This could be good news for Jewish guilt. Bar-Ilan University professor Yacov Rofé has been studying Sigmund Freud’s theory that the unconscious mind represses traumatic memories — and has found no evidence to support it.
According to Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis, such repression causes mental illness.
But Prof Rofé’s paper, published in the American Psychological Association’s Review of General Psychology, theorises that taking on a “distorted” view of reality could actually help maintain mental health.
He studied a century of scientific literature in his research.
A Haifa-based bio-therapeutics company plans to begin clinical trials for a treatment for limb ischemia after receiving approval from federal authorities abroad.
Pluristem Therapeutics Inc’s pre-clinical study has been approved for trials by the Paul Ehrlich Institute in Germany and the US Food and Drug Administration.
Limb ischemia, associated with peripheral artery disease, causes artery hardening , which in turn can lead to nerve and tissue damage — even gangrene. The proposed treatment would use cells from placentas known as mesenchymal stromal cells and existing Pluristem technology.
Pluristem president and CEO Zami Aberman called the approval an “important milestone”.
New information about embryonic stem cells’ ability to develop into any kind of tissue has been uncovered by a group that includes the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr Eran Meshorer was among the group, which included researchers in Toronto and the US. They found that embryonic cells express genetic information that is usually “silent”.
The cells undergo genetic silencing when they develop into specific cell tissue types, but the genetic information remains open and active until then.
The research appeared in the journal Cell Stem Cell.