Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Cancer chemotherapy can severely damage the brain, killing crucial brain cells and causing key parts of the brain to shrink, according to two studies released this week. The new findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the phenomenon of "chemobrain" -- the mental fuzziness, memory loss and cognitive impairment often reported by cancer patients but often dismissed by oncologists -- is a serious problem. "Those of us on the front lines have known this for a long time, but now we have some neuropathological evidence that what we are seeing involves an anatomic change," said Dr. Stewart Fleishman, director of cancer supportive services at Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York. The new studies should help convince physicians who are skeptical about the phenomenon, said Fleishman, who was not involved in the research. Because chemotherapy is such a crucial component of cancer treatment and cannot be abandoned, scientists are calling for increased research on shielding the brain from its toxic effects and developing more-selective cancer drugs. ©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 9688 - Posted: 06.24.2010

BETHESDA, Md -- Inhibiting glucocorticoid, a type of steroid, can prevent skin abnormalities induced by psychological stress, according to a new study from the December issue of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. The new study also shows how psychological stress induces skin abnormalities that could initiate or worsen skin disorders such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis. Previous research has shown that psychological stress increases glucocorticoid production. In addition, it is well recognized that psychological stress adversely affects many skin disorders, including psoriasis and atopic dermatitis. "In this study, we showed that the increase in glucocorticoids induced by psychological stress induces abnormalities in skin structure and function, which could exacerbate skin diseases," Feingold explained. This provides a link for understanding how psychological stress can adversely affect skin disorders. Blocking the production or action of glucocorticoids prevented the skin abnormalities induced by psychological stress. The skin is the body's largest organ and plays a crucial role in providing a barrier between the environment and the internal organs. It protects us from harmful microorganisms, ultraviolet light, toxic chemicals, and more. However, its most important function is providing a permeability barrier that prevents us from drying out. We are approximately 65 percent water and we are able to survive and function in dry environments because the skin forms a permeability barrier that prevents the loss of water.

Keyword: Stress; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 9687 - Posted: 12.02.2006

Roxanne Khamsi What you speak may influence what you hear, a new study shows. People perceive different patterns in the same sound sequences depending on their native tongue, researchers have found. The short, first note of “Greensleeves” may sound naturally elegant to those who sing the tune. But this type of “pick-up note”, as it is known to musicians, sounds awkward to the ear of a native Japanese speaker, according to researchers. And they can explain why: people's preference for longer or shorter notes at the beginning of a musical phrase apparently depends on their native tongue. Scientists already know that human hearing naturally group sounds together. A listener might, for example, hear identical clicks from a watch as “tick-tock; tick-tock” and so on, hearing an emphasis on the first click – even though all the clicks are identical. Another may hear “tock-tick, tock-tick” with the emphasis on the second click rather than the first. Aniruddh Patel of the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, California, US, and colleagues wanted to know how people from different cultures group non-identical sounds. They recruited a group of 100 volunteers, half of whom were American and the other half Japanese. The volunteers listened to sequences of alternating long and short or loud and soft tones (audio clips in wav format). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Language; Hearing
Link ID: 9686 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi Silencing the genes that produce prion proteins can dramatically slow the progression of mad cow disease, suggests a new study in mice. Researchers say that the approach might one day work to treat human prion illnesses, such as variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD). People can contract vCJD after eating meat contaminated with mad cow disease. Though the illness is extremely rare, it can lead to schizophrenia-like psychosis and typically causes death within a year of diagnosis. While doctors can prescribe drugs to temporarily treat some of the symptoms of prion disease, which include seizures, they still have no way to stop the progression of the illness. Alexander Pfeifer at the University of Bonn in Germany, and colleagues, explored the possibility of fighting prion disease in mice using a method of gene silencing known as RNA interference (RNAi). This method exploits messenger RNA (mRNA) sequences in the cell, which are responsible producing proteins by using the animal’s genetic code as an instruction list. RNAi relies on molecules that bind to mRNA sequences in the cell, thereby preventing the production of specific proteins. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 9685 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new study analyzing the economic implications of the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) concludes that the older (first generation) antipsychotic medication perphenazine was less expensive and no less effective than the newer (second generation) medications used in the trial during initial treatment, suggesting that older antipsychotics still have a role in treating schizophrenia. The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on December 1, 2006, was funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The $42.6 million CATIE trial aimed to help doctors and the 2.4 million Americans who suffer from chronic schizophrenia tailor treatments to individual needs. It is the first study to directly compare several second generation antipsychotic medications and a representative first generation antipsychotic medication. More than 90 percent of antipsychotic prescriptions are written for second generation medications, despite the fact they are more expensive than the first generation agents used to treat schizophrenia. The majority of clinicians have traditionally believed that the newer antipsychotics are more effective and better tolerated than older agents, and many experts argued that these advantages justified the difference in cost. Robert Rosenheck, M.D., of Yale University, and colleagues analyzed costs and quality-of-life factors associated with each of the five medications used in Phase 1 of the CATIE trial—olanzapine, quietapine, risperidone, ziprasidone, and perphenazine. They found that total monthly health costs, a figure that includes both average medication costs and inpatient and outpatient costs, were up to 30 percent lower for those taking the perphenazine than for those taking the second generation medications. In addition, the researchers found no statistically significant difference in overall effectiveness between perphenazine and the second generation antipsychotics, with regard to symptom relief and side effect burden.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 9684 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Kelli Whitlock Burton Three widely used chemotherapy drugs can cause permanent damage to healthy brain cells, a new animal study suggests. The work could explain a range of cognitive problems collectively called "chemobrain," which may leave as many as 80% of all cancer patients with memory loss, confusion, and an inability to concentrate. "This offers a physiological basis to something that some of us have been concerned about for a long time," says Patricia Duffner, a pediatric oncologist at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine in New York who was not affiliated with the study. Scientists at the University of Rochester in New York examined the neural impact of three chemotherapeutic drugs: cisplatin, often used to treat breast, lung, and colon cancer; carmustine, used to treat brain tumors; and cytarabine, a treatment for leukemia and some lymphomas. The drugs caused widespread brain cell death in human cancer cell cultures and in live mice, even when administered at low levels, the researchers found. In cell cultures, the dosage needed to kill 40% to 80% of the cancer cells also killed 70% to 100% of healthy brain cells, the team reports in the today's issue of the Journal of Biology. And in live animals that received chemotherapy in doses that mimic those used in people, the numbers of dividing cells continued to drop for weeks after chemotherapy stopped. Particularly vulnerable were neurons in the hippocampus, an important memory center, and oligodendrocytes—cells that make a compound called myelin, which insulates neurons to allow electrical impulses to travel quickly across the brain. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Glia
Link ID: 9683 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Noreen Parks It seems the harder scientists listen to animals, the more they end up eavesdropping on their conversations. Take butterflyfishes—flamboyantly colored, hand-sized denizens of coral reefs, known for their monogamy, gregariousness, and fierce territoriality. New research, reported Wednesday at the joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan, shows that butterflyfishes make a variety of sounds to communicate among themselves. The fish may have evolved unique anatomy to enhance their use of sound, the researchers say. All fish have internal "ears," air-filled swim bladders sensitive to sound waves, and "lateral line" sense organs that detect motion in surrounding water. However, only in one genus of butterflyfishes are these body parts connected—a discovery made some years ago. Scientists have speculated that the unusual anatomical arrangement is involved in sound perception, but no one knew what role, if any, sound plays in butterflyfish lives. To find out, marine biologist Tim Tricas of the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and colleagues dove to a Hawaii reef and located several pairs of banded butterflyfish (Chaetodon multicinctus) observed maintaining feeding territories. In multiple experiments, the researchers placed one pair in a glass bottle and positioned the bottle inside another pair's territory for up to 40 minutes. The results, recorded by a video camera and underwater microphone, revealed territory defenders aggressively charging the intruders, while making rapid, sound-generating moves, such as flicking and erecting their fins, "jumping," and turning. In response, the bottled fish grunted repeatedly. Only paired fish grunted—not single individuals—so Tricas suspects grunts are distress signals to mates. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Animal Communication
Link ID: 9682 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Termites are known to send underground SOS signals to each other by banging their heads against tunnel walls, and now scientists have filmed them in the act. The high-speed video, which captured the frantic behavior at 10,000 frames per second, reveals that some termite species are faster head bangers than others. With each hit, the Formosan subterranean termite raises its head about 1 millimeter off the ground before slamming it into tunnel walls at a rate of about 100-200 millimeters per second. A termite native to New Orleans is even faster, with head bangs at around 400 millimeters per second. Their heads bounce and rebound off the walls like a rhythmic drum roll. The researchers suggest the rattling noise — audible sometimes even to people — could help locate infestations. "If a house is very infested with termites, you might be able to hear them head-banging (without special equipment), especially if you removed an infested board or crushed their galleries or part of their carton nest," said Tom Fink, who will present his findings on the head-banging behavior Saturday at the Acoustical Society of America Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii. © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Animal Communication
Link ID: 9681 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Guanfacine, a medication commonly prescribed to alleviate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, is no more effective than a placebo, according to a study led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. “There was no benefit at all, and there were several adverse side effects,” says lead author Thomas Neylan, MD, medical director of the PTSD treatment program at SFVAMC. “People with symptoms of PTSD should probably stay away from this drug and others of its type.” The study appears in the December 1, 2006 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. Guanfacine belongs to a class of medications known as alpha-2 agonists, which lower the brain’s supply of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit electrical signals between nerve cells. They are responsible for many aspects of behavior. “Norepinephrine is released in the brain during states of excited arousal, and PTSD is associated with that state – patients startle easily, have trouble sleeping, and are hypervigilant and anxious,” explains Neylan, who is also an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. Guanfacine and clonidine, another alpha-2 agonist, are commonly prescribed for PTSD symptoms. “There are at least 20 peer-reviewed articles published in the field of PTSD that recommend drugs which lower norepinephrine,” Neylan says. “However, ours was the first randomized, controlled study of alpha-2 agonists for symptoms of PTSD.”

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 9680 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Emma Marris Women are more attuned to the subtle non-verbal communication made by the direction of a colleague's gaze, according to new research. Almost like a reflex, people will follow a person's gaze and look towards what the other person is looking at. This phenomenon, known as 'gaze cuing', is deeply entrenched in human behaviour. "We do it without effort, very quickly, and that's quite amazing," says Michael Platt, a neurobiologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. "We do it from the first hours of being born." Previous work has indicated that women seem to be more adept at this than men. And now research shows that they're even more attuned to the gaze of others when they are familiar faces. Thirty-two volunteers were shown images of people looking one way or another, followed by a picture of a box on one side or another of the face. Subjects were to press a button to indicate which side the box was on, and researchers measured whether they were faster at doing so when the direction of the gaze and the box was the same rather than different. Some of the faces in the experiment were of colleagues of the subjects, to see whether familiarity with the person doing the gazing would enhance the effect. A brief flash of a unfamiliar face showed that the direction of gaze only improved the speed of identifying the box's location by about 9 milliseconds for volunteers of both genders. But when the researchers looked specifically at the 17 volunteers who came from within the Duke neurobiology department, they found women's scores improved by 26 milliseconds, and men's by 12. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Vision
Link ID: 9679 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Alison Abbott There are many good reasons to believe that we all have our own unique smell. Dogs, for example — as pets or police sniffers — seem to be able to distinguish individuals by their smell. And the mother-baby bond is cemented by their own distinctive odours. Now a large and systematic study led by Dustin Penn from the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology in Vienna, Austria, has provided stronger support for the notion that your smell might distinguish you from others — maybe even as much as your face. The researchers further suggest that profiles of individual odours may also fall into two groups according to gender — men more commonly have some smelly compounds, women more commonly others. The researchers took samples of armpit sweat, urine and spit from 197 adults. Each subject was sampled five times over a ten-week collecting period. They extracted thousands of volatile chemicals from the samples — the type of compound most likely to have an odour — and identified them by chromatography and mass spectrometry. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 9678 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Debora MacKenzie The more fertile a male red deer is, the more likely he is to sire a son, researchers show. It is the first study to demonstrate that male mammals can influence the gender of their offspring through sperm quality. Red deer stags go to spectacular lengths to mate, defending harems of females and fighting off competitors. Now scientists have discovered that those who win at the rut have more sons, to carry on their fathers’ winning ways. The losers at the rut play it safe with daughters. Or they try to – how much the females influence this remains unclear. It has long been theorised that males who are most successful at mating would produce more sons – to inherit their fathers’ brilliant plumage or big antlers – than daughters. Sons produce more offspring than daughters can. While this has been shown for blue tits (see It's the healthy bird that fathers more sons), where the egg determines the sex of the offspring, it has never been shown for mammals, where sperm do. Montserrat Gomendio and colleagues at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, Spain, have now demonstrated this in red deer. The team collected testes from stags hunted during the rutting season, and assessed their sperm quality. Then they inseminated well-fed females. “We were very surprised to see a large difference in fertility,” Gomendio told New Scientist. The proportion of females a stag could make pregnant (the stags' fertility) ranged from 24% to 70%. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 9677 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Even small amounts of the illegal drug ecstasy can be harmful to the brains of first time users, researchers say. The University of Amsterdam team took brain scans and carried out memory tests on 188 people with no history of ecstasy use but at risk in the future. They repeated the tests 18 months later, and found for the 59 people who had used ecstasy there was evidence of decreased blood flow and memory loss. Long-term ecstasy use is already known to be harmful. Lead researcher Maartje de Win said: "We do not know if these effects are transient or permanent. Therefore, we cannot conclude that ecstasy, even in small doses, is safe for the brain, and people should be informed of this risk." Research has shown that long-term or heavy ecstasy use can damage neurons and cause depression, anxiety, confusion, difficulty sleeping and decrease memory. However, no previous studies have looked at the side-effects of low doses of the drug on first time users. (C)BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9676 - Posted: 11.28.2006

By SARAH SKIDMORE PORTLAND, Ore. -- Movements in Pilates exercises are controlled _ sometimes moving the body only inches _ but those small motions are making a big difference to some people with Parkinson's disease. No research has been done to prove Pilates' effectiveness in reducing Parkinson's symptoms, but a growing number of patients say they are finding some relief. "I love it, it's great," said Karen Smith, 62. "It exercises muscles that otherwise don't get exercised." Parkinson's, a degenerative disorder, inhibits a person's ability to control movement. Its most common symptoms include tremors, slowness of movement, rigidity and poor balance. Smith is part of a group that meets twice a week at the Parkinson Center of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. The center held a Pilates pilot program earlier this year, and after it found improvement in the participants' rigidity and balance it launched a twice-weekly class open to the public. © 2006 The Associated Press

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 9675 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ANDREW C. REVKIN “I think best in foam,” Douglas Martin said as he sorted through a heap of pink violin-shaped slabs in the kitchen-cum-workshop of his snug colonial house in southern Maine. Each piece of foam was a template for an experimental instrument he had built or was preparing to build, but none used the traditional spruce and maple favored through most of the hallowed 500-year history of the violin. Mr. Martin, 63, whose day job is designing sleek rowing shells that slice through ocean surf, is consumed in spare moments by a similarly unorthodox pursuit: abandoning age-old norms of acoustic instrument design as he chases his conception of the ideal violin sound. When a violinist tried an instrument at a recent workshop and one of its blunt shoulders got in the way of his wrist, Mr. Martin summarily sawed off the corner and sealed the opening with a scrap. He might be mistaken for an eccentric dabbler, except that he is far from alone. From Australia to Germany to Maui, there is something of an explosion under way in the use of science and new materials to test the limits of instrument making. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 9674 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New results challenge the view that a good night's sleep can leave behind a dense bloom of brain cells in the morning. Prior studies had found that sleep-deprived rodents grow fewer new neurons than well-rested animals, suggesting that sleep somehow promotes the birth of brain cells, called neurogenesis. But that might not be the case: researchers report instead that lack of sleep likely cuts into neurogenesis by triggering a harmful stress response. Neurogenesis is a mysterious process that can be amplified by Prozac and other depression treatments, although its exact role in the brain is unclear. Neuroscientist Elizabeth Gould of Princeton University and other researchers have found that many types of stress inhibit neurogenesis in rodents and primates. "We were very curious to see whether the reported effect of sleep deprivation on neurogenesis was related to stress or whether this is something specific to sleep," she says. To keep rats awake, Gould and her colleagues suspended individual animals above water on a cramped platform for up to 72 hours. The platform would capsize whenever the rodents lost muscle tension, which occurs during deep REM sleep, spilling them into the water and forcing them to scramble back onto their perch. After 24 and 72 hours, the researchers measured each rodent's rate of neurogenesis and concentration of a stress hormone called corticosterone, which is produced by the adrenal gland near the kidney. As expected, the animals exhibited a decline in neurogenesis after 72 hours but not after only 24 hours. Similarly, their corticosterone levels more than tripled after 72 hours of insomnia compared with that observed after the first 24 hours, meaning hormone levels shift at the right time to influence neurogenesis. © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Sleep; Neurogenesis
Link ID: 9673 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Washington, D.C.--Boys and girls tend to use different parts of their brains to process some basic aspects of grammar, according to the first study of its kind, suggesting that sex is an important factor in the acquisition and use of language. Two neuroscientists from Georgetown University Medical Center discovered that boys and girls use different brain systems when they make mistakes like “Yesterday I holded the bunny”. Girls mainly use a system that is for memorizing words and associations between them, whereas boys rely primarily on a system that governs the rules of language. “Sex has been virtually ignored in studies of the learning, representation, processing and neural bases of language. This study shows that differences between males and females may be an important factor in these cognitive processes,” said the lead author, Michael Ullman, PhD, professor of neuroscience, psychology, neurology and linguistics. He added that since the brain systems tested in this study are responsible for more than just language use, the study supports the notion that “men and women may tend to process various skills differently from one another.” One potential underlying reason, suggested by other research, is that the hormone estrogen, found primarily in females, affects brain processing, Ullman said. The study, whose co-author is Joshua Hartshorne, was published earlier this year in the journal Developmental Science.

Keyword: Language; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9672 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ABBY ELLIN ASK Sheana Director for a detailed description of herself, and chances are the word fat will come up. It is not uttered with shame or ire or any sense of embarrassment; it’s simply one of the things she is, fat. “Why should I be ashamed?” said Ms. Director, 22, a graduate student in women’s studies at San Diego State University, who wields the word with both defiance and pride, the way the gay community uses queer. “I’m fat. So what?” During her sophomore year at Smith College, Ms. Director attended a discussion on fat discrimination: the way the super-sized are marginalized, the way excessive girth is seen as a moral failing rather than the result of complicated factors. But the academic community, she felt, didn’t really give the topic proper consideration. She decided to do something about it. In December 2004, she helped found the organization Size Matters, whose goal was to promote size acceptance and positive body image. In April, the group sponsored a conference called Fat and the Academy, a three-day event at Smith of panel discussions and performances by academics, researchers, activists and artists. Nearly 150 people attended. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9671 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Charles Wilson INDIANAPOLIS -- Step by step: That's how people defeat depression. It's also how Joe Lawson climbs mountains. For Lawson, 36, the two are intertwined. His father, Virgil A. Lawson, committed suicide in 1986 when Joe was 16. The next year, the younger Lawson climbed his first mountain during a school trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas, igniting a lifelong passion. Now the Indianapolis man is funneling that passion into Expedition Hope, his quest to scale the seven summits -- the tallest mountain on each continent -- to focus awareness on depression. "I thought, 'If I'm going to do this . . . why not do this for a good cause?' " Lawson said in a phone interview last week from Punta Arenas, Chile, en route to his next challenge, in Antarctica. His first attempt -- on Alaska's Mount McKinley in May 2005 -- failed when he fell into a hidden crevasse and injured his knee. But Lawson resumed his quest and has since climbed two of the peaks -- Mount Kosciuszko in Australia and Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 9670 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Cetaceans, the group of marine mammals that includes whales and dolphins, have demonstrated remarkable auditory and communicative abilities, as well as complex social behaviors. A new study published online November 27, 2006 in The Anatomical Record, the official journal of the American Association of Anatomists,compared a humpback whale brain with brains from several other cetacean species and found the presence of a certain type of neuron cell that is also found in humans. This suggests that certain cetaceans and hominids may have evolved side by side. The study is available online via Wiley InterScience at http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/ar. One feature that stood out in the humpback whale brain was the modular organization of certain cells into "islands" in the cerebral cortex that is also seen in the fin whale and other types of mammals. The authors speculate that this structural feature may have evolved in order to promote fast and efficient communication between neurons. The other notable feature was the presence of spindle cells in the humpback cortex in areas comparable to hominids and in other areas of the whale brain as well. Although the function of spindle neurons is not well understood, they are thought to be involved in cognitive processes and are affected by Alzheimer's disease and other debilitating brain disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. Spindle neurons were also found in the same location in toothed whales with the largest brains, which suggests that they may be related to brain size. The authors note that spindle neurons probably first appeared in the common ancestor of hominids about 15 million years ago, since they are observed in great apes and humans, but not in lesser apes and other primates; in cetaceans they evolved earlier, possibly as early as 30 million years ago.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 9669 - Posted: 11.27.2006