Research notes

Updated 2:00 PM November 3, 2003

Research notes

Bull mastodons in deadly combat

The American mastodon, a massive, tusk-bearing relative of elephants, inhabited much of North America until its extinction just 10,000 years ago. Strictly plant-eaters, mastodons often are portrayed browsing peacefully on vegetation or lumbering around in small family groups. But mastodons may have had an aggressive side as well.

Digital models (heads only) of two mastodon bulls fighting. (Models by Gretchen Moeser )

New studies of bone damage on fossil remains of mature mastodon males—aided by 3-D computer graphics—indicate that some died of wounds inflicted by the tusks of other males. U-M paleontologist Daniel Fisher discussed the results Oct. 16 during the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in St. Paul, Minn.

The most telltale evidence for mortal combat among male mastodons consists of areas of crushed skull bone, typically on one side only, behind the eye and under the cheek region. Inflicting bone damage in this location would have required a tusk to penetrate tough hide and nearly 20 inches of muscle, causing extensive blood loss and trauma to the muscles used for chewing. The same skeletons bear other signs of damage, such as crushed vertebrae, suggesting paralyzing blows to the back.

Weighing six tons or more, adult male mastodons would have been no pushovers. "Their skeletal structure suggests even greater strength than we see in elephants today," Fisher says, "and their tusks could have inflicted enormous damage."—Nancy Ross-Flanigan, News Service

Fighting the biggest travesty in stroke care

Only a tiny percentage of stroke victims who could be saved from death or lifelong disability by the quick delivery of emergency therapy actually get the right treatment in time. But a study shows there might be a way to fight what stroke experts call one of the biggest travesties in the treatment of the nation's third-biggest killer.

The study finds that a focused educational campaign aimed at the public and health professionals nearly quintupled the use of an emergency clot-busting drug in stroke patients in three Texas counties, so that 69 percent of eligible patients got it. The three-year community campaign produced a sustained increase that wasn't seen at all in two comparable nearby counties where the campaign wasn't carried out.

In the Oct. 13 Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers from the U-M Cardiovascular Center and the University of Texas (UT) at Houston reported results from the $1.5 million project, funded by the TLL Temple Foundation.

"The campaign had high-impact results in a short time, which clearly shows that we can make dramatic improvements in acute stroke treatment through education," says lead author and U-M Stroke Program Director Dr. Lewis Morgenstern, who began the study when he was a stroke neurologist at the UT Medical School. "The results are especially promising because the same quick deployment needed for the acute therapy drug in this study, tPA [short for tissue plasminogen activator], will be essential in any future acute stroke treatments."

Now, Morgenstern and his colleagues hope to see if they can replicate their results in other communities, with further randomized, controlled, prospective studies.—Kara Gavin, UMHS Public Relations

Compassion in the workplace has far-reaching impact

Small interpersonal acts of compassion in the workplace have significant, far-reaching effects on co-workers, according to a Business School study.

In their report, "What Good is Compassion at Work?" researcher Jane Dutton and colleagues identify a "cascading effect," whereby experiencing compassion at work generates positive emotion and, in turn, shapes employees' long-term attitudes and behaviors.

"Our findings suggest that compassion among co-workers is more than simply a momentary, humane response to pain," says Dutton, professor of organizational behavior and human resource management at the Business School and professor of psychology in LSA. "It fosters important organizational outcomes and leaves its imprint on the organizational landscape."

The research, conducted by Dutton, Jacoba Lilius and Jason Kanov of U-M, and researchers from Emory University and the University of British Columbia, documents compassion's effects on daily work meanings, attitudes and behaviors. Their findings enrich the emerging field of Positive Organizational Scholarship, which is the focal point of a new research center at the Michigan Business School.

Their research also comes at a time—in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001—when more attention is being focused on how individuals and organizations cope with loss and grief and promote emotional healing. According to one estimate, firms lose $75 billion annually from employees' grief-related incidences, which impacts bottom-line profitability.—Bernie DeGroat, News Service

Re-engineered blood vessels show promise for bypass surgery, grafts

Surgeons at the U-M Health System (UMHS) report that they have been able to strip tiny blood vessels from rats and re-engineer them to be more effective when implanted in a new animal. The findings could benefit people who already have had vascular bypass surgery and need new blood vessels for subsequent procedures.

Essentially, the researchers take these hair-width arterial grafts from a donor rat, remove all living cells from the rest of the tissue, insert vascular cells from the new host and then reimplant the graft. Using the host's own cells increases the likelihood of success by reducing the chance of rejection.

"Small blood vessels are needed all the time for grafts to use in heart bypass surgery, lower extremity bypasses and tissue transfer. The biggest problem is finding a source for these vessels. A typical source is some other blood vessel in the patient's body. To be able to have something that we can manufacture ahead of time or be able to take off the shelf, would be advantageous to many patients," says lead researcher Dr. David Brown, assistant professor in the Division of Plastic Surgery at the Medical School.

U-M is applying for a patent for this technique and is in negotiations with a company that wishes to use the technology commercially. The study was funded by the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Ethel C. Coller Fellowship in the UMHS Department of Surgery.

Dr. Gregory Borschel, a resident surgeon in the Division of Plastic Surgery at the Medical School, presented his findings Oct. 22 at the American College of Surgeons 89th Annual Clinical Congress in Chicago. The study's other authors were: Robert Dennis, assistant professor of biomedical engineering; and U-M researchers Yen-Chih Huang, Douglas Dow, J.B. Lynch and William Kuzon.—Nicole Fawcett, UMHS Public Relations

Findings for managed care in child welfare

A new foster care program that reimburses agencies based on performance was designed to improve the lives of children and their families in Michigan.

But a U-M study shows the outcomes were no better than the traditional method that pays on a per-child, per-diem system during the first 300 days a child spends in foster care.

In the first study of its kind to explore the impact of new service arrangements on child welfare agencies and the children and families in their care, U-M researchers William Meezan and Bowen McBeath learned that foster children in six Wayne County agencies that participated in a pilot program—which takes a performance-based, managed care approach—were no more likely to be placed in stable environments than agencies using the traditional reimbursement structure within their first 300 days of care.

"The fact that the same proportion of families in the pilot agencies reached an appropriate outcome having received less service leads to numerous additional questions regarding how stable their placements will remain and the long-term impacts of these financial arrangements on child and family well-being. Our continued work will shed further light on the impact of managed care approaches that are relatively new but spreading quickly within the child welfare arena," says Meezan, the Marion Elizabeth Blue Professor of Children and Families in the School of Social Work. McBeath is a doctoral research associate in the school.

The study, "Moving to Managed Care in Child Welfare: First Results from the Evaluation of the Wayne County Foster Care Pilot Initiative," was discussed by officials from state foster care agencies during an Oct. 27 conference at the School of Social Work.

The research received support from the Aspen Institute—Michigan Nonprofit Research Program, W.K. Kellogg Foundation through the Global Program on Youth (School of Social Work), the Michigan Family Independence Agency, the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies and the Skillman Foundation.—Jared Wadley, News Service

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