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Drs. Jan Frank and Harold Levinson of Downstate Medical Center report in the Journal of Child Psychiatry that primary dyslexia is caused by some as yet unexplained defect in the nerve pathways that connect the inner ear, which helps control balance, with the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls coordination. The result of this defect, they claim, is a sort of permanent motion sickness that affects a child's balance and scrambles incoming visual signals. In fact, they say, 112 out of 115 New York City children known to have primary dyslexia were tested and found to be afflicted with an inner-ear disturbance.
Frank and Levinson have devised an instrument that a school nurse can use to detect the ear disturbance. Thus, they suggest, primary dyslexia can now be diagnosed in preschool children. The two doctors are also searching for a physiological treatment for the disorder; in a small pilot program, they have begun to study the effect of cyclizine, a motion-sickness drug, on the reading ability of dyslexic children.
> Many marijuana users claim that smoking pot improves their sex lives. That widely held belief has now been challenged by the findings of a group that includes researchers from St. Louis' Reproductive Biology Research Foundation, the outfit headed by Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson. The research team, which includes Masters, reports in the New England Journal of Medicine that marijuana smoking appears not only to reduce the production of male sex hormones but also to impair both the fertility and potency of males.
The conclusion is based on a study of 20 men, age 18 to 28, who used marijuana (but no other drugs) at least four times a week for six months. At the end of that period the testosterone levels among the pot smokers were an average of 43% lower than they were in a group of nonsmoking controls. Six of the marijuana users had lowered sperm counts, and two of them reported that they had become impotent. After abstaining from marijuana for two weeks, several subjects regained normal hormone levels and sexual function. One preferred the pleasures of pot to those of the pad. Despite a potency problem, he declined to give up marijuana.