By Amy Norton NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women with a history of postpartum depression tend to have unusually high levels of copper in their blood, a new study has found -- suggesting the mineral may play some role in the disorder. While many women go through a short spell of the "baby blues" after giving birth, about 15 percent suffer full-blown postpartum depression. It's not clear why some women are more vulnerable than others. The new findings suggest that the body's regulation of copper levels may be involved, researchers report in the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology. They found that blood copper levels were significantly higher among 78 women with a history of postpartum depression compared with non-depressed women and those who'd suffered depression unrelated to childbirth. "This could very well be the missing link in the mystery of postpartum depression," said Dr. William J. Walsh, a co-author of the study and director of research at the Pfeiffer Treatment Center and the Health Research Institute in Warrenville, Illinois. The center focuses on treating various mood and behavioral disorders by finding and treating "biochemical imbalances" they believe are at the roots of the problem. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 9951 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Christen Brownlee When Rachel Harrison was 16 years old, she took a drag from her first cigarette. She remembers loving it right away—the taste, the warmth, and especially the lightheaded rush that smoking gave her. Like a bad character in an after-school special, she chain-smoked an entire pack that first time while hanging out with other smokers from the popular crowd. "I know it sounds cliché, but I started smoking because all the cool kids were doing it," says Harrison, now 32. From high school through college, and now in her job as a public relations professional in New York, Harrison has kept up the habit. Nowadays, she paces her smoking to three or four cigarettes each workday. The weekends are a "free-for-all," she says, when she goes through often more than a pack a day. But even though some part of her still loves each smoke as much as her first one, Harrison says, she longs to escape cigarettes' fiery grip. In her quest to avoid the bad breath, wrinkles, and cancer that smoking can bring, she guesses that she's tried to quit about 30 times in the past 15 years. But no matter which method she's used—nicotine gum, the patch, or just quitting cold turkey—she's never succeeded. "I come back to it usually because a friend will be smoking and I'll ask for a drag," Harrison says. "That first drag will taste so disgusting, but for some reason, literally an hour later I'm asking for a full cigarette, then buying a new pack." ©2007 Science Service.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Obesity
Link ID: 9950 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Aimee Cunningham Transferring a lost limb's nerves to other areas of the body might one day permit an amputee to feel the heat of a coffee cup with an artificial hand. Scientists now report progress toward that goal. They've augmented a technique created several years ago to give patients control of prosthetic limbs. Todd A. Kuiken, a physician and an engineer at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and his colleagues developed a method called targeted reinnervation. They take nerves that originally went to an amputated limb and reroute what remains of them to muscles in the chest. In 2004, the researchers published results from the first patient to undergo the surgery, and they've since done the procedure on several more patients. When the patient thinks about moving his arm, an electrical signal travels along the transferred nerves and activates the muscles where the nerves now end. An electrode resting on the skin picks up the muscles' signal and sends it to the artificial arm, causing it to move. "When the patient thinks 'Close my hand,' the [rewired] muscle acts as a biological amplifier of the nerve signal," Kuiken says. In new work, the first time the surgery was performed on a woman, Kuiken and his colleagues rerouted sensory as well as motor nerves during the reinnervation surgery. They transferred these nerves to the skin over the muscles that they co-opted. ©2007 Science Service.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Robotics
Link ID: 9949 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Most people inherit a version of a gene that optimizes their brain’s thinking circuitry, yet also appears to increase risk for schizophrenia*, a severe mental illness marked by impaired thinking, scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have discovered. The seeming paradox emerged from the first study to explore the effects of variation in the human gene for a brain master switch, DARPP-32. The researchers identified a common version of the gene and showed how it impacts the way two key brain regions exchange information, affecting a range of functions from general intelligence to attention. Three fourths of subjects studied had at least one copy of the version that results in more efficient filtering of information processed by the brain’s executive hub, the prefrontal cortex. However, the same version was also more prevalent among people who developed schizophrenia, a severe mental illness marked by delusions, hallucinations and impaired emotion that affects one percent of the population. “We have found that DARPP-32 shapes and controls a circuit coursing between the human striatum and prefrontal cortex that affects key brain functions implicated in schizophrenia, such as motivation, working memory and reward related learning,” explained Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, M.D. “Our results raise the question of whether a gene variant favored by evolution, that would normally confer advantage, may translate into a disadvantage if the prefrontal cortex is impaired, as in schizophrenia,” added Daniel Weinberger, M.D.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Intelligence
Link ID: 9948 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The temperature hovers around freezing, but the sun is up for 24 hours each day. How do animals living in the continuous light of the Arctic summer know when to sleep and when to be active? Do they maintain a 24-hour cycle of rest and activity, or does living in continuous light alter their circadian rhythm? Answering these questions may improve our understanding of biological clocks -- the internal, genetically programmed cycle of rest and activity that affects the behavior, metabolism and physiology of all animals, including humans. A better understanding may also help solve problems -- such as shift-work fatigue, jet lag and even seasonal affective disorder -- that are associated with disruptions of biological clocks. One scientist who has spent a lifetime pursuing these questions and finding answers that have helped build the field of biological clock research is G. Edgar Folk, Ph.D., emeritus professor of molecular physiology and biophysics at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. Folk notes that humans have a natural circadian rhythm of close to, but not exactly, 24 hours. Importantly, all biological clocks are adjustable and respond to environmental cues such as sunrise or sunset, which continuously reset the clock and keep us on a regular 24-hour schedule. However, previous research, including studies in Folk's lab, has shown that lab rats kept in continuous light develop a 26-hour cycle of rest and activity, meaning their peak of activity travels around our usual daily 24-hour clock. Folk sometime ago set out to determine if this effect was also seen in wild animals during the continuous light of the Arctic summer.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 9947 - Posted: 02.09.2007

High-flying men are not as attractive to women looking for love as those with an average job, scientists say. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the University of Central Lancashire research found the 186 female students asked preferred good-looking men. But within that group, those without top careers were deemed the most suitable, the Personal and Individual Differences journal reported. The team said women seemed to feel high-flyers would not be good fathers. Lead researcher Simon Chu said the high-earning career men were deemed to be "too good to be true. Under particular circumstances, high socio-economic status in males can be subtly counter-productive in terms of attractiveness as a long-term partner. We suggest that females see physically attractive, high status males as being more likely to pursue a mating strategy rather than a parenting strategy." Using photographs of 60 men in their 20s, researchers asked students to rate them on a physical attractiveness scale. Six from the good looking group, six considered average and six judged unattractive were then selected. (C)BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9946 - Posted: 02.09.2007

By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer Approximately one in every 150 children in the United States has autism or a closely related disorder -- a figure higher than most recent estimates -- according to a federal survey released yesterday, the most thorough ever conducted. The new data, from 14 states, do not mean that autism is on the rise, because the criteria and definitions used were not the same as those used in the past. But the sheer number of children apparently affected -- 560,000 nationwide if the new statistics are extrapolated to all 50 states -- makes autism an "urgent public health issue" and a "major public health concern," said Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, chief of the developmental disabilities branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey. The prevalence of autism, a poorly understood behavioral syndrome that interferes with a child's ability to relate to or interact with others, varies mysteriously from state to state in the survey, with New Jersey standing out as a hot spot and Alabama and West Virginia having low rates. West Virginia, however, appeared to tally a significant increase from 2000 to 2002, the two years for which data have been compiled so far. Most of the other states showed no change in that period. © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 9945 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Neuroscientists have found that a substance similar to the active ingredient in marijuana but produced naturally in the brain helps to control mobility -- and may offer a novel target for treating Parkinson's disease. Stanford University researchers reported today in the journal Nature that marijuana-like "endocannabinoids" -- one of the many chemicals used in the brain to transmit signals from one neuron to another -- form part of the neural machinery that directs normal movement. THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, activities the same class of receptors as the natural chemicals but has effects throughout the brain, and no demonstrated benefits in terms of improved mobility. In the latest study, experiments in mice found that a shortage of the natural marijuana-like compounds in a deep part of the brain known as the striatum seemed to help explain the tremors, rigidity and other symptoms of Parkinson's, one of the most common neurological disorders. Researchers hope to use the insight to find new ways to alleviate symptoms and perhaps improve current treatments. The shortages arise when another signaling system in the brain, driven by the neurotransmitter dopamine, starts to break down. Without enough dopamine, the scientists found, the striatum stops producing endocannabinoids in the proper amount, creating an imbalance in the brain's delicate motor-control system. © 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9944 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Megan Rauscher NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Fathers are important influences on their daughters' perceptions of their weight and shape during childhood, and can increase their risk of developing an eating disorder in adolescence, research shows. "Fathers have been mostly ignored in previous research on eating disorders," Dr. W. Stewart Agras, who led the research, told Reuters Health. Based on his findings, Agras said fathers "should avoid criticizing their daughter's weight or shape. Rather they should build up their daughter's confidence by emphasizing other positive attributes." Weight concerns and preoccupation with being thin, together with social pressure to be thin, are strong risk factors for eating disorders in later adolescence. In an effort to throw light on what factors during childhood contribute to weight concerns and thin body preoccupation, Agras and colleagues from Stanford University in California followed 134 children (68 girls and 66 boys) from birth to age 11 and their parents. Annual questionnaires beginning at age 2 assessed parents' concerns about their children's weight and eating habits as well as their own weight. The results show, Agras said, that "fathers are important in influencing their daughters toward bulimia, particularly fathers who were overweight and wanted to be thinner." These influences may be direct -- such as criticizing the daughter's weight or shape -- or indirect, by expressing their own concerns about weight and shape. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 9943 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - A new study bolsters evidence that people partially blinded by a stroke or brain injury may be able to improve their field of vision by teaching new parts of their brain to see, U.S. researchers said on Thursday. Using a computer workout program for the brain, about three-quarters of patients in the study could see better after six months of treatment with the therapy, which trains neighboring brain cells to take over for damaged areas. The therapy, which is marketed by NovaVision of Boca Raton, Florida and won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in 2003, is controversial among neurologists because it challenges the widely held belief that vision lost through brain injury or stroke can't be treated. A German study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology in 2005 pronounced the therapy a flop. But NovaVision says the latest study, conducted on patients in the last two years and whose results were presented at the International Stroke Conference in San Francisco on Thursday, reinforces its contention that the treatment works. NovaVision says the results of the therapy proved the brain is plastic, capable of rewiring itself even long after an injury. The idea of "neuroplasticity" has been used to help stroke patients recover lost speech and movement but vision had been thought to be immutable. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Stroke; Vision
Link ID: 9942 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi The symptoms of Rett syndrome – a genetic disorder that causes mental retardation and impairs movement – have been fully reversed in a mouse model of the disease, researchers report. The findings give hope that scientists might one day find a cure for the condition and related illnesses, including autism. But experts caution that developing such treatments for humans will take many years. Rett syndrome is almost exclusively confined to girls – about 1 in every 10,000 - 15,000 girls born in the US develop the condition. The distressing disorder typically becomes apparent by age two and involves a regression in language skills and the loss of mobility. The illness is caused by a faulty copy of the MECP2 gene, which makes a protein that indirectly regulates nerve development. The gene lies on the X chromosome – of which girls have two – so girls carrying a faulty copy of the gene usually have a normal version too. Because males only have one X chromosome, those with a mutated MECP2 gene do not usually survive beyond infancy. Adrian Bird at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and colleagues disabled the MECP2 gene in mice by placing an irrelevant sequence of DNA in the middle of the gene. As a result, the animals developed the symptoms of Rett syndrome between four to 12 months after birth. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 9941 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Lucy Odling Smee Just by looking at the pattern of firing in your brain, neuroscientists can tell whether you are thinking about moving your hand to the left or to the right. They can tell if you have seen something you didn't even know you saw, and, now it seems, they can tell which mathematical operation you secretly have in mind. "We wanted to see how far we could go with reading peoples' thoughts from their brain activity," says John-Dylan Haynes, lead author of the a study just published in Current Biology1. Patterns of brain activity have most commonly been studied to see how they relate to thoughts about motion, such as the brain signals that make our fingers type and our legs walk. A study published last year even showed that an electronic implant could translate the brain activity generated by a man thinking about moving a cursor on a computer screen into actual movement of the cursor2. And prosthetic arms have been made that translate thought into movement (see 'Re-wiring brings back touch for amputated limb'). But can a simple map of neural activity also expose more abstract thoughts — such as those to do with planning and decision-making? To find out, Haynes and colleagues put three men and five women into a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, and asked them to decide whether they would add or subtract a set of numbers, and to concentrate on that decision. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 9940 - Posted: 06.24.2010

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Research indicates that getting inadequate sleep has negative effects on children's social and emotional well-being and school performance. Now a Northwestern University study finds it also increases their risk of being overweight. The study -- conducted in two waves of data collection approximately five years apart -- is the first nationally representative, longitudinal investigation of the relationship between sleep, Body Mass Index (BMI) and overweight status in children aged 3 to 18. "Our study suggests that earlier bedtimes, later wake times and later school start times could be an important and relatively low-cost strategy to help reduce childhood weight problems," says Emily Snell. Snell is co-author of "Sleep and the Body Mass Index and Overweight Status of Children and Adolescents" in the Jan./Feb. issue of Child Development. "We found even an hour of sleep makes a big difference in weight status," said Snell, a Northwestern doctoral student in human development and social policy. "Sleeping an additional hour reduced young children's chance of being overweight from 36 percent to 30 percent, while it reduced older children's risk from 34 percent to 30 percent."

Keyword: Obesity; Sleep
Link ID: 9939 - Posted: 02.08.2007

Boosting levels of the brain's natural cannabis-like chemicals could improve the treatment of Parkinson's disease, a US study suggests. Mice with a similar condition could move normally within 15 minutes of having a cocktail including a compound which increases endocannabinoid levels. But the scientists, writing in Nature, warned smoking cannabis would not have the same effect. UK experts said the study increased understanding of Parkinson's. Around one in 500 people in the UK have the disease. It is a progressive, degenerative, neurological condition for which there is currently no cure. Sufferers find increasing difficulty in moving their arms and legs. They develop tremors and facial tics, and gradually become more and more immobile. The researchers, from Stanford University Medical Center in California, focused on an area of the brain called the striatum which has already been linked to Parkinson's. The activity of nerve cells in the striatum relies on the chemical dopamine. If there is too little dopamine in that area, Parkinson's disease can develop. (C)BBC

Keyword: Parkinsons; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9938 - Posted: 02.08.2007

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID WASHINGTON -- Dieters got a new tool Wednesday to help them take off the extra pounds _ the first government-approved nonprescription diet pill. The Food and Drug Administration said the fat-blocking weight-loss pill orlistat, which has been available by prescription, can be sold in a reduced-strength version over the counter. The new version will be sold as "alli" by GlaxoSmithKline PLC. Xenical, the prescription version, is made by Roche Holding AG. The drug is intended for people 18 and older to use along with a reduced-calorie, low-fat diet and exercise. Dr. Charles Ganley, FDA's director of nonprescription products, stressed that the drug is intended for use along with diet and exercise programs. "Using this drug alone is unlikely to be beneficial," Ganley said at a telebriefing. While some dietary supplements make weight-loss claims, Ganley said this is the first nonprescription drug approved by the agency for that purpose. Ganley said in trials, for every five pounds people lost through diet and exercise, those using orlistat lost an additional two to three pounds. © 2007 The Associated Press

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9937 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nikhil Swaminathan Rats, moths and butterflies are all known to send chemosignals to secure mates. Similar phenomena have been suggested but not proved in humans: Studies such as Elizabeth McClintock's work in the early 1970s—in which women living together in a dormitory were found to have synchronous menstrual cycles—indicate that a sort of sixth sense exists that allows people's bodies to communicate with one another. But no evidence was produced, says Claire Wyart, a postdoctoral neuroscience researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, "that a single component of a complex mixture like sweat could induce a change on a hormonal level" without direct contact. Now a new study led by Wyart, published in this week's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience does just that. In addition to determining that humans use chemosignals to attract one another, the findings could one day be used to create new therapies to correct hormone imbalances—most notably alternatives to cortisol replacement, which is used in treat maladies such as Addison's disease (in which the adrenal glands fail to pump out enough cortisol, causing muscle weakness, weight loss and low blood pressure). Cortisol replacement therapy can cause mood swings, ulcers, weight gain and osteoporosis. Wyart and her team designed their study around androstadienone, a nonhormonal, steroidal constituent of sweat, which Wyart refers to as the molecule most studied because of its effects on psychophysiology in women. "What we decided to do was not to use a complex mixture such as sweat that we cannot control very much," she says, "but, on the other end, try to use a simple component that we know is in sweat and assess how much smelling this compound can affect the physiology of the woman." © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9936 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Measures have been put in place to prevent vCJD infection via transfusions There are likely to be relatively few deaths from the human form of mad cow disease, vCJD, as a result of infected blood, scientists have suggested. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine team says measures to protect the public have worked. In a Royal Society journal, scientists predict just 50 deaths from this potential source of vCJD by 2080. A UK expert said transfusions were the most likely way vCJD would be transferred in the future. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used recent figures for blood donations and transfusions to provide data to base their predictions on. They suggest there will be a total of around 60m transfusions by 2080. So far, four people are known to have contracted vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease). They were among a group of 66 who received blood transfusions from donors who went on to develop the disease. A number of measures have been put in place to protect people who need transfusions from contracting vCJD. These include withdrawing any blood products donated from a person who later develops the condition and ruling that no-one who has received a blood transfusion since 1980 can become a donor. And, since 1998, white blood cells - which are the most likely to carry the infection - have been removed from blood used for transfusions. However, in 2004, a study of 13,000 appendix and tonsil samples revealed that thousands of people may be unknowingly harbouring vCJD and raising concerns over the possible extent of vCJD transmission via blood transfusions. (C)BBC

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 9935 - Posted: 02.07.2007

At the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, a class of new chefs is taught to swirl the wine before taking a big whiff. Swirling releases the smells, or "bouquet," and adds to the subsequent tasting of the wine. Now brain researchers are discovering that by sticking your nose in the glass you truly can learn to become an expert sniffer. "All you have to do is give your nose a little bit more attention and you can let your brain do the work," says neurologist Jay Gottfried, a researcher at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "We’re probably able to discriminate hundreds of thousands of different smells," he says. "We may not be able to name them all, but we can tell all of them apart. The question becomes, 'How is the human brain capable of distinguishing so many different smells?'" Whether it's the subtle notes of a fine wine or the smells emanating from your garbage can, Gottfried says smell is much more complex than many people think. As opposed to vision, which has specific wavelengths of light that translate to color, the sense of olfaction isn't merely based on the chemical structure of the odor molecule. One study found volunteers taking a sniff of the same smell reported very different results when the smell was labeled either "mildew" or "cucumber." © ScienCentral, 2000-2007.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 9934 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin One of the most commonly used anaesthetic drugs may cause chemical changes in the brain that promote Alzheimer's disease. Researchers have discovered that isofluorane, a widely used agent for general anaesthesia, triggers production of a protein linked to the disease when applied to cultured cells. Although the results have not been replicated in the human body, they demonstrate how patients undergoing surgery would be at increased risk of dementia if the same chemical changes occur in their own brain cells. "At this stage it is premature to tell everybody [that isofluorane] is dangerous to use," says Zhongcong Xie of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease at Massachusetts General Hospital in Charlestown, a member of the research team. He and his team are planning studies in mice as well as monitoring people to see whether anaesthetics do indeed raise the risk of Alzheimer's. Patients undergoing general anaesthetic are typically knocked out and kept asleep using a combination of intravenous and inhaled, or 'volatile', drugs such as isofluorane. But even if a shadow were to fall over isofluorane, it wouldn't be a good idea to switch to just using intravenous drugs, Xie says, as this could be dangerous: it is much harder to make fine-scale adjustments to doses using this method. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Alzheimers; Apoptosis
Link ID: 9933 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Kerri Smith The idea of repressed memory — when traumatic events are wiped from a person's conscious memory but resurface years later — has had a chequered past. Some have cited it as evidence in court, yet others dismiss it as nothing more than psychiatric folklore. A new study adds a literary layer of evidence to the debate. To see how long the idea of repressed memories have been around, a group of psychologists and literature scholars turned to historical writings. They could not find a single description of repressed memory, also referred to as dissociative amnesia, in fiction or factual writing before 1800. Harrison Pope of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues harnessed the power of the Internet to gather information, advertising on more than 30 websites and discussion boards a US$1,000 prize to the first person who could find an example of repressed memory after a traumatic event in a work published before 1800. If such cases existed, they reasoned, then throughout history, individuals would have witnessed them and written about them in the literature of the time. Other psychological phenomena, like delusions or dementia, have been documented across the ages in this way, with no particular date at which the condition suddenly emerges. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Stress
Link ID: 9932 - Posted: 06.24.2010