ATLANTA – A novel look at the brains of adults with autism has provided new evidence that various brain regions of people with the developmental disorder may not communicate with each other as efficiently as they do in other people. Researchers from the University of Washington's Autism Center will report today at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience on the first study that measures neural activity by using high-resolution electroencephalography (EEG) to examine connections in the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that deals with higher cognitive processes. Compared to normally developing individuals, the scientists found patterns of abnormal connectivity between brain regions in people with autism. These abnormalities showed both over and under connectivity between neurons in different parts of the cortex, according to Michael Murias, a postdoctoral researcher who headed the study. "Our findings indicate adults with autism show differences in coordinated neural activity," said Murias, "which implies poor internal communication between the parts of the brain." The UW researchers analyzed EEGs from 36 adults, ranging in age from 19 to 38. Half the adults had autism and all had IQs of at least 80. The EEGs, which measure the activity of hundreds of millions of brain cells, were collected with an array of 124 electrodes while the people were seated and relaxed with their eyes closed for two minutes.

Keyword: Autism; Brain imaging
Link ID: 9467 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Gaia Vince Methamphetamine may protect the brain after a stroke, according to new research in rats and gerbils. The illicit street drug – also known as speed – helped reduce brain damage when used up to 16 hours after stroke, potentially widening the window of opportunity for drug intervention. Researchers induced strokes in gerbils, causing them to become twice as active and agitated as normal gerbils. But when the animals were given a low dose of methamphetamine up to 16 hours after the event, the animals became calmer. Dissection later showed that the neurons of the gerbils given methamphetamine were as intact as in animals that had not suffered stroke. “Methamphetamine is a drug that has been shown to exacerbate stroke damage when administered before a stroke, but we have seen roughly 80% to 90% protection of neurons when administered after a stroke,” says Dave Poulsen, who led the research at the University of Montana in the US. The team also looked at slices of rat brain taken from the hippocampus – a region involved in memory and learning – which they kept in a nutritious culture for nine days. The slices were then deprived of glucose and oxygen for 90 minutes to mimic the conditions of a stroke. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Stroke; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9466 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BENEDICT CAREY The drugs most commonly used to soothe agitation and aggression in people with Alzheimer’s disease are no more effective than placebos for most patients, and put them at risk of serious side effects, including confusion, sleepiness and Parkinson’s disease-like symptoms, researchers are reporting today. The report, based on a large government comparison of the drugs’ effectiveness, challenges current practice so sharply that it could quickly alter prescribing habits, some experts said. About 4.5 million Americans suffer from the progressive dementia of Alzheimer’s disease, and most patients with the advanced disease exhibit agitation or delusions at some point. The drugs tested in the study — Zyprexa from Eli Lilly; Seroquel from AstraZeneca; and Risperdal from Janssen Pharmaceutical — belong to a class of medications known as atypical antipsychotics. The drugs are used to treat schizophrenia and other psychoses, and are commonly prescribed for elderly patients in long-term care facilities. About a third of the estimated 2.5 million Medicare beneficiaries in nursing homes in the United States have taken the medications, researchers found. And the use of atypical antipsychotics in the elderly accounts for an estimated $2 billion in the annual sales of the drugs, much of the cost paid by Medicare and Medicaid. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 9465 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Faye Flam Recent efforts to pass amendments that define marriage as a union between a "man" and a "woman" are going to run into more than just political opposition. Scientists are contending there's no clear definition of the gender divide. There are at least seven definitions, but not everyone qualifies as male or female across the board, says Galdino Pranzarone, a psychologist at Roanoke College who has argued against marriage amendments on the editorial pages of the Roanoke Times. Some people are born with a mix of male and female characteristics. The incidence of intersex births is between one in 1,000 to one in 2,500, says Pranzarone. "That's a lot of people." Alice Dreger, part of the medical humanities and bioethics faculty at Northwestern University, has also written on the flaws of the "one man and one woman" equation. You could define the sexes by their sex organs, Dreger says, but those are vulnerable to birth defects, accidents or cancer. Not to mention that some people have an organ whose size fits somewhere between a small penis and a large clitoris. You might think you could get out a microscope and use chromosomes, defining men as having an X and a Y, women as having two X's. It's simple enough except some people have just a single X, or XXY, or XYY. There are XX men, XY women, and people with a "mosaic" of genetically male and female cells.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9464 - Posted: 10.13.2006

by Olivia Judson I met a leopard gecko the other day. He sat on my hand, scarcely moving, for a full 15 minutes. So we took a good look at each other—I gazed into his still, dark eyes, and he seemed to gaze at mine. He was unlike any gecko I had seen before. He had smooth, pale skin spattered with dark spots, a large wedge-shaped head and a tail of pronounced fatness. (He cannot, however, walk on ceilings—unusually for a gecko, he doesn't have adhesive feet.) But the fatness of his tail and the non-stickiness of his feet were not the reasons I was interested to meet him. My interest stems from the fact that leopard geckos—more formally known as Eublepharis macularius—provide the clearest example of how the early environment can sculpt the brain and affect sexual desire. Leopard geckos breed easily in captivity. Which is lucky; to encounter one in the wild, you'd have to head to the rocky deserts and arid badlands of Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There, they snooze in burrows during the infernal heat of the day, and venture forth at night to dine on insects, spiders and scorpions. As is often the case for lizards, leopard geckos have their sex determined by the temperature at which the eggs develop. The particular temperatures vary from one species to another. In leopard geckos, eggs incubated at 26° C (78.8° F) all hatch female. At 30° C (86° F), 30% of the eggs will hatch male and 70% female. Raise the temperature another 2.5° C, and that sex ratio flips—a third of the geckolings will be female and two-thirds, male. But go up another 1.5° C and 95% of hatchlings will be female. In other words, you find cool chicks and hot chicks, but tepid fellows. (And yes, if it gets unseasonably cold, the population will be all female.) © Copyright 2006 Seed Media Group, LLC.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9463 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Life is tough for Meloe franciscanus. These blister beetles are born at the base of plants that serve as islands in a sea of sand in the unforgiving Mojave desert. But in order to find food and safe shelter, the larvae, or baby beetles, need to venture out into the scorching desert. To do that, they'll need something to carry them. "The sand temperatures get to 50 degrees centigrade [122 degrees Fahrenheit], which is very hot. You could fry an egg. As a small little larva, they would instantly die if they hit the sand," says Leslie Saul-Gershenz, director of the Center for Ecosystem Survival in San Francisco, adding, "This in the Kelso dunes section of the Mojave desert, so the sand is always moving on the top layer; it can get quite windy." Saul-Gershenz is an ecologist and biologist who wanted to get to the bottom of just now these bugs survive to adulthood. As she found out and reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the blister beetle has evolved an elaborate trick: sibling larvae cooperate to impersonate a female bee both physically and chemically in order to lure a lustful male bee close enough for them to use him like a taxi. © ScienCentral, 2000-2006.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Animal Migration
Link ID: 9462 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rhitu Chatterjee Pheromones found in a mother's milk may be critical to helping her newborn adjust to its environment. A new study of rabbits shows that pups learn to recognize novel odors only when these odors are associated with a chemical cue that typically signals food and warmth. Learning about the world by sense of smell is common among infants of many mammalian species. Human babies, for example, show interest in whatever foods their mothers eat when nursing because the foods' aromas are passed on through breast milk. Scientists don't understand, however, just how newborn infants learn to identify these additional smells. Neuroethologist Gerard Coureaud of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, in Dijon, France, and his colleagues wondered if rabbit pups expand their horizons via the mammary pheromone, a pheromone in rabbit milk known to attract the blind tots to their mums. When the researchers exposed 2-day-old rabbit pups to two new odorants, the pups didn't react to either. But when the team repeated the experiment--this time after first introducing the same two chemicals with the mammary pheromone--the pups immediately started moving towards the source of the smells. Their behavior was identical to the way they search for their mother's nipples, the team reports online 10 October in Current Biology. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9461 - Posted: 06.24.2010

PITTSBURGH -- Young children with autism appear to be delayed in their ability to categorize objects and, in particular, to distinguish between living and nonliving things, according to a breakthrough study by researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. The paper has been published in the Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities and the results could provide a cognitive explanation for one of the characteristics of autism: the inability to recognize the goals and motivations of others. Previous research has shown that young children with autism have the same abilities as normally developing children to categorize objects based on so-called surface characteristics, such as size and shape. They have a diminished ability, however, to group objects into more abstract categories (e.g., birds, trees, cars and furniture). A key characteristic that differentiates living and nonliving things is the ability of the former to move on their own, and as humans, we rely on the motions of others -- a hand reaching out to shake ours, a person running toward us -- to help us interpret their actions and intentions. "People have not really studied these conceptual deficits in very young children as the possible basis for the social and cognitive deficits in older children and adults with autism," said Carnegie Mellon psychologist David Rakison, who co-authored the paper with Cynthia Johnson, director of the Autism Center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and assistant professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 9460 - Posted: 10.13.2006

By Tom Jackman As the population in Virginia has grown in recent years, especially in Northern Virginia, the capacity to help the mentally ill has declined steadily. The number of psychiatric beds in Northern Virginia has plummeted from 402 in 1990 to 196 today, and those who can't find treatment often wind up in the court system, either through civil commitment hearings or criminal charges and jail. A recent state study showed that 11 percent of the people in Northern Virginia jails are on psychotropic medications, and many more need mental health services. The study also estimated that about 25 percent of those held on temporary detention orders have no previous connection to the public mental health system. "That tells me two things -- that it's getting harder for people to get the help they need when they're in crisis," said Mary Zdanowicz, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, "and there's a large number of people who are getting no help." Now, Virginia's system of helping the mentally ill is being targeted for reform from a powerful source: the chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court. Tomorrow, Chief Justice Leroy R. Hassell Sr. is launching a commission to revise Virginia's mental health laws and judicial processes, with five task forces meeting to begin developing recommendations for "reform legislation" that would be presented to the 2008 General Assembly. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 9459 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Tony Fitzpatrick -- Teenage boys and computer games go hand-in-hand. Now, a St. Louis-area teenage boy and a computer game have gone hands-off, thanks to a unique experiment conducted by a team of neurosurgeons, neurologists, and engineers at Washington University in St. Louis. The boy, a 14-year-old who suffers from epilepsy, is the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game, Space Invaders, using only the signals from his brain to make movements. Getting subjects to move objects using only their brains has implications toward someday building biomedical devices that can control artificial limbs, for instance, enabling the disabled to move a prosthetic arm or leg by thinking about it. Many gamers think fondly of Atari's Space Invaders, one of the most popular breakthrough video games of the late '70s. The player controls the motions of a movable laser cannon that moves back and forth across the bottom of the video screen. Row upon row of video aliens march back and forth across the screen, slowly coming down from the top to the bottom of the screen. The objective is to prevent any one of the aliens from landing on the bottom of the screen, which ends the game. The player has an unlimited ammunition supply.

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 9458 - Posted: 10.11.2006

Early family experience can reverse the effect of a genetic variant linked to depression, UCLA researchers report in the current issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry. Among children from supportive, nurturing families, those with the short form of the serotonin transporter gene (known as 5-HTTLPR) had a significantly reduced risk for depression, found the UCLA team, under the direction of Shelley E. Taylor, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and an expert in the field of stress and health. The research team also found that among children from emotionally cold, unsupportive homes marked by conflict and anger, those with the short form of the 5-HTTLPR gene were at greater risk for depression, as some previous research has also shown. The 118 young adult men and women who participated in the study completed assessments of depression, early family environment and current stress. They were asked, for example, how often they had been loved and cared for, shown physical affection or insulted and sworn at by their families. Saliva samples were used to determine if the participants' standing on the 5-HTTLPR had two short alleles (s/s), a short and a long allele (s/l) or two long alleles (l/l) for the serotonin transporter gene. (An allele is any of several forms of a gene.) The research showed that a person's likelihood of developing symptoms of depression was not predicted by the particular combination of alleles alone; rather, it was the combination of the person's environment and genetic variant s/s that determined whether the person experienced symptoms of depression, said Taylor, principal investigator on the study.

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 9457 - Posted: 10.11.2006

Researchers at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital announced this week that a laser scan for the eyes has so far been 100 percent accurate as an early detector for Alzheimer's disease in mice. "This is proof-of-concept evidence for early detection. It says that we're on the right track," lead researcher Lee Goldstein says. Goldstein's team used the laser scan eye test to compare mice that were genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's with normal mice. The laser scan found beta-amyloid protein in the eyes of the Alzheimer's mice well before any evidence was shown in the brain. In Alzheimer's patients the beta-amyloid protein ultimately builds up into plaques between nerve cells in the brain. The laser directs a low-intensity beam of light into the lens of the eye, which bounces off of specific particles, similar to how the sun's light bounces off particles of water in clouds. This produces a "scatter pattern," which scientists use to look for beta-amyloid protein in the eye. According to the National Institute on Aging, Alzheimer's disease affects up to 4.5 million Americans. Alzheimer's patients start to forget loved ones, dates, or how to do simple math. As the disease progresses, Alzheimer's patients can lose the ability to care for themselves and even to speak. © ScienCentral, 2000-2006.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 9456 - Posted: 06.24.2010

DURHAM, N.H. -- Keeping track of one set of keys is difficult enough, but imagine having to remember the locations of thousands of sets of keys. Do you use landmarks to remember where you put them? Do you have a mental map of their locations? Scientists at the University of New Hampshire hope to learn more about memory and its evolution by studying the Clark’s nutcracker, a bird with a particularly challenging task: remembering where it buried its supply of food for winter in a 15-mile area. Like many animals preparing for the winter, every fall the Clark’s nutcracker spends several weeks gathering food stores. What makes it unique is that it harvests more than 30,000 pine nuts, buries them in up to 5,000 caches, and then relies almost solely on its memory of where those caches are located to survive through winter. Brett Gibson, a scientist studying animal behavior, began studying Clark’s nutcrackers in graduate school and is continuing his research into memory and the behavior of nutcrackers as an assistant professor in UNH’s psychology department. “Nutcrackers are almost exclusively dependent upon cache recovery for their survival so if they don’t remember where they’ve made those caches, then they are in trouble,” Gibson says. “During winter, their cache locations are covered with snow so many of the small local features in the landscape during fall are no longer available to them. What’s clear is that they are using spatial memory to recover these caches. They are remembering these caches based on landmarks and other features of the terrain.”

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9455 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Helen Pilcher Diving headfirst into a tank of chilly water would cause even the most stoic of us to shiver, but not the hooded seal (Cystophora cristata). Although the plucky marine mammals shiver on cold, dry land, they stop as they plunge into nippy waters — a strategy that probably helps them to conserve oxygen and minimize the brain damage that could result from long dives. Researchers have spent decades trying to fathom the seemingly impossible diving physiology of seals. The animals, which can spend up to 2 hours underwater in one dive, don't seem to be able to hold enough oxygen to allow them to survive this feat. "Stopping shivering is just one of the tricks that lets these animals dive for long periods of time," says Lars Folkow and colleagues from the University of Tromsø, Norway, who reported his findings at The American Physiological Society conference in Virginia Beach, Virginia yesterday. Folkow's team took muscle, heart rate and body temperature recordings from a dozen captive-reared hooded seals trained to lie still on a specially designed board. When the board was above water and the room temperature was lowered to an icy -35°C, the animals shivered vigorously in an attempt to keep warm. But when the board was lowered into a chilly saltwater pool, they stopped shivering instantly. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 9454 - Posted: 06.24.2010

TUESDAY, (HealthDay News) -- The brain chemical dopamine plays an important role in regulating sleep and brain activity associated with dreaming, a Duke University Medical Center study finds. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that carries signals between neurons (brain cells). The Duke team found that mice with dramatically reduced dopamine levels could not sleep. When dopamine levels were boosted, the mice showed brain activity associated with dreaming while being awake. The scientists said the same processes likely occur in humans and the findings offer new insight into the sleep problems commonly experienced by people with Parkinson's disease, in which brain cells containing dopamine become injured or die. "Our study may lead to development of new diagnostic tools for the early detection of Parkinson's disease based on the sleep disturbances that are often associated with motor symptoms of the disease," senior investigator Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, professor of neuroscience, said in a prepared statement. The research may also help explain the causes of hallucinations and other symptoms experienced by schizophrenic and psychotic patients, Nicolelis said. The study was slated for publication in the Oct. 11 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. © Forbes.com Inc.™

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 9453 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DANIEL GOLEMAN A dear friend has been battling cancer for a decade or more. Through a grinding mix of chemotherapy, radiation and all the other necessary indignities of oncology, he has lived on, despite dire prognoses to the contrary. My friend was the sort of college professor students remember fondly: not just inspiring in class but taking a genuine interest in them — in their studies, their progress through life, their fears and hopes. A wide circle of former students count themselves among his lifelong friends; he and his wife have always welcomed a steady stream of visitors to their home. Though no one could ever prove it, I suspect that one of many ingredients in his longevity has been this flow of people who love him. Research on the link between relationships and physical health has established that people with rich personal networks — who are married, have close family and friends, are active in social and religious groups — recover more quickly from disease and live longer. But now the emerging field of social neuroscience, the study of how people’s brains entrain as they interact, adds a missing piece to that data. The most significant finding was the discovery of “mirror neurons,” a widely dispersed class of brain cells that operate like neural WiFi. Mirror neurons track the emotional flow, movement and even intentions of the person we are with, and replicate this sensed state in our own brain by stirring in our brain the same areas active in the other person. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 9452 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NICHOLAS WADE What can stand on its hind legs and duke it out with its front feet, boxing and tussling like a four-armed pugilist? The answer: a strain of laboratory fruit flies bred for shameless aggressiveness toward their own kind. These miniature gladiators flail at each other with a zeal and tempo that make professional boxers look like milquetoasts. A video, available here, shows a Drosophilan version of Mike Tyson forcing an opponent to fly the court. The fighting flies have been bred by Herman A. Dierick and Ralph J. Greenspan, two biologists at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego. Their goal is to discover the neural circuits that are genetically modified when flies develop aggressive behavior. Fruit flies in the wild are quite hostile toward one another. Males will fight off other males from prize real estate, like a rotten peach, where females like to congregate. But when kept in the laboratory, subsequent generations soon become domesticated. Dr. Dierick and Dr. Greenspan figured that since this behavior was easily lost, it should be easy enough to regain if the right selective pressure were applied. So they took a laboratory strain of tame fruit flies and set up pots of food that could be protected by single males. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Aggression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 9451 - Posted: 10.10.2006

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Head growth in fetal life and infancy is associated with later intelligence, new research hints. Moreover, catch-up increases do not appear to compensate for poor early growth. "Brain growth in early life may be important in determining not only the level of peak cognitive function attained but also whether such function is preserved in old age," the study team writes in the journal Pediatrics. "Older people with a larger head circumference tend to perform better on tests of cognitive function and may have reduced risks of cognitive decline and of Alzheimer's disease." Several studies in children have shown that those with larger brains, measured with imaging studies or as head circumference, tend to score higher on tests of cognitive function. Similar associations have been found in adults. For their study, Dr. Catharine R. Gale, of the University of Southampton, UK, and colleagues examined the effect of head growth in fetal life, infancy, and childhood on brain power at the ages of 4 and 8 years. Included in the study were 633 term children who had their head circumference measured at birth and at regular intervals thereafter. By age 1, mean head circumference increased from 34.9 cm at birth to 46.6 cm. Head growth after infancy was slower. Mean head circumference increased to 50.9 cm by 4 years and to 53.4 cm by 8 years. © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Intelligence
Link ID: 9450 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CHARLES SIEBERT ‘We’re not going anywhere,” my driver, Nelson Okello, whispered to me one morning this past June, the two of us sitting in the front seat of a jeep just after dawn in Queen Elizabeth National Park in southwestern Uganda. We’d originally stopped to observe what appeared to be a lone bull elephant grazing in a patch of tall savanna grasses off to our left. More than one “rogue” crossed our path that morning — a young male elephant that has made an overly strong power play against the dominant male of his herd and been banished, sometimes permanently. This elephant, however, soon proved to be not a rogue but part of a cast of at least 30. The ground vibrations registered just before the emergence of the herd from the surrounding trees and brush. We sat there watching the elephants cross the road before us, seeming, for all their heft, so light on their feet, soundlessly plying the wind-swept savanna grasses like land whales adrift above the floor of an ancient, waterless sea. Then, from behind a thicket of acacia trees directly off our front left bumper, a huge female emerged — “the matriarch,” Okello said softly. There was a small calf beneath her, freely foraging and knocking about within the secure cribbing of four massive legs. Acacia leaves are an elephant’s favorite food, and as the calf set to work on some low branches, the matriarch stood guard, her vast back flank blocking the road, the rest of the herd milling about in the brush a short distance away. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Aggression; Stress
Link ID: 9449 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Ipke Wachsmuth Our body movements always convey something about us to other people. The body "speaks" whether we are sitting or standing, talking or just listening. On a blind date, how the two individuals position themselves tells a great deal about how the evening will unfold: Is she leaning in to him or away? Is his smile genuine or forced? The same is true of gestures. Almost always involuntary, they tip us off to love, hate, humility and deceit. Yet for years, scientists spent surprisingly little time studying them, because the researchers presumed that hand and arm movements were mere by-products of verbal communication. That view changed during the 1990s, in part because of the influential work of psycholinguist David McNeill at the University of Chicago. For him, gestures are "windows into thought processes." McNeill's work, and numerous studies since then, has shown that the body can underscore, undermine or even contradict what a person says. Experts increasingly agree that gestures and speech spring from a common cognitive process to become inextricably interwoven. Understanding the relationship is crucial to understanding how people communicate overall. Most of us would find it difficult and uncomfortable to converse for any extended period without using our hands and arms. Gestures play a role whenever we attempt to explain something. At the very least, such motions are co-verbal; they accompany our speech, conveying information that is hard to get across with words. © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 9448 - Posted: 06.24.2010