WASHINGTON -- Drugs prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder will include guides to alert patients and parents of the risks of mental and heart problems, including sudden death. The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that it directed the manufacturers of Ritalin, Adderall, Strattera and all other ADHD drugs to develop the guides. In May 2006, the agency told manufacturers to revise the labels of the drugs to reflect concerns about the cardiovascular and psychiatric problems. Draft versions of the guides posted on the FDA Web site include discussion of reports of increased blood pressure and heart rate in ADHD patients, as well as cases of sudden death in some who have heart problems and heart defects. In adult patients, the reported problems also include stroke and heart attack. The alerts also cover psychiatric problems, such as hearing voices, unfounded suspicions and manic behavior, of which there is a slightly increased risk in patients who take the drugs, the FDA said. The guides also tell patients and their parents of precautions they can take to guard against the risks. Wednesday's announcement came roughly a year after two panels of FDA advisers recommended that the drugs include such patient medication guides. The announcement covers 15 drugs, including extended-release, patch and chewable versions of some of them. © Copyright 1996-2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 10011 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By John Tierney Kudos to the readers (we’ll get to the honor roll later) who aced the models’ quiz and solved the mystery of their misery. (If you didn’t try yet, you can take it here.) And special kudos to the readers who brought something more to the table: field reports from the fashion world confirming the scientists’ theory. As some of you divined, the models for the higher-priced brands looked the least happy, and the bigger football players were the ones without smiles on their faces. (You’ll find the list of answers and details below.) These faces exemplified the trends found by social psychologists at New Mexico University. In the models experiment conducted by Timothy Ketelaar, Jennifer Davis and Peter Jonason, pictures were randomly chosen from advertisements for products that were either “elite” (pricier than average, like Versace shirts and Coach eyeglasses) or “folk” (cheaper than average, like Paul Frederick shirts and Marchon glasses). The pictures were cropped so that only the faces, not the clothes or hairstyles, were visible. Then the pictures were shown to people who were asked to rate the facial expressions. Compared with the folk models, the elite models looked less happy and less embarrassed. They were more likely to have neutral expressions or to show anger or disgust. Judging from their cold glares on the runway, it seems something has gone terribly wrong in the lives of fashion models. It doesn’t matter where they are – the fashion shows earlier this month in New York, last week’s in London, this week’s in Milan. No place is up to their standards. They look perpetually peeved, as if there’s nothing so hellish as wearing new clothes in exchange for thousands of dollars. What do they want–more money? Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 10010 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Drug therapy can extend survival and improve movement in a mouse model of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), new research shows. The study, carried out at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), suggests that similar drugs might one day be useful for treating human SMA. "This study shows that treatment can be effective when started after the disease appears," says Kenneth H. Fischbeck, M.D., of the NINDS, who helped lead the new study. The finding is important because most children with SMA are diagnosed after symptoms of the disease become obvious, he adds. The report appears in the February 22, 2007, advance online publication of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.[1] SMA is the most common severe hereditary neurological disease of childhood, affecting one in every 8,000-10,000 children. Babies with the most common form of the disease, called SMA type I, develop symptoms before birth or in the first few months of life and have severe muscle weakness that makes it difficult for them to breathe, eat, and move. They usually die by age two. Other forms of SMA are not as severe, but still cause significant disability. While some symptoms of SMA can be alleviated, there is currently no treatment that can change the course of the disease. SMA is caused by mutations in a gene called SMN1. Investigators studying the genetics of SMA have found that there is another gene, called SMN2, on the same chromosome. While the normal form of SMN1 produces a full-length functional protein, most of the protein produced by SMN2 is truncated and unable to function. The relatively small amount of normal SMN protein produced by the SMN2 gene can reduce the severity of the disease. Therefore, investigators are searching for drugs that can increase the amount of normal protein produced by this gene.

Keyword: Movement Disorders
Link ID: 10009 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — An Australian lizard endures what may be the world's worst pregnancy — due to anatomical restrictions, pregnant Australian stumpies must hold a gut-busting infant weighing more than a third as much as an adult, without any swelling or extra body space. The feat is equivalent to a woman giving birth to a seven-year-old child. "I can't think of another animal that has such a large gestational load," said Suzy Munns, who last week experienced a veritable baby boom with mother stumpies she had collected from the south Australian desert. Munns, a researcher in the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences at James Cook University, is conducting ongoing studies on how these lizards, which can grow to over 15 inches in length, survive such a difficult pregnancy. Munns' findings were published recently in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology. The largest members of the skink family, stumpies give birth to a single infant that is, on average, 35 percent of the mother's body weight. The growing fetus lies on top of the mother's lungs and digestive tract such that, in the latter stages of gestation, the females can no longer move much or eat. © 2007 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10008 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By SCOTT HAIG "And now would you please choose a number from one to 10 describing your pain — one being almost no pain and 10 the worst pain imaginable." The ER nurse's voice seemed to trail off as she got to the end of the mandated recitation. She had the patient look at a graphic on her clipboard as he answered. The graphic was a 10cm line with numbers like a ruler, as well as upside down smiley faces depicting progressively greater discomfort — the VAS (visual analog pain scale). Patients are supposed to tell our nurses how much pain they feel by pointing to a spot along the line. I knew why the gusto had gone out of the nurse's voice. One of the patient's arms was horribly broken and bent at an ungodly angle. She had just started a large-bore IV in the other. And while her big fat needle pierced him three or four times before it found blood, this stolid 60-year-old Eastern European block of a man had made not a sound. His face hadn't registered a flicker of pain, his arm stayed still, even his hand remained limp. No reaction to this needle torture promised an unsatisfying go at the VAS. But dutifully she administered. Protocol. "One," said Jacob. That meant she was not even supposed to offer him a pain med; the purpose of the VAS is, among other things, to decide "scientifically" when to give pain drugs. © 2007 Time Inc.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 10007 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Phil Berardelli WASHINGTON, D.C.--At a conference here yesterday, researchers reported that even low levels of light from incandescent, fluorescent, or other humanmade sources can befuddle creatures that require a period of nighttime darkness. The findings add to the evidence that artificial lighting is interfering with the development, reproduction, and survival of species across the taxonomic spectrum. All animals--from one-celled critters to humans--produce melatonin, a hormone that regulates cell metabolism, protects against the formation of cancerous tumors in larger animals, and allows many mammals and humans to enjoy restful sleep. But the hormone accumulates most efficiently in recurring or total darkness, such as in regular day-night cycles. When those cycles are disrupted, so is melatonin production. On the behavioral side, even seeing artificial illumination--such as street lights or indoor lamps shining through windows--at night can throw off foraging and migration in many species. To find out how brighter nights are altering metabolism and reproduction, herpetologist Bryant Buchanan of Utica College in New York and colleagues exposed snails and larval frogs to different levels of artificial light over periods lasting up to 2 months. With even the slightest amount of artificial light, the percentage of frogs developing normally dropped as low as 15%, compared with about 40% under more natural lighting conditions and nearly 100% in darkness. The snail experiments produced similar results. (C) 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 10006 - Posted: 02.23.2007

Heidi Ledford For decades many archaeologists have believed that the first Americans belonged to what is called the Clovis culture — hunter-gatherers who lived in parts of North America roughly 13,000 calendar years ago. A new study counters this notion by showing that the Clovis culture is nearly 500 years younger than previously thought, and may have lasted for as little as 200 years. There is evidence of other cultures in the Americas well before this new date. The Clovis culture is characterized by sophisticated stone weapons, first found in Clovis, New Mexico. They would have been used to hunt mammals, including mammoths and mastodons. The 'Clovis-first' model posits that the original Americans crossed a land bridge linking Siberia and Alaska during the last ice age, and headed south down the eastern side of the Rockies through a gap in the two ice sheets that covered Canada. When they got beyond the ice, they dispersed rapidly, reaching the southern tip of South America roughly a thousand years later, and carrying the Clovis culture as far as central America. This picture has been challenged in recent years, most notably by the discovery of archaeological remains in Chile and Wisconsin that have been dated to over 14,000 years ago. Mainstream thinking has shifted away from the Clovis-first model, says Vance Holliday, a geoarchaeologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson: "But the debate is still out there." ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 10005 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Rowan Hooper In a revelation that destroys yet another cherished notion of human uniqueness, wild chimpanzees have been seen living in caves and hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate. Many chimpanzees trim twigs to use for ant-dipping and termite-fishing. But a population of savannah chimps (Pan troglodytes verus) living in the Fongoli area of south-east Senegal have been seen making spears from strong sticks that they sharpen with their teeth. The average spear length is 63 centimetres (25 inches), says Jill Pruetz at Iowa State University in Ames, US, who observed the behaviour. And the method of procuring food with these tools is not simply extractive, as it is when harvesting insects. It is far more aggressive. They use the spears to hunt one of the cutest primates in Africa: bushbabies (Galago senegalensis). Bushbabies are nocturnal and curl up in hollows in trees during the day. If disturbed during their slumbers – if their nest cavity is broken open, for example – they rapidly scamper away. It appears that the chimps have learnt a grisly method of slowing them down. Chimps were observed thrusting their spears into hollow trunks and branches with enough force to injure anything inside the holes, Pruetz’s research team says. The chimps used a “power grip” and made multiple downward stabs – much the same way as a human might wield a dagger. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Aggression; Evolution
Link ID: 10004 - Posted: 06.24.2010

BINGHAMTON, NY -- A Binghamton University researcher has established a new framework to help determine whether individuals might be at risk for schizophrenia. In a study published in this month’s Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Mark F. Lenzenweger, a professor of clinical science, neuroscience and cognitive psychology at Binghamton University, State University of New York (SUNY), is the first to have found that abnormalities in eye movements and attention can be used to divide people into two groups in relation to schizophrenia-related risk. “Schizophrenia affects one in every 100 people,” said Lenzenweger, who considers it the costliest form of mental illness known to humankind. It has a strong genetic component; about 80 percent of what determines schizophrenia is related to genetic influences. “Not only does it impair people’s cognitive, emotional, social and occupational functioning when it’s going in full symptomatic form,” he said, “it stays with people across the lifespan. Schizophrenia starts early in life, beginning anywhere from 15 to 30, and continues onward. What you have is a person who is impaired, has been removed from the workforce, as well as requires lifelong care and there are immense costs attached to their illness.” According to Lezenweger, prior studies started with someone who had the illness and then backtracked to find deficits, such as eye tracking and sustained attention problems.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 10003 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sally Squires The Food and Drug Administration recently approved the first nonprescription drug for weight loss. Alli (pronounced AL-eye) is slated to hit shelves this year, according to its maker, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). That move has been denounced by some who say it should not be made so readily available because of limited efficacy and safety concerns. Before you even consider this drug, there are some facts you need to know and some questions to ponder: Gosh, how much weight can I lose with this new drug? First, the drug isn't new. It contains orlistat, a weight-loss medication that has been sold by prescription as Xenical for nine years worldwide and since 1999 in the United States. There have been about 100 studies of the drug involving some 30,000 people. The results suggest that users can shed as much as 50 percent more weight than they would by diet alone. That sounds great. Where do I get this stuff? Not so fast. First, you should talk with your doctor before considering taking any medication rather than simply changing your lifestyle, and discuss whether there are particular safety concerns you should be aware of. © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 10002 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Michael Shermer Imagine you have a choice between earning $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000 or earning $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000. Prices of goods and services are the same. Which would you prefer? Surprisingly, studies show that the majority of people select the first option. As H. L. Mencken is said to have quipped, "A wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife's sister's husband." This seemingly illogical preference is just one of the puzzles that science is trying to solve about why happiness can be so elusive in today's world. Several recent books by researchers address the topic, but my skeptic's eye found a historian's long-view analysis to be ultimately the most enlightening. Consider a paradox outlined by London School of Economics economist Richard Lay­ard in Happiness (Penguin, 2005), in which he shows that we are no happier even though average incomes have more than doubled since 1950 and "we have more food, more clothes, more cars, bigger houses, more central heating, more foreign holidays, a shorter working week, nicer work and, above all, better health." Once average annual income is above $20,000 a head, higher pay brings no greater happiness. Why? One, our genes account for roughly half of our predisposition to be happy or unhappy, and two, our wants are relative to what other people have, not to some absolute measure. (C)1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 10001 - Posted: 02.22.2007

The brains of alcohol-dependent individuals are affected not only by their own heavy drinking, but also by genetic or environmental factors associated with their parents’ drinking, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Researchers found reduced brain growth among alcohol-dependent individuals with a family history of alcoholism or heavy drinking compared to those with no such family history. Their report has been published online in Biological Psychiatry at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00063223 as an article in press. “This is interesting new information about how biological and environmental factors might interact to affect children of alcoholics,” notes George Kunos M.D., Ph.D., Scientific Director, Division of Intramural Clinical and Biological Research, NIAAA. Many studies have shown that alcohol-dependent men and women have smaller brain volumes than non-alcohol-dependent individuals. It is widely believed that this is due to the toxic effects of ethanol, which causes the alcoholic’s brain to shrink with aging to a greater extent than the non-alcoholic’s. “Our study is the first to demonstrate that brain size among alcohol-dependent individuals with a family history of alcoholism is reduced even before the onset of alcohol dependence,” explains first author Jodi Gilman, B.S., a NIAAA research fellow and Ph.D. candidate at Brown University working with senior author Daniel Hommer, M.D.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 10000 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi A hormone produced during pregnancy could reverse some of the neurological damage associated with multiple sclerosis, a mouse study suggests. The finding could help explain why women with MS suffer fewer symptoms during pregnancy. And the results suggest that the hormone - prolactin - might one day be used to treat people with the disorder. Multiple sclerosis involves the destruction of the sheath of fatty tissue called myelin that normally protects nerve cells. The loss of this protective layer disrupts nerve signalling and leads to symptoms including loss of coordination. To simulate neurological damage in female mice, Samuel Weiss of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and colleagues injected small amounts of a myelin-degrading toxin into the spine of the animals. Some of the mice were then allowed to mate and became pregnant, after which the team injected both groups with a marker compound which integrates with the DNA of new cells, allowing these to be clearly identified. When researchers examined the animals' spinal cords they found the pregnant mice had many more new cells around the site of nerve damage than the non-pregnant animals. Journal reference: Journal of Neuroscience (DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.4441-06.2007) © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 9999 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Kerri Smith They might not pay into savings accounts or keep diaries, but western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) can anticipate and plan for the future, research published in Nature this week shows1. What the birds do in the evening depends on how they might feel the next morning. They can anticipate, for example, how much food, and of what type, will be available in different locations, and store away the right amount, in the right place, for breakfast. Wild scrub-jays store acorns to sustain them over the winter. Nicola Clayton and her colleagues at the University of Cambridge, UK, exploited this behaviour to test the birds' planning abilities in the lab. The birds were put in cages that were divided into three parts. In the evening they were kept in the middle section, and fed powdered pine nuts that they couldn't store. In the morning, they were kept either in the 'breakfast room', where they were given food, or went hungry in the 'no-breakfast room'. After getting used to this set-up, the jays were given whole pine nuts in the evening, which they could bury in trays of sand. The jays put three times as many in the no-breakfast room than in the breakfast room, so that they wouldn't go hungry in the morning. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 9998 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JANE E. BRODY This month, researchers at Harvard published a survey finding that binge eating is by far the most common eating disorder, occurring in 1 in 35 adults, or 2.8 percent — almost twice the combined rate for anorexia (0.6 percent) and bulimia (1 percent). Yet unlike the other two, binge-eating disorder is still not considered a formal diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association. I’m mystified as to why, and when you read my story you may wonder as well. It was 1964, I was 23 and working at my first newspaper job in Minneapolis, 1,250 miles from my New York home. My love life was in disarray, my work was boring, my boss was a misogynist. And I, having been raised to associate love and happiness with food, turned to eating for solace. Of course, I began to gain weight and, of course, I periodically went on various diets to try to lose what I’d gained, only to relapse and regain all I’d lost and then some. My many failed attempts included the Drinking Man’s Diet, popular at the time, which at least enabled me to stay connected with my hard-partying colleagues. Before long, desperation set in. When I found myself unable to stop eating once I’d started, I resolved not to eat during the day. Then, after work and out of sight, the bingeing began. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 9997 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DANIEL GOLEMAN Jett Lucas, a 14-year-old friend, tells me the kids in his middle school send one other a steady stream of instant messages through the day. But there’s a problem. “Kids will say things to each other in their messages that are too embarrassing to say in person,” Jett tells me. “Then when they actually meet up, they are too shy to bring up what they said in the message. It makes things tense.” Jett’s complaint seems to be part of a larger pattern plaguing the world of virtual communications, a problem recognized since the earliest days of the Internet: flaming, or sending a message that is taken as offensive, embarrassing or downright rude. The hallmark of the flame is precisely what Jett lamented: thoughts expressed while sitting alone at the keyboard would be put more diplomatically — or go unmentioned — face to face. Flaming has a technical name, the “online disinhibition effect,” which psychologists apply to the many ways people behave with less restraint in cyberspace. In a 2004 article in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior, John Suler, a psychologist at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., suggested that several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending an e-mail message and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Dr. Suler notes that disinhibition can be either benign — when a shy person feels free to open up online — or toxic, as in flaming. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 9996 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ALIYAH BARUCHIN The first thing you notice about 12-year-old Nora Leitner is the dark circles under her eyes. They stand in stark contrast to the rest of her appearance; at a glance she might be any petite, pretty tween girl, with her blond ponytail, elfin frame and thousand-watt smile. But the circles tell a different story: Nora looks as if she hasn’t slept in a month. In a sense, she hasn’t. Nora has epilepsy, and as with 30 percent of those with the disorder, her seizures are not controlled by existing treatments. She often has more than one seizure a day, mostly at night. Her seizures, called tonic-clonic (what used to be known as grand mal), cause her to lose consciousness for a full minute while her body convulses. While some people feel an “aura” of symptoms before a seizure, Nora’s happen entirely without warning. When she seized at the top of a staircase in her home in Yardley, Pa., it was plain luck that her parents were at the bottom and caught her as she fell. Though she is on the brink of adolescence, she is rarely, if ever, left alone. Fifty million people have epilepsy worldwide, and more than 2.7 million in the United States, half of them children. Especially in its intractable form, also called refractory epilepsy, the disorder — and the side effects of epilepsy medications — can cause problems in learning, memory and behavior, and indelibly alter development. It can also consume families, monopolizing their time, money and energy. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 9995 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NATALIE ANGIER The other day a group of distraught construction workers in a Washington suburb contacted the local animal control agency with an unusual complaint. It seems there were seven large snakes wrapped around the heating pipes in a manhole, and the crew members worried that the snakes might be dangerous. I know exactly how they felt. No, not the construction workers, who were spooked by what turned out to be a collection of commonplace and quite harmless hognose and black rat snakes. I’m talking about those poor serpents. It’s been a vicious February, and I, too, have been tempted to weld myself to my home heating unit and to remain there, motionless, until the first summer markdowns. Alas, I cannot. For one thing, my daughter is blocking the vent, and when I try to push her aside, she hisses at me. For another, I have no good phylogenetic or metabolic excuse. I am not a reptile. I am not at the mercy of the elements, ectothermically dependent on external sources of heat to spur my every move. I make my own heat, a prodigious, endogenous internal inferno, and with that enviable talent, that ability to maintain a steady core temperature however nature’s mercury may surge or plunge, I can plan my day more cannily and venture wherever I choose. Granted, the odds of my freely choosing to gambol in the snow are roughly equivalent to Dennis Kucinich’s shot at the presidency, but I could do it. I’d much rather celebrate the delights of being a warm-blooded homeotherm by visiting the splendid Hall of Mammals at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History, which offers the added attraction of being splendidly indoors. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 9994 - Posted: 06.24.2010

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor A tiny community of reindeer herders in Siberia holds intimate knowledge of the lives, the foraging and the rutting season of their priceless animals, and it's the kind of information that is vital to anyone concerned by the loss of human cultures -- and to biologists worried about the loss of species diversity anywhere in the world. Of the 426 members of Siberia's isolated Chulym people, only 35 still speak Tuvan, their ancient language, fluently, and they're all older than 50. Everyone else speaks only Russian, according to K. David Harrison, an adventuresome linguist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Harrison has lived with the Chulym and hopes to preserve their vanishing language. The Chulym can fully describe a "2-year-old male castrated rideable reindeer" with only the single word chary, and to Harrison, that not only shows how ancient languages differ from their modern counterparts, but is symbolic of a worldwide loss in important cultural diversity. Harrison was among those who addressed the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. Of the estimated 7,600 languages known in the world today, half are endangered and could be lost forever within a few decades, he said. © 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 9993 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The dreaming reported by many patients during surgery, in most cases, does not mean the anesthesia is wearing off, Australian researchers report in the journal Anesthesiology. Few studies have looked at the link between dreaming and the depth of anesthesia, and studies that have investigated the topic have yielded inconclusive results, lead author Dr. Kate Leslie, from Royal Melbourne Hospital, and colleagues report. They point out that dreams experienced under anesthesia can be distressing to patients, and some may think their dream was actual awareness resulting from inadequate anesthesia. In their study, the researchers assessed 300 consecutive healthy patients who were undergoing elective surgery that required general anesthesia. The Bispectral Index, a measure of the anesthetic effect on the brain, was used to gauge the depth of anesthesia during surgery. After the surgery was over, the patients were interviewed about their dreams. Twenty-two percent of patients reported dreaming. No statistically significant difference in the average Bispectral Index value was noted between the dreamers and patients who didn't dream, the report indicates. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 9992 - Posted: 06.24.2010