By Helen Briggs BBC News An anti-tuberculosis vaccine could prevent multiple sclerosis, early research suggests. A small-scale study by researchers at the Sapienza University of Rome has raised hopes that the disease can be warded off when early symptoms appear. More research is needed before the BCG vaccine can be trialled on MS patients. The MS Society said the chance to take a safe and effective preventative treatment after a first MS-like attack would be a huge step forward. MS is a disease affecting nerves in the brain and spinal cord, causing problems with muscle movement, balance and vision. Early signs include numbness, vision difficulties or problems with balance. About half of people with a first episode of symptoms go on to develop MS within two years, while 10% have no more problems. In the study, published in the journal Neurology, Italian researchers gave 33 people who had early signs of MS an injection of BCG vaccine. The other 40 individuals in the study were given a placebo. After five years, 30% of those who received the placebo had not developed MS, compared with 58% of those vaccinated. "These results are promising, but much more research needs to be done to learn more about the safety and long-term effects of this live vaccine," said study leader Dr Giovanni Ristori. "Doctors should not start using this vaccine to treat MS or clinically isolated syndrome." BBC © 2013

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 19003 - Posted: 12.05.2013

Philip Ball Some animals, like some people, are more aggressive than others: it is just the way they are. But research suggests that for birds at least, it is not always easy to tell which is which. Some birds are inclined to give out exaggerated signs of their aggressiveness, others to underplay it. It is rather like the menacing biker who turns out to be a pussycat, or the geek who will break a bottle over your head. But the analogy with humans goes only so far, because many birds announce their aggression about mating and territory not by appearance but through song and gesture. For example, behavioural ecologist Michael Beecher and his colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle have observed how the song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) indicates its intention to attack a dummy bird (see video above) or a loudspeaker playing bird songs by either vocalizing distinctive ‘soft songs’ or waving its wings (see video below), both of which are perceived as threatening1. Violent tendencies Both aggressive signalling and the ensuing violent behaviour vary from one bird to another, in a way that correlates with other personality traits such as boldness2. But these attributes also vary for a single individual at different times: birds can have particularly grouchy or placid days. Nonetheless, the degree of aggression implied by the precursory signals generally reflects the actual behaviour, in what evolutionary biologists call an honest signal. But it's not always honest. Earlier this year, Beecher's team showed1 that there is some variability in aggressive signalling that does not match behaviour: a bird might act stroppy but not follow through with an attack. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Aggression; Aggression
Link ID: 19002 - Posted: 12.05.2013

By CARL ZIMMER Scientists have found the oldest DNA evidence yet of humans’ biological history. But instead of neatly clarifying human evolution, the finding is adding new mysteries. In a paper in the journal Nature, scientists reported Wednesday that they had retrieved ancient human DNA from a fossil dating back about 400,000 years, shattering the previous record of 100,000 years. The fossil, a thigh bone found in Spain, had previously seemed to many experts to belong to a forerunner of Neanderthals. But its DNA tells a very different story. It most closely resembles DNA from an enigmatic lineage of humans known as Denisovans. Until now, Denisovans were known only from DNA retrieved from 80,000-year-old remains in Siberia, 4,000 miles east of where the new DNA was found. The mismatch between the anatomical and genetic evidence surprised the scientists, who are now rethinking human evolution over the past few hundred thousand years. It is possible, for example, that there are many extinct human populations that scientists have yet to discover. They might have interbred, swapping DNA. Scientists hope that further studies of extremely ancient human DNA will clarify the mystery. “Right now, we’ve basically generated a big question mark,” said Matthias Meyer, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and a co-author of the new study. Hints at new hidden complexities in the human story came from a 400,000-year-old femur found in a cave in Spain called Sima de los Huesos (“the pit of bones” in Spanish). The scientific team used new methods to extract the ancient DNA from the fossil. “This would not have been possible even a year ago,” said Juan Luis Arsuaga, a paleoanthropologist at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a co-author of the paper. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Aggression
Link ID: 19001 - Posted: 12.05.2013

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News The number of people living with dementia worldwide is set to treble by 2050, according to a new analysis. Alzheimer's Disease International says 44 million people live with the disease, but that figure will increase to 135 million by 2050. The figures were released ahead of the G8 dementia summit in London next week. In the UK, dementia research receives one eighth of the amount of funding that is spent on cancer, which charities say is insufficient. Alzheimer's Disease International expects increasing life expectancies to drive a surge in cases in poor and middle-income countries, particularly in South East Asia and Africa. Currently 38% of cases are in rich countries. But that balance is predicted shift significantly by 2050, with 71% of patients being in poor and middle-income countries. The report says most governments are "woefully unprepared for the dementia epidemic". Marc Wortmann, the executive director at Alzheimer Disease International, said: "It's a global epidemic and it is only getting worse - if we look into the future the numbers of elderly people will rise dramatically." Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of the UK's Alzheimer's Society, said: "Dementia is fast becoming the biggest health and social care challenge of this generation. "We must tackle dementia now, for those currently living with the condition across the world and for those millions who will develop dementia in the future. BBC © 2013

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 18998 - Posted: 12.05.2013

This morning, an animal rights group known as the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a lawsuit in a New York Supreme Court in an attempt to get a judge to declare that chimpanzees are legal persons and should be freed from captivity. The suit is the first of three to be filed in three New York counties this week. They target two research chimps at Stony Brook University and two chimps on private property, and are the opening salvo in a coordinated effort to grant “legal personhood” to a variety of animals across the United States. If NhRP is successful in New York, it could be a significant step toward upending millennia of law defining animals as property and could set off a “chain reaction” that could bleed over to other jurisdictions, says Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, and a proponent of focusing on animal welfare rather than animal rights. “But if they lose it could be a significant step backward for the movement. They’re playing with fire.” The litigation has been in the works since 2007, when animal rights attorney Steven Wise founded NhRP, an association of about 60 lawyers, scientists, and policy experts. The group argues that cognitively advanced animals like chimpanzees and dolphins are so self-aware that keeping them in captivity—whether a zoo or research laboratory—is tantamount to slavery. “It’s a terrible torture we inflict on them, and it has to stop,” Wise says. “And all of human law says the way things stop is when courts and legislatures recognize that the being imprisoned is a legal person.” NhRP spent 5 years researching the best legal strategy—and best jurisdiction—for its first cases. The upshot: a total of three lawsuits to be filed in three New York trial courts this week on behalf of four resident chimpanzees. © 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 18993 - Posted: 12.03.2013

To expedite research on brain disorders, the National Institutes of Health is shifting from a limited funding role to coordinating a Web-based resource for sharing post-mortem brain tissue. Under a NIH NeuroBioBank initiative, five brain banks will begin collaborating in a tissue sharing network for the neuroscience community. “Instead of having to seek out brain tissue needed for a study from scattered repositories, researchers will have one-stop access to the specimens they need,” explained Thomas Insel, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), one of three NIH institutes underwriting the project. “Such efficiency has become even more important with recent breakthrough technologies, such as CLARITY and resources such as BrainSpan that involve the use of human tissue.” Historically, NIH institutes have awarded investigator-initiated grants to support disease-specific brain bank activities. The NIH NeuroBioBank instead employs contracts, which affords the agency a more interactive role. Contracts totaling about $4.7 million for the 2013 fiscal year were awarded to brain banks at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City; Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., the University of Miami; Sepulveda Research Corporation, Los Angeles; and the University of Pittsburgh. These brain and tissue repositories seek out and accept brain donations, store the tissue, and distribute it to qualified researchers seeking to understand the causes of – and identify treatments and cures for – brain disorders, such as schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, depression, epilepsy, Down syndrome and autism.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 18992 - Posted: 12.03.2013

Jo Marchant When Steve Cole was a postdoc, he had an unusual hobby: matching art buyers with artists that they might like. The task made looking at art, something he had always loved, even more enjoyable. “There was an extra layer of purpose. I loved the ability to help artists I thought were great to find an appreciative audience,” he says. At the time, it was nothing more than a quirky sideline. But his latest findings have caused Cole — now a professor at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at the University of California, Los Angeles — to wonder whether the exhilaration and sense of purpose that he felt during that period might have done more than help him to find homes for unloved pieces of art. It might have benefited his immune system too. At one time, most self-respecting molecular biologists would have scoffed at the idea. Today, evidence from many studies suggests that mental states such as stress can influence health. Still, it has proved difficult to explain how this happens at the molecular level — how subjective moods connect with the vastly complex physiology of the nervous and immune systems. The field that searches for these explanations, known as psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), is often criticized as lacking rigour. Cole's stated aim is to fix that, and his tool of choice is genome-wide transcriptional analysis: looking at broad patterns of gene expression in cells. “My job is to be a hard-core tracker,” he says. “How do these mental states get out into the rest of the body?” With his colleagues, Cole has published a string of studies suggesting that negative mental states such as stress and loneliness guide immune responses by driving broad programs of gene expression, shaping our ability to fight disease. If he is right, the way people see the world could affect everything from their risk of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease to the progression of conditions such as HIV and cancer. Now Cole has switched tack, moving from negative moods into the even more murky territory of happiness. It is a risky strategy; his work has already been criticized as wishful thinking and moralizing. But the pay-off is nothing less than finding a healthier way to live. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Emotions; Aggression
Link ID: 18988 - Posted: 11.30.2013

By Dwayne Godwin and Jorge Cham Dwayne Godwin is a neuroscientist at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. His Twitter handle is @brainyacts. Jorge Cham draws the comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper at www.phdcomics.com. © 2013 Scientific American

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 18980 - Posted: 11.30.2013

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health have used RNA interference (RNAi) technology to reveal dozens of genes which may represent new therapeutic targets for treating Parkinson’s disease. The findings also may be relevant to several diseases caused by damage to mitochondria, the biological power plants found in cells throughout the body. “We discovered a network of genes that may regulate the disposal of dysfunctional mitochondria, opening the door to new drug targets for Parkinson’s disease and other disorders,” said Richard Youle, Ph.D., an investigator at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and a leader of the study. The findings were published online in Nature. Dr. Youle collaborated with researchers from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). Mitochondria are tubular structures with rounded ends that use oxygen to convert many chemical fuels into adenosine triphosphate, the main energy source that powers cells. Multiple neurological disorders are linked to genes that help regulate the health of mitochondria, including Parkinson’s, and movement diseases such as Charcot-Marie Tooth Syndrome and the ataxias. Some cases of Parkinson’s disease have been linked to mutations in the gene that codes for parkin, a protein that normally roams inside cells, and tags damaged mitochondria as waste. The damaged mitochondria are then degraded by cells’ lysosomes, which serve as a biological trash disposal system. Known mutations in parkin prevent tagging, resulting in accumulation of unhealthy mitochondria in the body.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Aggression
Link ID: 18975 - Posted: 11.26.2013

Ed Yong A large international group set up to test the reliability of psychology experiments has successfully reproduced the results of 10 out of 13 past experiments. The consortium also found that two effects could not be reproduced. Psychology has been buffeted in recent years by mounting concern over the reliability of its results, after repeated failures to replicate classic studies. A failure to replicate could mean that the original study was flawed, the new experiment was poorly done or the effect under scrutiny varies between settings or groups of people. To tackle this 'replicability crisis', 36 research groups formed the Many Labs Replication Project to repeat 13 psychological studies. The consortium combined tests from earlier experiments into a single questionnaire — meant to take 15 minutes to complete — and delivered it to 6,344 volunteers from 12 countries. The team chose a mix of effects that represent the diversity of psychological science, from classic experiments that have been repeatedly replicated to contemporary ones that have not. Ten of the effects were consistently replicated across different samples. These included classic results from economics Nobel laureate and psychologist Daniel Kahneman at Princeton University in New Jersey, such as gain-versus-loss framing, in which people are more prepared to take risks to avoid losses, rather than make gains1; and anchoring, an effect in which the first piece of information a person receives can introduce bias to later decisions2. The team even showed that anchoring is substantially more powerful than Kahneman’s original study suggested. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 18974 - Posted: 11.26.2013

By Jill U. Adams, Every morning I am greeted by Facebook friends complaining of sleepless nights or awakenings. I know the feeling — as do many other Americans. In a 2005 survey of 1,506 Americans by the National Sleep Foundation, 54 percent reported at least one symptom of insomnia — difficulty falling asleep, waking a lot during the night, waking up too early or waking up feeling unrefreshed — at least a few nights a week over the previous year. Thirty-three percent said they had experienced symptoms almost every night. If insomnia visited me that often, I’d be tempted to pick up something at the pharmacy — something easy, something safe, something that didn’t involve making a doctor’s appointment. Indeed, 10 to 20 percent of Americans take over-the-counter sleep aids each year, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. The way they’re marketed, over-the-counter sleep aids sound very appealing: The new product ZzzQuil (yes, from the maker of NyQuil) promises “a beautiful night’s sleep;” an ad says you’ll “fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer” after using Unisom. Companies marketing the herb valerian root and the hormone melatonin as over-the-counter sleep aids make similar claims. But what’s the evidence that supports these claims? “It’s quite lean,” says Andrew Krystal, who directs the sleep research program at Duke University. Over-the-counter sleep aids work differently from prescription drugs for insomnia. Most are simply antihistamines in sheep’s clothing. (Yes, that’s a joke.) The majority of them — ZzzQuil, TylenolPM and Unisom SleepGels — contain diphenhydramine as the active ingredient, the same compound in Benadryl. (Unisom SleepTabs use doxylamine, another antihistamine.) © 1996-2013 The Washington Post

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 18973 - Posted: 11.26.2013

By Janet Davison, CBC News If headlines in the past few weeks are to be believed, a "Flesh-eating 'zombie' drug" that could devour users "from the inside out" is finding its way onto American streets. Then came reports suggesting that "krokodil," a cheap and highly addictive homemade substitute for heroin that surfaced first in Russia about 10 years ago, had appeared in Ontario's Niagara region. But so far, neither the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency nor Health Canada has identified krokodil, also known as desomorphine, in any samples they've analyzed since the DEA found two instances of it in 2004. And police in Niagara are now saying the reported cases of the drug — an ugly concoction of codeine mixed with common products such as gasoline, lighter fluid, paint thinner or industrial cleaning oil — haven't been medically confirmed. Krokodil is named for the Russian word for crocodile and its tendency to turn users' skin rough and scaly. The injectable opioid can cause brain damage and severe tissue damage, sometimes leading to gangrene, amputations and even death. It has also been linked to pneumonia, blood poisoning, meningitis, liver and kidney problems, rotting gums and bone infections. The horrific health problems the drug has caused among the well over 100,000 users in Russia and Ukraine have been well documented by researchers in publications such as the International Journal of Drug Policy. But so far there is no solid, official proof that krokodil has reached Canada. The recent news reports about the drug coupled with the lack of hard evidence to back them up underline how difficult it is for health and law enforcement officials to keep up with the evolving mix of street drugs. © CBC 2013

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 18967 - Posted: 11.25.2013

Barn owl nestlings recognise their siblings' calls, according to researchers. Instead of competing aggressively for food, young barn owls are known to negotiate by calling out. A team of scientists in Switzerland discovered that the owlets have remarkably individual calls. They suggest this is to communicate each birds' needs and identity in the nest. The findings were announced in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology by Dr Amelie Dreiss and colleagues at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Barn owls (Tyto alba) are considered one of the most widespread species of bird and are found on every continent except Antarctica. An average clutch size ranges between four and six eggs but some have been known to contain up to 12. Previous studies have highlighted how barn owl nestlings, known as owlets, negotiate with their siblings for food instead of fighting. While their parents search for food the owlets advertise their hunger to their brothers and sisters by calling out. "These vocal signals deter siblings from vocalizing and from competing for the prey at parental return," explained Dr Dreiss. "If there is a disagreement, they can escalate signal intensity little by little, always without physical aggression, until less hungry siblings finally withdraw from the contest." BBC © 2013

Keyword: Animal Communication; Aggression
Link ID: 18965 - Posted: 11.25.2013

By BENEDICT CAREY Grading college students on quizzes given at the beginning of every class, rather than on midterms or a final exam, increases both attendance and overall performance, scientists reported Wednesday. The findings — from an experiment in which 901 students in a popular introduction to psychology course at the University of Texas took their laptops to class and were quizzed online — demonstrate that the computers can act as an aid to teaching, not just a distraction. Moreover, the study is the latest to show how tests can be used to enhance learning as well as measure it. The report, appearing in the journal PLoS One, found that this “testing effect” was particularly strong in students from lower-income households. Psychologists have known for almost a century that altering the timing of tests can affect performance. In the past decade, they have shown that taking a test — say, writing down all you can remember from a studied prose passage — can deepen the memory of that passage better than further study. The new findings stand as a large-scale prototype for how such testing effects can be exploited in the digital era, experts said, though they cautioned that it was not yet clear how widely they could be applied. “This study is important because it introduces a new method to implement frequent quizzing with feedback in large classrooms, which can be difficult to do,” said Jeffrey D. Karpicke, a professor of psychology at Purdue, who was not involved in the study. He added, “This is the first large study to show that classroom quizzing can help reduce achievement gaps” due to socioeconomic background. © 2013 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 18960 - Posted: 11.23.2013

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News Great tits use different alarm calls for different predators, according to a scientist in Japan. The researcher analysed the birds' calls and found they made "jar" sounds for snakes and "chicka" sounds for crows and martens. This, he says, is the first demonstration birds can communicate vocally about the type of predator threatening them. The findings are published in the journal Animal Behaviour. From his previous observations, the researcher, Dr Toshitaka Suzuki, from the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Kanagawa, found great tits appeared to be able to discriminate between different predators. To test whether they could also communicate this information, he placed models of three different animals that prey on nestlings - snakes, crows and martens - close to the birds' nest boxes. He then recorded and analysed the birds' responses. "Parents usually make alarm calls when they approach and mob the nest predators," said Dr Suzuki. "They produced specific 'jar' alarm calls for the snakes and the same 'chicka' alarm call in response to both the crows and martens," he said. But a closers analysis of the sounds showed the birds had used different "note combinations" in their crow alarm calls from those they had used for the martens. Dr Suzuki thinks the birds might have evolved what he called a "combinatorial communication system" - combining different notes to produce calls with different meanings. Since snakes are able to slither into nest boxes, they pose a much greater threat to great tit nestlings than other birds or mammals, so Dr Suzuki says it makes sense that the birds would have a specific snake alarm call. BBC © 2013

Keyword: Animal Communication; Aggression
Link ID: 18958 - Posted: 11.23.2013

By Neuroskeptic I am sitting reading a book. After a while, I get up and make a cup of coffee. I’ve been thinking about this scenario lately as I’ve pondered ‘what remains to be discovered’ in our understanding the brain. By this I mean, what (if anything) prevents neuroscience from at least sketching out an explanation for all of human behaviour? A complete explanation of any given behaviour – such as my reading a particular book – would be impossible, as it would require detailed knowledge of all my brain activity. But neuroscience could sketch an account of some stages of the reading. We have models for how my motor cortex and cerebellum might coordinate my fingers to turn the pages of my book. Other models try to make sense of the recognition of the letters by my visual cortex. This is what I mean by ‘beginning to account for’. We have theories that are not wholly speculative. While we don’t yet have the whole story of motor control or visual perception, we have made a start. Yet I’m not sure that we can even begin to explain: why did I stop what I was doing, get up, and make coffee at that particular time? The puzzle, it seems, does not lie in my actual choice to make some coffee (as opposed to not making it.) We could sketch an explanation for how, once the mental image (memory) of coffee ‘crossed my mind’, that image set off dopamine firing (i.e. I like coffee), and this dopamine, acting on corticostriatal circuits, selected the action of making coffee over the less promising alternatives. But why did that mental image of coffee cross my mind in the first place? And why did it do so just then, not thirty seconds before or afterwards?

Keyword: Consciousness
Link ID: 18957 - Posted: 11.23.2013

Erika Check Hayden Researchers have shown that just two genes from the Y chromosome — that genetic emblem of masculinity in most mammals — are all that is needed for a male mouse to conceive healthy offspring using assisted reproduction. The same team had previously reported1 that male mice missing only seven genes from their Y chromosomes could father healthy babies. The study brings researchers one step closer to creating mice that can be fathers without any contribution from the Y chromosome at all. The findings also have implications for human infertility, because the work suggests that the assisted-reproduction technique used in the mice might be safer for human use than is currently thought. “To me it is a further demonstration that there isn't much left on the poor old Y chromosome that is essential. Who needs a Y?” says Jennifer Marshall Graves, a geneticist at the La Trobe Institute of Molecular Science in Melbourne, Australia, who was not involved in the research. An embryo without a Y chromosome normally develops into a female, but biologists have long questioned whether the entire chromosome is necessary to produce a healthy male. A single gene from the Y chromosome, called Sry, is known to be sufficient to create an anatomically male mouse — albeit one that will be infertile because it will lack some of the genes involved in producing sperm — as researchers have shown by removing the Y chromosome and inserting Sry into other chromosomes. Why it takes two © 2013 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 18956 - Posted: 11.23.2013

by Anil Ananthaswamy Can you tickle yourself if you are fooled into thinking that someone else is tickling you? A new experiment says no, challenging a widely accepted theory about how our brains work. It is well known that we can't tickle ourselves. In 2000, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of University College London (UCL) and colleagues came up with a possible explanation. When we intend to move, the brain sends commands to the muscles, but also predicts the sensory consequences of the impending movement. When the prediction matches the actual sensations that arise, the brain dampens down its response to those sensations. This prevents us from tickling ourselves (NeuroReport, DOI: 10.1097/00001756-200008030-00002). Jakob Hohwy of Monash University in Clayton, Australia, and colleagues decided to do a tickle test while simultaneously subjecting people to a body swap illusion. In this illusion, the volunteer and experimenter sat facing each other. The subject wore goggles that displayed the feed from a head-mounted camera. In some cases the camera was mounted on the subject's head, so that they saw things from their own perspective, while in others it was mounted on the experimenter's head, providing the subject with the experimenter's perspective. Using their right hands, both the subject and the experimenter held on to opposite ends of a wooden rod, which had a piece of foam attached to each end. The subject and experimenter placed their left palms against the foam at their end. Next, the subject or the experimenter took turns to move the rod with their right hand, causing the piece of foam to tickle both of their left palms. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 18954 - Posted: 11.21.2013

By Evelyn Boychuk, Ever since Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted to having smoked crack cocaine, various city councillors and media observers have publicly advised him to seek drug counselling. But in a CNN interview that aired Nov. 18, Ford continued to stand by his message: “I’m not an addict.” The ongoing saga of the mayor’s crack use has raised unanswered questions about how addictive the drug really is. It’s been commonly accepted that crack is more addictive than other drugs, but addictions researchers and drug counsellors say it’s hard to compare the addictiveness of specific substances because drug-taking is a highly individual experience. Robin Haslam, director of operations and procedures for Addiction Canada, says that he has never met someone who can “just casually smoke crack.” However, people have different thresholds of addiction. “I know people who have used crack once, and never touched it again. I also know people who smoked marijuana once, and became very impaired,” he says. Carl Hart, author of High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society, told CBC Radio’s Day 6 that crack “is not uniquely addictive, or it’s not something that is special, as we have all been taught.” Hart said that the percentage of people that become addicted to crack is lower than most think. “For example, 10 to 20 per cent of people will become addicted — that means that 80 to 90 per cent of people won’t become addicted.” © CBC 2013

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 18953 - Posted: 11.21.2013

By Jason Tetro For millennia, the human race has sought to combat psychological disorders through the intervention of natural – and eventually synthetic – chemicals. Originally, the sources for these psychoactive substances were the various fruits and flowers, including the Areca tree (betel nut), the poppy (opium), and the coca plant (cocaine). But in the 20th Century, new actives were being created in the lab thanks in part to the discovery of lysergic acid, better known as LSD, in 1938. By the middle of the 1950s, the psychiatric community was fascinated by the idea that mental health could be restored through the direct use of drugs or in combination with traditional psychotherapy. The idea took off in the 1960s as research continued to elucidate the biology of psychiatry. It essentially created a new avenue for psychiatric treatment: psychopharmacology. This inevitably led to the synthesis of a new compound, 3-(p-trifluoromethylphenoxy)-N-methyl-3-phenylpropylamine, which eventually became known as fluoxetine, and then, as we have all come to know it, Prozac. By the late 1980s, it was known by another name: the wonder drug. Today, pharmacologic compounds for psychiatric treatment are numerous and up to 20% of all Americans are taking some type of psychotropic medication totalling some $34 billion dollars annually. While there have been calls for a reduction in use of these chemicals, primarily due to the fact that many are ineffective, there is a constant pressure from the public to have all their problems solved by a pill.

Keyword: Depression; Aggression
Link ID: 18952 - Posted: 11.21.2013