By JEFFREY KLUGER Few things are easier than telling a lie, and few things are harder than spotting one when it's told to us. We've been trying to suss out liars ever since Cain fibbed to God about murdering Abel. While God was not fooled--hearing the blood of Abel crying out from the land--the rest of us do not have such divine lie-detection gifts. But that doesn't mean we're not trying. In the post-9/11 world, where anyone with a boarding pass and a piece of carry-on is a potential menace, the need is greater than ever for law enforcement's most elusive dream: a simple technique that can expose a liar as dependably as a blood test can identify DNA or a Breathalyzer can nail a drunk. Quietly over the past five years, Department of Defense agencies and the Department of Homeland Security have dramatically stepped up the hunt. Though the exact figures are concealed in the classified "black budget," tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars are believed to have been poured into lie-detection techniques as diverse as infrared imagers to study the eyes, scanners to peer into the brain, sensors to spot liars from a distance, and analysts trained to scrutinize the unconscious facial flutters that often accompany a falsehood. At last they may be getting somewhere. Next month No Lie MRI of San Diego, a beneficiary of some of that federal largesse, will roll out a brain-scan lie-detection service it is marketing to government and industry. Another company, Cephos of Pepperell, Mass., hopes to follow within a few years. Copyright © 2006 Time Inc

Keyword: Stress; Brain imaging
Link ID: 9254 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By David F. Salisbury Keeping the lights on around the clock in neonatal intensive care units may interfere with the development of premature babies' biological clocks. That is the suggestion of a new study reported in the Aug. 21 issue of the journal Pediatric Research. The study, which was headed by Douglas McMahon, professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University and an investigator at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development, reports that exposing baby mice to constant light keeps the master biological clock in their brains from developing properly and this can have a lasting effect on their behavior. "We are interested in the effects of light on biological clocks because they regulate our physiology extensively, and also have an important effect on our mood," McMahon says. "This study suggests that cycling the lights in NICUs may be better than constant lighting for premature babies' from the perspective of developing their internal clocks." Every year about 14 million low-weight babies are born worldwide and are exposed to artificial lighting in hospitals. "Today, we realize that lighting is very important in nursing facilities, but our understanding of light's effects on patients and staff is still very rudimentary," says William F. Walsh, chief of nurseries at Vanderbilt's Monroe Carrel Jr. Children's Hospital. "We need to know more. That is why studies like this are very important."

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 9253 - Posted: 08.21.2006

University of Utah researchers isolated an unusual nerve toxin in an ocean-dwelling snail, and say its ability to glom onto the brain's nicotine receptors may be useful for designing new drugs to treat a variety of psychiatric and brain diseases. "We discovered a new toxin from a venomous cone snail that may enable scientists to more effectively develop medications for a wide range of nervous system disorders including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, depression, nicotine addiction and perhaps even schizophrenia," says J. Michael McIntosh. Discovery of the new cone snail toxin will be published Friday, Aug. 25 in The Journal of Biological Chemistry by a team led by McIntosh, a University of Utah research professor of biology, professor and research director of psychiatry, member of the Center for Peptide Neuropharmacology and member of The Brain Institute. McIntosh is the same University of Utah researcher who – as an incoming freshman student in 1979 – discovered another "conotoxin" that was developed into Prialt, a drug injected into fluid surrounding the spinal cord to treat severe pain due to cancer, AIDS, injury, failed back surgery and certain nervous system disorders. Prialt was approved in late 2004 in the United States and was introduced in Europe last month.

Keyword: Neurotoxins
Link ID: 9252 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jeff Hecht Public acceptance of evolutionHuman beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals: true or false? This simple question is splitting America apart, with a growing proportion thinking that we did not descend from an ancestral ape. A survey of 32 European countries, the US and Japan has revealed that only Turkey is less willing than the US to accept evolution as fact. Religious fundamentalism, bitter partisan politics and poor science education have all contributed to this denial of evolution in the US, says Jon Miller of Michigan State University in East Lansing, who conducted the survey with his colleagues. "The US is the only country in which [the teaching of evolution] has been politicised," he says. "Republicans have clearly adopted this as one of their wedge issues. In most of the world, this is a non-issue." Miller's report makes for grim reading for adherents of evolutionary theory. Even though the average American has more years of education than when Miller began his surveys 20 years ago, the percentage of people in the country who accept the idea of evolution has declined from 45 in 1985 to 40 in 2005 (Science, vol 313, p 765). That's despite a series of widely publicised advances in genetics, including genetic sequencing, which shows strong overlap of the human genome with those of chimpanzees and mice. "We don't seem to be going in the right direction," Miller says. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 9251 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rick Weiss A painstaking reanalysis of data collected in the 1980s from Vietnam War veterans confirms that post-traumatic stress disorder is a real and common psychiatric consequence of war, but it comes to the controversial conclusion that significantly fewer veterans were affected than experts have thought. The report's suggestion that one in five Vietnam veterans had the syndrome at some point in the first dozen years after the war -- as opposed to previous estimates as high as one in three -- drew praise from some experts as a valuable reassessment of an issue made timely by fresh waves of disturbed veterans coming back from Iraq. "It provides a more accurate gauge of the treatment needs," said Harvard University psychologist Richard J. McNally, who wrote a commentary accompanying the research in today's issue of the journal Science. But other experts and some veterans groups criticized the study, saying it used criteria so narrow that it excluded many vets who should have been included. "It uses a naive formulation of what represents a trauma exposure and so covers only a small percentage of people actually exposed to traumatic events," said Arthur Blank Jr., a Bethesda psychiatrist who treated soldiers in Vietnam and later served for 12 years as director of the federal network of counseling centers for combat veterans. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 9250 - Posted: 06.24.2010

When he began his research on motion sickness, Tom Stoffregen thought finding test subjects would be difficult. After all, it's called motion sickness because it results in headaches, dizziness, and, often, literally being sick. What kind of people would be eager to find out what it takes to make them throw up? U students, it turns out. A lot of them. "Undergraduate students, as a class, are suicidal," Stoffregen says bluntly. "I'm flooded with volunteers." He suspects the mass offering of students may have something to do with misplaced pride. "People think, 'You can't make me throw up,'" he says. Unfortunately for them, Stoffregen, a professor in the College of Education and Human Development's School of Kinesiology, has invested a lot of time and effort into finding out exactly what brings on motion sickness. And, like an academic 007, he's got a license to test. Stoffregen's interest in motion sickness goes back to his childhood, when he was interested in space flight. He knew some astronauts suffered motion sickness, and after studying motion in graduate school and working for NASA, he wanted to find out why. People have been motion sick for thousands of years, says Stoffregen, conjuring visions of dizzy Neanderthals and green-faced Vikings, but no one is sure why. ©2006 Regents of the University of Minnesota.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 9249 - Posted: 06.24.2010

JOHANNESBURG - Dolphins may have big brains, but a South African-based scientist says lab rats and even goldfish can outwit them. Paul Manger of Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand says the super-sized brains of dolphins, whales and porpoises are a function of being warm-blooded in a cold water environment and not a sign of intelligence. "We equate our big brain with intelligence. Over the years we have looked at these kinds of things and said the dolphins must be intelligent," he said. "The real flaw in this logic is that it suggests all brains are built the same ... When you look at the structure of the dolphin brain you see it is not built for complex information processing," he told Reuters in an interview. A neuroethologist who looks at brain evolution, Manger's views are sure to cause a stir among a public which has long associated dolphins with intelligence, emotion and other humanlike qualities. They are widely regarded as one of the smartest mammals. But Manger, whose peer-reviewed research on the subject has been published in Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, says the reality is different. Brains, he says, are made of neurons and glia. The latter create the environment for the neurons to work properly and producing heat is one of glia's functions. © 2006 MSNBC.com

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 9248 - Posted: 06.24.2010

At a speed-dating event in New York City, Adele Testani stands in the middle of a crowded bar with a whistle in her mouth and her eyes focused on her stopwatch. Moving from table to table, singles have only a few minutes to judge a potential mate as Testani, co-founder of HurryDate, ushers them along. Testani knows firsthand how body language can tell a lot, but is often misjudged. When she started dating her husband, she had him try out one of her events. Testani occasionally touches participants on the back to keep them moving. "And I kept doing that with my now husband, and he thought I was really into him," she recalls. Cornell University social psychologist David Dunning says it's sometimes difficult to decipher body language, like distinguishing between a smile and a smirk. Every day, he says, we deal with ambiguous images, and what we know as wishful thinking might affect not only how we interpret those images, but how we actually see them. "It's well established from evidence in everyday life and laboratory that people think what they want to think," he says. "We're taking this a step beyond. We're asking if desires and fears can influence literally what people physically see." David Dunning and study co-author Emily Balcetis told volunteers that a computer game would assign them either a letter or number to decide whether they would drink freshly-squeezed orange juice or an intentionally disgusting smoothie. © ScienCentral, 2000-2006.

Keyword: Vision; Attention
Link ID: 9247 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The compelling urge to satisfy one's hunger enlists structures throughout the brain, as might be expected in a process so necessary for survival. But until now, studies of those structures and of the feeding cycle have been only fragmentary--measuring brain regions only at specific times in the feeding cycle. Now, however, Ivan de Araujo, Duke University Medical Center, and colleagues report they have mapped the activity of whole ensembles of neurons in multiple feeding-related brain areas across a full cycle of hunger-satiety-hunger. Their findings, reported in the August 17, 2006, issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press, open the way to understanding how these ensembles of neurons integrate to form a sort of distributed "code" that governs the motivation that drives organisms to satisfy their hunger. In their paper, Ivan de Araujo and colleagues implanted bundles of infinitesimal recording electrodes in areas of rat brain known to be involved in feeding, motivation, and behavior. Those areas include the lateral hypothalamus, orbitofrontal cortex, insular cortex, and amygdala. The researchers then recorded neuronal activity in those regions through a feeding cycle, in which the rats became hungry, fed on sugar water to satisfy that hunger, and then grew hungry again. "This allowed us to measure both the ability of single neurons to encode for specific phases of a feeding cycle and how neuronal populations integrate information conveyed by these phase-specific neurons in order to reflect the animal's motivational state," wrote the researchers.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9246 - Posted: 08.19.2006

By Kelli Whitlock Burton Three independent research groups have identified a large genetic deletion that causes mental retardation. "They've broken open a bubble of something that's going to lead to a lot of follow up," comments William Dobyns, a developmental neurogeneticist at the University of Chicago, who was not affiliated with any of the studies. Mental retardation comes in a baffling diversity of conditions and could be caused by hundreds of underlying genetic triggers, only a few of which have been identified. One glimmer of hope is the advent of detailed scans of individuals' genomes, which are powerful tools in the search for mutations. However, they yield a deluge of data. Focusing in, researchers in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle decided to take aim at "hot spots" on the genome. These regions are flanked by duplicated genetic sequences prone to rearrangement, which can lead to the accidental loss of genes. Each team examined a different population of people, ranging in size from 50 to 1200, with various kinds of mental retardation. They found that a small number were missing the same six genes on chromosome 17. Two of these genes, when deleted, are thought to be involved with mental retardation. The data suggest that the deletion could be involved in about 1% of all cases of mental retardation, the researchers report online 13 August in a trio of papers in Nature Genetics. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 9245 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The same brain machinery that responds to the active substance in marijuana provides a central "on-demand" protection against seizures, researchers have found. They said their discoveries suggest that the "endocannabinoid" system might constitute a prime target for drugs against seizures of epilepsy and other neurodegenerative diseases. The findings were published by Beat Lutz and Giovanni Marsicano, of Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry and Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, and colleagues in the August 17, 2006, issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press. The endocannabinoid system--which includes the receptors, the natural cannabinoid compounds that trigger them, as well as the machinery for regulating the process--was already known to modulate the excitation of neuronal transmission, noted the researchers. However, it had not been established that such modulation might affect neurons in the hippocampus responsible for the "excitotoxicity" that underlies the uncontrolled activity of seizures. Thus, Lutz, Marsicano, and his colleagues used genetic techniques to pinpoint the role of the endocannabinoid system on these neurons and on seizure activity. They used mice as their animal model and induced seizures in these mice with the chemical kainic acid (KA).

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Epilepsy
Link ID: 9244 - Posted: 08.19.2006

A recent study provides evidence that autism affects the functioning of virtually the entire brain, and is not limited to the brain areas involved with social interactions, communication behaviors, and reasoning abilities, as had been previously thought. The study, conducted by scientists in a research network supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that autism also affects a broad array of skills and abilities, including those involved with sensory perception, movement, and memory. The findings, appearing in the August Child Neuropsychology, strongly suggest that autism is a disorder in which the various parts of the brain have difficulty working together to accomplish complex tasks. The study was conducted by researchers in the Collaborative Program of Excellence in Autism (CPEA), a research network funded by two components of the NIH, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. “These findings suggest that further understanding of autism will likely come not from the study of factors affecting one brain area or system, but from studying factors affecting many systems,” said the director of NICHD, Duane Alexander, M.D. People with autism tend to display 3 characteristic behaviors, which are the basis of the diagnosis of autism. Within the last 20 years, however, researchers began studying other aspects of thinking and brain functioning in autism, discovering that people with autism have difficulty in many other areas, including balance, movement, memory, and visual perception skills.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 9243 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Predators prefer to chase smaller-brained prey, which often lack the mental fortitude to escape their brainier hunters, according to a recent study. The findings, published in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters, suggest brain size evolution may be driven by predator-prey relationships since, like a perpetual "Road Runner" cartoon, each side is forever trying to outwit the other. While there has been a consistent increase in relative brain size, and therefore intelligence, over most mammal groups throughout evolutionary time, predator-prey relationships have led to an intelligence divide, said lead researcher Susanne Shultz. "One could make the argument that there has been an arms race of sorts between prey and their predators, said Shultz, a scientist in the Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioral Ecology Research Group at the University of Liverpool, England. "As prey get better at evading their predators, there is strong selection on predators to adopt counter strategies to better catch prey." Shultz and colleague R.I.M. Dunbar studied data on animals from five forest communities in two continents. The animals came from Taļ National Park in West Africa, the Ituri forest in the Republic of Congo, Mahale National Park in Tanzania, Kibale National Park in Uganda and Manu National Park in Peru. © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 9242 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press — Sometimes the numbing effect of TV can be helpful. Especially if you're a kid being stuck with a needle at the hospital. Researchers confirmed the distracting power of television — something parents have long known — when they found that children watching cartoons suffered less pain from a hypodermic needle than kids not watching TV. Especially disturbing to the author of the scientific study was that the cartoons were even more comforting than Mom. While it's good to have a powerful distraction for children getting painful medical procedures, it is also troubling "because we have demonstrated the excessive power of television," said chief author, Carlo Bellieni, a father of three and a neonatologist and pediatrician at the University of Siena in Italy. His research at a nearby hospital was reported this week in the British journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. The study involved 69 children, ages 7 to 12, who were separated into three groups and then asked to rate their pain on a numerical scale when they were stuck with needle used to take a blood sample. The children's mothers also rated the kids' pain. © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 9241 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Helen Thomson Adult human brain cells can generate new tissue when implanted into in the brains of mice, new research reveals. The findings could pave the way to new therapies for a host of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, the researchers say. Furthermore, lab tests show that the mature brain cells have the versatility to divide many times in culture and develop into a wide range of specialised cell types. Researchers at the University of Florida, US, showed for the first time that common human brain cells are adaptable and self-renewing – qualities normally associated with stem cells. Dennis Steindler and his colleagues transplanted adult human brain cells into mice and found that they could successfully generate new neurons and incorporate themselves in a variety of brain regions. The researchers also coaxed a single adult brain cell to divide into millions of new cells in culture. “We can, theoretically, take a single brain cell out of a human being and generate enough brain cells to replace every cell of the donor’s brain,” says Steindler. The new source of human brain cells could be used to repair or replace damaged tissue in degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, the researchers suggest. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Neurogenesis; Stem Cells
Link ID: 9240 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Gaia Vince The fastest evolving gene in the human genome is one linked to brain development, researchers say. A study of differences between the human and chimp genomes has identified a gene associated with neural growth in the cerebral cortex – the part of the brain involved in processing thoughts and learning – as having undergone “accelerated evolutionary change”. Katherine Pollard and colleagues at the University of California Santa Cruz, US, suggest that the fast-changing gene may help explain the dramatic expansion of this part of the brain during the evolution of humans. They identified the rapidly evolving region of DNA – called human accelerated region 1 (HAR1) – after carrying out an extensive computational comparison between the genomes of humans, chimpanzees and other vertebrates. There are only two changes in the 118 letters of DNA code that make up HAR1 between the genomes of chimps and chickens. But chimps and humans are 18 letter-changes apart. And those mutations occurred in just five million years, as we evolved from our shared ancestor. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Evolution; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 9239 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Birds prove wisdom of 'opposites attract' Michael Hopkin Attention henpecked husbands: animal experts have shown that, for cockatiels at least, a one-sided relationship is the best way to ensure harmonious family life. The cockatiel mating game is largely a case of 'opposites attract', says Rebecca Fox of the University of California, Davis, who led the research. She found that cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus) actively seek out potential mates with a personality different to their own, and that these unions tend to progress most smoothly. "Cockatiels are similar to us in the way they have relationships," says Fox. "They have long, cooperative partnerships, raise young together, and compatibility is important to them. It's something people can relate to." The most important consideration for the birds is how agreeable or aggressive their partner is, Fox found when studying their mating tactics. Most aggressive cockatiels tend to court only those that are more docile, and vice versa. This might sound like a recipe for disaster. But it avoids conflicts that might damage the welfare of the birds' young, she explains. "The more agreeable partner is likely to back off and let the less agreeable one cool down in the case of conflict," she says. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9238 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Elderly diabetics with poor blood sugar control have a high prevalence of undiagnosed cognitive dysfunction, depression and functional disabilities, according to a study by researchers in Boston. Dr. Medha Munshi, of the Joslin Diabetes Center, and colleagues examined the association between cognitive dysfunction and blood sugar control in 60 diabetics older than age 70. These individuals had diabetes for an average of about 14 years and elevated hemoglobin A1C levels -- an indicator of poor blood sugar control. The mean HbA1C level was 7.9 percent. The American Diabetes Association recommends a target A1C level of 7.0 or lower. Several common tests were used to screen for cognitive dysfunction such as the Mini Mental State Examination and standard drawing tests. The subjects were also screened for depression and functional disability. Overall, the Mini Mental State Examination scores correlated with drawing test scores. More than a third had low scores on the drawing tests and these scores were inversely correlated with cognitive function. This suggests an association between cognitive dysfunction and poor blood sugar control, the researchers report in Diabetes Care. © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9237 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Calorie-restriction -- consuming 30-percent fewer calories than normal -- is the only scientifically proven way to slow the process of aging in organisms ranging from yeast to mammals. Now a new study in mice shows that through a similar mechanism, calorie restriction may also slow or prevent Alzheimer's disease. "A decrease in amount of calorie intake might have a causal effect in prevention of Alzheimer's disease," says Giulio Pasinetti, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He and his team conducted the study in a strain of transgenic mice destined to develop Alzheimer's-like symptoms. The mice that were fed a calorie-restricted diet, mainly by a reduction in their carbohydrate intake, over a period of six months, had fewer disease symptoms than their normal-diet counterparts. "With this kind of calorie restriction we were able to improve memory function – I would say five-fold times more efficient," says Pasinetti. The amount of beta-amyloid peptides, molecules that cause the build-up of characteristic Alzheimer's plaques, was also much lower in the brains of the mice on the low-calorie diet. Since calorie restriction has been found to increase the expression of proteins known as sirtuins, Pasinetti and his team tested whether or not one of these proteins could be responsible for the reduction of Alzheimer's symptoms in these mice. As they reported in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, they synthesized a sirtuin called SIRT1 and applied it to brain cells in the laboratory to see whether they'd see similar results to those with calorie restriction. © ScienCentral, 2000-2006.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Obesity
Link ID: 9236 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Janet Raloff Known largely as a component of rocket fuel, perchlorate is a pollutant that often turns up in soil and water. In dozens of studies, it has perturbed thyroid-hormone concentrations, which can affect growth and neurological development. Data from fish now indicate that perchlorate can also disrupt sexual development. Some of the changes were so dramatic that scientists initially mistook female fish for males. Several females displayed male-courtship behavior and produced sperm. Richard R. Bernhardt of the University of Alaska in Anchorage and his colleagues focused on threespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus), a tiny marine species. For 3 weeks, the researchers incubated wild-captured adults in clean water or in water treated with 30, 60, or 100 parts per million (ppm) perchlorate. The adults spawned during that period. Each group's offspring were then raised to sexual maturity in similarly treated or untreated water. At spawning age, 10 apparent males per treatment group were each given their own aquariums. Once a day, each male received a 10-minute visit from an egg-swollen female in the same treatment group. ©2006 Science Service.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 9235 - Posted: 06.24.2010