you read it with a different set of ears. To people who think they don’t like poetry or understand it, I say ‘What about lyrics? That song you love? That’s poetry.’ Some of the most moving poetry can be found in lyrics.”I used to believe that poetry did not “speak” to me, but I now see how wrong I was. I lived for 44 years with a husband, a lyricist, whose beautifully crafted, heartfelt lyrics touched my every fiber and continue to uplift and inspire me a decade after his death. The special beauty of Dr. Rosenthal’s book for me is his discussion of what each poem is saying, what the poet was likely feeling and often how the poems helped him personally, as when he left his birth family in South Africa for a rewarding career in the United States.Amanda Gorman’s inspired and inspiring poem that stole the show at President Biden’s inauguration in January has shown millions of Americans the emotional and social power of poetry and, I hope, prompted them to use it themselves.On her blog, Diana Raab, a psychologist, poet and author in Santa Barbara, wrote that “poetry can help us feel as if we’re part of a larger picture and not just living in our isolated little world. Writing and reading poetry can be a springboard for growth, healing and transformation. Poets help us see a slice of the world in a way we might not have in the past.”Dr. Rafael Campo, a poet and physician at Harvard Medical School, believes poetry can also help doctors become better providers, fostering empathy with their patients and bearing witness to our common humanity, which he considers essential to healing. As he put it in a TEDxCambridge talk in June 2019, “When we hear rhythmic language and recite poetry, our bodies translate crude sensory data into nuanced knowing — feeling becomes meaning.”According to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, a psychiatrist affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center, poetry can give people a way to talk about subjects that are taboo, like death and dying, and provide healing, growth and transformation.Referring to the pandemic, Dr. Rosenthal said, “This crisis affects more or less everyone, and poetry can help us process difficult feelings like loss, sadness, anger, lack of hope. Although not everyone has a gift for writing poetry, all of us can benefit from the thoughts so many poets have beautifully expressed.”Indeed, the book’s first section features the poem “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop, about loss that can comfort those who are suffering. She wrote:Even losing you (the joking voice, a gestureI love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evidentthe art of losing’s not too hard to masterthough it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.“When people are devastated by loss they should be allowed to feel and express their pain,” Dr. Rosenthal said in an interview. “They should be offered support and compassion, not urged to move on. You can’t force closure. If people want closure, they’ll do it in their own time.”Closure was not a state cherished by Edna St. Vincent Millay, who wrote that“Time does not bring relief; you all have liedWho told me time would ease me of my pain!”However, Dr. Rosenthal pointed out that for most people, time does bring relief, despite what his friend Kay Redfield Jamison wrote in her memoir “An Unquiet Mind.” For her, relief “took its own, and not terribly sweet, time in doing so.”Poems, I now realize, thanks to Dr. Rosenthal, can be a literary panacea for the pandemic. They let us know that we are not alone, that others before us have survived devastating loss and desolation and that we can be uplifted by the imagery and cadence of the written and spoken word.