By Michael S. Rosenwald A few years ago, drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. announced it was retooling its strategy, meaning a drug it was developing for insomnia was probably headed for the sidelines. Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. pounced. The little Rockville start-up licensed the drug for $500,000 and additional royalty payments, then set off to finish developing it as part of its strategy to salvage other companies' drugs. Yesterday, that investment showed its first clear hints of significant returns within the $4 billion-a-year insomnia market, as Vanda reported late-stage test results of the drug showing what one analyst called "profound" effects. Patients fell asleep up to 26 minutes faster when compared to a placebo. They slept up to 48 minutes longer. The news sent Vanda's stock up 53 percent, or $5.14, with its shares closing at $14.90. The company went public in April at $10 per share, below the original $12-to-$14 range it had set. MedImmune Ventures Inc., a venture capital subsidiary of the Gaithersburg drug company, owns about 7 percent of the company's shares. Vanda still has to complete two more studies for the drug, meaning it wouldn't hit the market until around 2010, but yesterday's results solidified the company's business plan of salvaging other companies' drugs. Vanda is developing a drug for schizophrenia that it licensed from Novartis AG. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 9628 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Simon Baron-Cohen Over the years I've been struck by a pattern among the parents of children with autism. The mothers often say things like "my child is a lot like my husband—just writ large. My husband has to watch the weather forecasts every night, and my son has to watch them every hour." When I ask about their parents, the mothers comment, "Well, my father was rather similar to my husband—he collected model trains and knew everything there was to know about each one." Such observations don't amount to evidence about the cause of autism, but they do give us clues about where to look. Autism is at root genetic, but new research from my lab at Cambridge University implicates genes inherited from both parents. From this and other observations, we've formulated the "assortative mating theory." Its central idea is that both mothers and fathers of children with autism (or its milder variant, Asperger Syndrome) share a common characteristic and have been attracted to each other because of their psychological similarity. Assortative mating is a term borrowed from the field of genetics that refers to a long-recognized aspect of animal behavior: the sim­ple idea that mate selection is not random. An­mals, including human animals, do not mate with just anyone. Darwin theorized that two kinds of selection operate to ensure that some animals have better reproductive success than others: natural selection and sexual selection. Deer with large antlers, for example, are more likely to reproduce—not just because they can defeat weaker males in contests over females (natural selection), but also because the females themselves tend to prefer males with the largest antlers (sexual selection). Animals are finely tuned to external indicators of fitness, and these indicators influence whether or not they will mate with a potential partner. © Copyright 2006 Seed Media Group, LLC.

Keyword: Autism; Evolution
Link ID: 9627 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New York – Are you easily forgetful, distracted, impulsive or fidgety? Do you find that smoking helps you alleviate these symptoms? Columbia University Medical Center researchers are investigating whether these most common symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) could be causing people to smoke. If that is the case, will treatment for ADHD combined with the standard treatment to help people quit smoking – the patch with counseling – increase the quit rates for smokers trying to quit? Covey and her colleagues are recruiting smokers who have been diagnosed with ADHD or who may have symptoms of ADHD but have not yet been diagnosed, to be part of a study that will help them quit smoking. Approximately 7-8 million adults in the U.S. have ADHD. Smoking is twice as common in this population as in the general population. Research has shown that most smoking in the U.S. occurs among people who have psychiatric conditions, such as alcohol or drug abuse, major depression, anxiety and ADHD. One line of research has shown that smokers with these conditions “self-medicate” their symptoms with nicotine, the primary addictive substance in tobacco. Participants in the study will receive the nicotine patch, behavioral counseling, and a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of ADHD called methylphenidate (brand name CONCERTAŽ). Because methylphenidate and nicotine act on the brain in a similar way, the premise is that treatment with methylphenidate when trying to quit smoking may reduce symptoms of ADHD while also reducing tobacco withdrawal symptoms.

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9626 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Debora Mackenzie STEM cells have helped dogs with muscular dystrophy to walk again. Doctors hope a similar approach in humans could lead to more complete improvement than the other leading contender for a cure - an RNA-blocking drug now in clinical trials. Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) strikes about one in 35,000 children, almost always boys, and is usually fatal by the age of 30. It is caused by mutations in the gene for the muscle protein dystrophin. Without it, muscle contractions shear and kill muscle cells, and victims become progressively weaker, often dying when their breathing muscles fail. Giulio Cossu and colleagues at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, Italy, had found previously that adult stem cells called mesangioblasts colonise muscle and restore dystrophin production in mice engineered to lack the gene. But the therapeutic effect could not be tested, because these mice do not develop MD. Dogs do. So Cossu's team took mesangioblasts from golden retrievers with a mutation in the dystrophin gene that causes a disease similar to DMD. They used gene therapy to give the cells a normal version of the gene, before reinjecting them into the dogs' leg arteries. They also transplanted mesangioblasts from healthy dogs into dogs with MD, and gave drugs to suppress immune rejection (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature05282). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Muscles
Link ID: 9625 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A computer program has been designed to allow amputees to see and move a 3D "phantom limb". A small study by researchers at the University of Manchester found the device could help people with phantom limb pain. Previous research showed that if a person's brain is "tricked" into believing they can see and move a "phantom limb", pain can decrease. The researchers say one patient saw her pain ease after just one session. It is suggested that phantom limb pain is caused by signals from nerve endings on the amputated limb being amplified. People with phantom limb pain are currently treated using a "mirror box" where they move their remaining arm, but their brain perceives it is their amputated limb is actually the one moving. However, it is easy for the illusion to be broken and the benefit to be lost. The Manchester researchers created a virtual reality world where patients can see both "limbs" moving at once. Upper-limb amputees were fitted with a special data glove and had sensors attached to the elbow and wrist joints. Sensors were fitted to the knee and ankle joints of lower-limb amputees. Patients can use their remaining limb to control the movements of the computer-generated limb which appears in the 3D computer-generated "virtual world". They are able to move fingers, arms, hand, arms, feet and legs. They are even able to play ball games. Three men and two women aged 56-65 took part in the study. Each used the system between seven and 10 times over two to three months. Four out of the five reported improvement in their phantom limb pain, sometimes almost immediately. (C)BBC

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 9624 - Posted: 11.15.2006

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Daily events are minted into memories in the hippocampus, one of the oldest parts of the brain. For long-term storage, scientists believe that memories move to the neocortex, or “new bark,” the gray matter covering the hippocampus. This transfer process occurs during sleep, especially during deep, dreamless sleep. Many neuroscientists have embraced and built upon this theory of memory storage, or consolidation, for a generation. But the theory is difficult to test. New research led by Brown University neuroscientist Mayank Mehta, conducted with Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Bert Sakmann, shows the best evidence yet of the sleep dialogue between the old brain and the new. Their work, published in Nature Neuroscience, also shows that this interaction occurs in a startling way. Instead of the hippocampus uploading information to the neocortex in a burst of brain cell communication, Mehta found the opposite: the neocortex seems to drive the dialogue with the hippocampus. The findings may give scientists a new understanding of how the brain manages memories in health and during dementia, offering up a fresh look at the causes of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, as well as potential treatments. “Long-term memory making may be a very different process than we previously thought,” said Mehta, an assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Brown.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Sleep
Link ID: 9623 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Constance Holden The U.S. Congress has passed a measure that is expected to make it much easier to prosecute animal-rights activists who target enterprises that deal with research animals. Research groups immediately hailed the measure, called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, as a milestone in protecting science, while animal activists warned that it labels peaceful demonstrators as terrorists. The House of Representatives approved the act yesterday by a voice vote, following similar action by the Senate in September. The bill tightens provisions in the existing Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992, which made it a federal offense to interfere with the conduct of "animal enterprises" from university labs to slaughterhouses to circuses. The new measure extends that protection to anyone targeted by activists because they do business with an animal enterprise, including accountants and suppliers. It also calls for reimbursement for economic damages caused to such entities. Offenders will face fines or jail terms ranging from 1 year to life for various forms of harrassment and intimidation, including property damage, trespassing, and death threats. The bill is largely a response to the tactics of a group called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). Active in both the U.K. and the U.S., SHAC has for years targeted U.K.-based Huntingdon Life Sciences, which uses animals to test drugs, food additives, and pesticides. Last year, SHAC reportedly intimidated the New York Stock Exchange into declining to list Huntingdon's parent company, New Jersey-based Life Sciences Research. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 9622 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Emma Young When male chickens come across food, they make a “took, took, took” call to tell the flock – but hens react only if they don’t already know that food is around. This shows that the call triggers other chickens to look for specific information – in this case, whether or not there is food about – and to respond appropriately, researchers claim. This is similar to how human language works, they say. Such “representational” communication has been demonstrated in some primates before, but never in a bird. Critics of the idea that certain animal calls might have similarities with language have suggested, for instance, that the calls might simply be triggering a reflex response, or that researchers might be over-interpreting a call's meaning. “In this work, we have shown that the hens’ response is mediated by a representation of food,” says Chris Evans. He and Linda Evans, both animal behaviourists, studied a type of domestic chicken, called golden Sebrights (Gallus gallus), at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Several animal species produce sounds that trigger a particular response among other members of their group. These calls are usually related to the presence of either a predator or food. For example, meerkats produce several different types of alarm call. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Language; Animal Communication
Link ID: 9621 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LARRY ZAROFF, M.D. The creative process is therapeutic for many of us. If we are writers, we wrench out poetry, prose, a play about our pain, about our mistakes in life. We explain ourselves to ourselves, and generally feel better. A cousin of mine, who was made miserable by his mother, wrote her a long letter after she died. Afterward, he felt relief, unburdened. But writing is not the only way for people to unveil their troubles. Some compose music, a few paint, others choreograph or dance. Chris Furbee is making a documentary of his mother’s life, a film that powerfully reveals her gradual deterioration — physical and mental — from Huntington’s disease. In the video — some still frames from it are shown above — we see Mr. Furbee’s mother early on, before the onset of Huntington’s. She is a beautiful young woman, a fine artist. Then she is 40, in the writhing, uncooperative movements typical of Huntington’s, a personal plague like no other. Finally she is on the floor, her mental capacity gone, few words remaining. Mr. Furbee, too, has the single dominant gene for Huntington’s in every part of his body, every cell. The disease is a criminal that wants to steal his brain. It is the worst of the dementias, with its early onset and its inevitability. There is no return, no recovery. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 9620 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By SIOBHAN ROBERTS HAMILTON, Ontario — Standing in her vaultlike walk-in refrigerator, Sandra F. Witelson pries open a white plastic tub that looks like an ice cream container. There, soaking in diluted formaldehyde, is a gleaming vanilla-colored brain: the curvy landscape of hills and valleys (the gyri and sulci) that channeled the thoughts of the late mathematician Donald Coxeter, known as the man who saved geometry from near extinction in the 20th century. “His brain is amazingly plump,” Dr. Witelson says. She ought to know. Here at McMaster University, where she is a neuroscientist with the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, Dr. Witelson has a collection of 125 brains. They are all from Canadians: business people, professionals, homemakers, and blue- and white-collar workers. By weighing her specimens, calculating their volumes and measuring their proportions, Dr. Witelson (pronounced WIT-il-son) investigates the relationship between brain structure and cognition, a focus of her research for three decades. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9619 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Cutraro Students who break into a cold sweat at the thought of a pop quiz might feel better once they learn about a side effect of test-taking: The practice appears to enhance memory, possibly even more than studying. What's more, according to a new study, testing also helps students remember material that wasn't on the exam in the first place. Over the past several years, cognitive scientists have documented a phenomenon called the "testing effect," in which taking a test, rather than studying, boosts an individual's ability to remember the material later on. The research led psychology doctoral student Jason Chan and his colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, to wonder whether testing also affects memory for untested materials. To test the theory, the team had 84 undergraduate students read a passage about toucans, a topic the researchers believed would be unfamiliar to psychology undergraduates. After reading the passage, one-third of the students were dismissed, one-third were asked to read an additional set of study materials that covered the same information as the original passage, and one-third were asked to take a brief short-answer test on the original material. The next day, all participants returned to take a final short-answer test, which included questions from the previous day's brief test as well as new questions. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9618 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Mary Beckman Morphine and other opiates dull pain, but they don't stick around for long. Almost immediately, a class of enzymes known as peptidases burst onto the scene and degrade these painkillers. Now researchers have identified a naturally occurring molecule in humans that blocks this process, prolonging the effect of opiates. The findings, say the researchers, may lead to new ways to combat pain. Three years ago, researchers got their first hint that animals could block opiate-destroying enzymes. When neuroendocrinologists stressed rats, they found a small protein or peptide called sialorphin inhibited the action of neutral endopeptidase (NEP), which breaks down a natural opiate known as enkephalin. Do humans make a similar peptide? Neuroendocrinologist Catherine Rougeot of the Institut Pasteur in Paris suspected so. Previous work hinted that people secrete a mystery molecule in their mouths that could inhibit NEP, so Rougeot and colleagues started isolating peptides from saliva. The team identified a peptide that was five amino acids long and could block NEP in a test tube. Calling it opiorphin, the team modified it slightly to make it easier to work with in rats, naming the new peptide YQRFSR. Then the researchers injected YQRFSR into the bloodstreams of rats and, 15 minutes later, injected a compound that stimulates painful inflammation into the rats' hind paws. Rodents without YQRFSR licked their paws in discomfort for more than 2 minutes, but rats that got the small molecule only tended their paws for a little over a minute and a half, indicating less pain. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 9617 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WASHINGTON - Toxins from cone snail venom may help point the way to better relief of severe nerve pain in people, researchers report. Results were promising in tests on rats with a type of nerve pain similar to sciatica, according to researchers led by J. Michael McIntosh, a biology professor at the University of Utah. McIntosh said he hopes this finding could lead to a new painkiller that could be taken orally, but it could take 10 years or more before the findings can be translated into a treatment for people. The findings were published Monday in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers found that the toxins from cone snails treated nerve pain by blocking molecules known as "a9a10 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors." The a9a10 NA receptors are located in several parts of the body including dorsal root ganglia — a group of nerve cells near the spine that is involved in pain transmission. Common pain relievers often fail with nerve pain, and stronger drugs such as morphine have side effects. © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 9616 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Music has the power to affect humans physically and emotionally, and now several new studies suggest it can have similar effects on other animals, from fish to monkeys. For example, non-human primates seem to prefer the relaxing strains of a lullaby over fast dance tunes, according to a forthcoming study in the journal Cognition that looked at the musical preferences of cotton-top tamarinds and marmosets. Josh McDermott, a researcher in the Perceptual Science Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and colleague Marc Hauser of Harvard University placed speakers near food-baited branches. Whenever the small monkeys plopped themselves on a branch, the researchers would play music out of the speakers. During various experiments, the scientists played a Russian folk lullaby performed on a flute, a rendition of the Mozart string concerto K458 in B flat major, a lullaby performed by a German singer or a fast techno track by Alec Empire called "Nobody Gets Out Alive." Repeatedly, the monkeys gravitated towards the branches next to speakers playing the slowest tempo tunes, which were usually the lullabies. © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 9615 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Kay, Associated Press — Back in 1902, a scientist examining the smooth, grapefruit-size brain of a manatee remarked that the organ's unwrinkled surface resembled that of the brain of an idiot. Ever since then, manatees have generally been considered incapable of doing anything more complicated than chewing sea grass. But Hugh, a manatee in a tank at a Florida marine laboratory, doesn't seem like a dimwit. When a buzzer sounds, the speed bump-shaped mammal slowly flips his 1,300 pounds and aims a whiskered snout toward one of eight loudspeakers lowered into the water. Nosing the correct speaker earns him treats. Hugh is no manatee prodigy. Such sensory experiments, along with other recent studies, are revealing that sea cows aren't so stupid after all. Researchers contend that if the plant-eating beasts seem slow-witted, it is because they faced no threats to their survival before the advent of boat propellers. "They're not under any selection pressure to evolve the rapid-type behavior we've associated with hawks, a predator, or antelopes, a prey. They look like very contented animals that don't have very much to do all day," said Roger Reep, a neuroscientist at the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine. The experiments under way at the independent Mote Marine Laboratory, could help scientists protect Florida's manatees, an endangered species, from propellers and other dangers. © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Evolution; Intelligence
Link ID: 9614 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Kerri Smith A new painkilling substance has been discovered that is up to six times more potent than morphine when tested in rats — and it's produced naturally by the human body. Natural painkillers are very rare, and researchers hope that this recent find might be harnessed as a clinical treatment. Naturally produced painkillers might help to avoid some of the side effects experienced by patients treated with synthetic compounds such as morphine, including addiction and tolerance with prolonged use. But the new substance will first have to be tested to confirm whether it will be an effective drug, experts warn. The compound, dubbed opiorphin, seems to work by prolonging the body's own defences against pain, explain Catherine Rougeot of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, and her colleagues, who report the discovery in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. It does so by preventing the breakdown of chemicals called enkephalins, which in turn activate opiate receptors that block pain signals from reaching the brain. Rougeot's team tracked down the new compound after previously finding a similar natural painkiller in rats, called sialorphin2. They wondered whether humans might produce something similar — and by analysing saliva samples, hit upon opiorphin. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 9613 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Andy Coghlan Saliva from humans has yielded a natural painkiller up to six times more powerful than morphine, researchers say. The substance, dubbed opiorphin, may spawn a new generation of natural painkillers that relieve pain as well as morphine but without the addictive and psychological side effects of the traditional drug. When the researchers injected a pain-inducing chemical into rats’ paws, 1 gram of opiorphin per kilogram of body weight achieved the same painkilling effect as 3 grams of morphine. The substance was so successful at blocking pain that, in a test involving a platform of upended pins, the rats needed six times as much morphine as opiorphin to render them oblivious to the pain of standing on the needle points. “Its pain-suppressive effect is like that of morphine,” says Catherine Rougeot at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, who led the research. “But we have to test its side effects as it is not a pure painkiller,” she says. “It may also be an anti-depressive molecule.” © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 9612 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BENEDICT CAREY Paul Williams, 13, has had almost as many psychiatric diagnoses as birthdays. The first psychiatrist he saw, at age 7, decided after a 20-minute visit that the boy was suffering from depression. A grave looking child, quiet and instinctively suspicious of others, he looked depressed, said his mother, Kasan Williams. Yet it soon became clear that the boy was too restless, too explosive, to be suffering from chronic depression. Paul was a gifted reader, curious, independent. But in fourth grade, after a screaming match with a school counselor, he walked out of the building and disappeared, riding the F train for most of the night through Brooklyn, alone, while his family searched frantically. It was the second time in two years that he had disappeared for the night, and his mother was determined to find some answers, some guidance. What followed was a string of office visits with psychologists, social workers and psychiatrists. Each had an idea about what was wrong, and a specific diagnosis: “Compulsive tendencies,” one said. “Oppositional defiant disorder,” another concluded. Others said “pervasive developmental disorder,” or some combination. Each diagnosis was accompanied by a different regimen of drug treatments. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 9611 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Siri Schubert We do it automatically. As soon as we observe another person, we try to read his or her face for signs of happiness, sorrow, anxiety, anger. Sometimes we are right, sometimes we are wrong, and errors can create some sticky personal situations. Yet Paul Ekman is almost always right. The psychology professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, has spent 40 years studying human facial expressions. He has catalogued more than 10,000 possible combinations of facial muscle movements that reveal what a person is feeling inside. And he has taught himself how to catch the fleeting involuntary changes, called microexpressions, that flit across even the best liar's face, exposing the truth behind what he or she is trying to hide. Ekman, 72, lives in Oakland, Calif., in a bright and airy house near the bay. As I talked with him there, he studied me, his eyes peering out from under bushy brows as if they were registering each brief facial tic I unknowingly exhibited. Does his talent make him a mind reader? "No," he says candidly. "The most I can do is tell how you are feeling at the moment but not what you are thinking." He is not being modest or coy; he is simply addressing the psychological bottom line behind facial expressions: "Anxiety always looks like anxiety," he explains, "regardless of whether a person fears that I'm seeing through their lie or that I don't believe them when they're telling the truth." The professor calls the ever present risk we all take of misreading a person's visage "Othello's error." © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 9610 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers at the University of Rochester may have answered one of neuroscience's most vexing questions—how can it be that our neurons, which are responsible for our crystal-clear thoughts, seem to fire in utterly random ways? In the November issue of Nature Neuroscience, the Rochester study shows that the brain's cortex uses seemingly chaotic, or "noisy," signals to represent the ambiguities of the real world—and that this noise dramatically enhances the brain's processing, enabling us to make decisions in an uncertain world. "You'd think this is crazy because engineers are always fighting to reduce the noise in their circuits, and yet here's the best computing machine in the universe—and it looks utterly random," says Alex Pouget, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. Pouget's work for the first time connects two of the brain's biggest mysteries; why it's so noisy, and how it can perform such complex calculations. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, the noise seems integral to making those calculations possible. In the last decade, Pouget and his colleagues in the University of Rochester's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences have blazed a new path to understanding our gray matter. The traditional approach has assumed the brain uses the same method computation in general had used up until the mid-80s: You see an image and you relate that image to one stored in your head. But the reality of the cranial world seems to be a confusing array of possibilities and probabilities, all of which are somehow, mysteriously, properly calculated.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 9609 - Posted: 06.24.2010