By Marc Kaufman Secondhand smoke dramatically increases the risk of heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmokers and can be controlled only by making indoor spaces smoke-free, according to a comprehensive report issued yesterday by U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona. "The health effects of secondhand smoke exposure are more pervasive than we previously thought," Carmona said. "The scientific evidence is now indisputable: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance. It is a serious health hazard that can lead to disease and premature death in children and nonsmoking adults." According to the report, the government's most detailed statement ever on secondhand smoke, exposure to smoke at home or work increases the nonsmokers' risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30 percent and lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent. It is especially dangerous for children living with smokers and is known to cause sudden infant death syndrome, respiratory problems, ear infections and asthma attacks in infants and children. The report -- which was applauded and embraced by public-health and tobacco-control advocates -- found that nearly half of all nonsmoking Americans are still regularly exposed to smoke from others. It concludes that any exposure to secondhand smoke is a risk to nonsmokers, and as a result the only way to protect nonsmokers is to eliminate indoor smoking. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9074 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The earliest indictor yet of autism may be the presence of flawed cells in the placenta, scientists have discovered. The findings could lead to earlier diagnosis of the developmental disorder that affects approximately one in every 200 children and can result in learning difficulties, speech problems and difficulty relating to people. "The earlier we diagnose it, the more we'll understand the disease and the better and more potent our interventions may be," says research scientist Harvey Kliman of the Yale School of Medicine. Kliman and his team report their finding in the June 26 online issue of Biological Psychiatry. The research builds on Kliman's previous work, which described abnormal, microscopic pits in the skin of the placenta. In the past, these abnormalities have been linked with a long list of genetic defects, including Down's syndrome and Turner's syndrome. Kliman suspected that they may also be linked to autism. So in this study, he and other researchers at Yale used a microscope to examine tissue samples acquired from placenta saved by various research hospitals. Thirteen of the samples came from children later diagnosed with a form of autism; 61 samples came from children who were not diagnosed with the disease. When Kliman compared the two different kinds of tissue, he found that the placentas from the autistic children were three times more likely to have the abnormal microscopic pits. © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 9073 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A protein associated with a disorder that causes deafness and blindness in people may be a key to unraveling one of the foremost mysteries of how we hear, says a study in the June 28 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Scientists with the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom, have identified protocadherin-15 as a likely player in the moment-of-truth reaction in which sound is converted into electrical signals. (Protocadherin-15 is a protein made by a gene that causes one form of type 1 Usher syndrome, the most common cause of deaf-blindness in humans.) The findings will not only provide insight into how hearing takes place at the molecular level, but also may help us figure out why some people temporarily lose their hearing after being exposed to loud noise, only to regain it a day or two later. “These findings offer a more precise picture of the complicated processes involved with our sense of hearing,” says Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., director of the NIH. “With roughly 15 percent of American adults reporting some degree of hearing loss, it is increasingly vital that we continue making inroads into our understanding of these processes, helping us seek new and better treatments, and opening the doors to better hearing health for Americans.” Researchers have long known that hair cells, small sensory cells in the inner ear, convert sound energy into electrical signals that travel to the brain, a process called mechanotransduction. However, the closer one zooms in on the structures involved, the murkier our understanding becomes. When fluid in the inner ear is set into motion by vibrations emanating from the bones of the middle ear, the rippling effect causes bristly structures atop the hair cells to bump up against an overlying membrane and to deflect.

Keyword: Hearing; Vision
Link ID: 9072 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Lindsey Tanner, Associated Press — A study found that in a disturbing number of cases, embarrassing "senior moments" such as forgetting a recent conversation or drawing a blank on someone's name may really be a sign of Alzheimer's after all. Chicago scientists reached that conclusion after autopsies on the brains of 134 older people who had appeared to be mentally normal, apart from some subtle forgetfulness. Occasional forgetfulness is often written off as a normal part of growing old and nothing to get alarmed about. And in most cases, that is probably true. But the scientists found to their surprise that the brains of more than one-third of the participants were riddled with waxy protein clumps and other signs of degeneration that are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. The study "questions the acceptability of minor episodic memory loss in older adults as normal," said Dr. Carol Lippa, director of the memory disorders program at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. She had no part in the study. The study appears in Tuesday's issue of Neurology, the American Academy of Neurology's scientific journal. © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9071 - Posted: 06.24.2010

RICHLAND, Wash.--Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's disease and other brain disorders are among a growing list of maladies attributed to oxidative stress, the cell damage caused during metabolism when the oxygen in the body assumes ever more chemically reactive forms. But the precise connection between oxidation and neurodegenerative diseases has eluded researchers. Now, a study by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine reveals that damage is linked to a natural byproduct of oxidation called nitration. "We looked at a healthy brain and found nitration of proteins that are implicated in neurodegenerative disease," said Colette Sacksteder, PNNL scientist and lead author of the study, published in the July issue of the journal Biochemistry (online Wed., June 28). PNNL scientist Wei-Jun Qian was co-lead author. The results are from the most detailed proteomic analysis of a mammalian brain to date – that is, a survey of nearly 8,000 different, detectable proteins in the mouse brain. The research suggests that many neurodegenerative diseases leave a biochemical calling card, or biomarker, that could be used to predict the earliest stages of brain impairment. Many biomedical researchers believe that detecting disease states before symptoms occur is the key to reversing many as-yet-incurable diseases.

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 9070 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Daniel Stark I am by nature impulsive. I was in the Virgin Islands on vacation with my daughter when I decided to have brain surgery. Being in such a heavenly place made me both optimistic about what life could be and intolerant of how Parkinson's disease was slowly eliminating my ability to enjoy it. When I returned home, I called my neurologist and told her I wanted to have deep brain stimulation, or DBS. DBS involves the implantation of electrodes into very specific areas of the brain. When connected to a power unit and to controllers implanted in the chest, the electrodes deliver signals that interfere with the Parkinson's-induced signals from the brain, reducing or at least temporarily eliminating the quaking, quivering, rigidity and slowness that characterize the disease. The device can be set in so many permutations that it takes weeks or months to program it correctly. Set the voltages too high, and your hands or feet feel electrified; too low, and you need to supplement them with more medication. "Just right" is supposed to feel pretty good. The benefit of the procedure lies in its ability to intervene electrically rather than chemically. As Parkinson's advances, the medication one needs increases to the point where the patient faces an unwelcome choice: Either take enough and deal with the shaking and gyrating movements the medication causes, or reduce the dosage and allow the Parkinson's symptoms, which can be similar to those side effects of the drugs, to take over your body. As time passes, your body veers between being difficult to move and moving uncontrollably, with less and less time in the comfort zone between. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 9069 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sandra G. Boodman Young children who stutter may be more emotionally sensitive and have greater difficulty regulating their feelings than children who don't have the common speech problem, according to a new study by Vanderbilt University researchers. Some experts say the finding may offer new clues to treating the frustrating and sometimes disabling disorder. Stuttering, characterized by the repetition or prolongation of words or the inability to start saying a word, affects about 3 million Americans and usually surfaces between the ages of 2 and 5. For reasons that are not well understood, the problem usually disappears by late childhood, especially in those who begin stuttering before their third birthdays. But in other cases, stuttering can persist into adulthood, causing serious social problems. There is no cure for stuttering; the most effective treatment involves speech therapy, which can last a few sessions or for years, depending on the severity and duration of the problem. Early intervention is believed to shorten both. Unlike some other speech problems, stuttering often waxes and wanes and can worsen in certain situations, such as public speaking. Scientists believe that the speech problem has a strong genetic component -- about 60 percent of stutterers have an affected family member -- and that it is three or four times more common in males. Those affected include actors James Earl Jones, Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Willis and Nicholas Brendon, singer Carly Simon, author John Updike, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), basketball star Kenyon Martin and basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton, according to the nonprofit Stuttering Foundation, an advocacy group. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 9068 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer A boy's chances of growing up gay increase with the number of older brothers he has, and the Canadian researcher who spotted the trend a decade ago now believes he is closer to explaining why: It all starts in the womb. Brock University psychologist Anthony Bogaert first reported in 1996 the startling finding that a boy's probability of growing up gay increases by about one-third with each older brother in his family. It's a subtle phenomenon -- nearly all boys even in large families still grow up straight -- but subsequent research has affirmed that the "fraternal birth order effect" is real. Since that discovery, researchers have been trying to figure out what might explain it. The most likely answer, they thought, had something to do with how younger brothers are raised -- perhaps having many older brothers drives the youngest to adopt a different sex role. But in a study released Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Bogaert unearthed another surprise. The sexual orientation of younger brothers appears to be established before birth. "These results provide evidence that a prenatal mechanism ... affects men's sexual orientation development,'' he wrote. Bogaert came to his latest conclusion in a study involving the birth order and family history of 944 men -- about half identifying as straight and the other half gay or bisexual. ©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 9067 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Constance Holden Brain scans have shown that speakers of English and Chinese process language somewhat differently. Now a new study has extended this finding, showing that English and Chinese speakers also process numbers differently--even though they use the same Arabic symbols. The authors believe it is not just language but mode of language learning that makes the difference. When reading, Chinese speakers tend to rely on visual-spatial brain areas, while English speakers rely more on language-related brain areas. To see whether the same applied to number processing, a U.S.-Chinese research team led by Yiyuan Tang of Dalian University of Technology in China compared 12 native English speakers living in Dalian with 12 local university students. The subjects, all in their 20s, were equally divided by sex, and their brains were scanned while they performed simple tasks. One involved looking at three meaningless symbols and judging the spatial orientation of the third in relation to the first two. This task, which activated both visual and language pathways, elicited no differences between the two language groups. But when this task was repeated with numbers rather than symbols, "remarkable differences" emerged, the authors report online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 9066 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Andy Coghlan The precise part of the brain likely to be the seat of heterosexual desire in women has been revealed by experiments on mice. The study confirms that the hormone oestrogen is vital for arousal, but only in the specific area of the brain called the ventromedial nucleus (VMN) in the hypothalamus. Sonoko Ogawa of the University of Tsukuba in Japan and her collaborators in the US discovered this by blocking the effects of oestrogen exclusively in that part of the brain in mice. They did this with tiny slugs of genetic material called small hairpin RNAs designed to block production of oestrogen receptor alpha, the molecule where oestrogen docks on cells in the VMN and elsewhere in the body. They used a harmless virus to shuttle the RNAs exclusively into the VMN, so that oestrogen signals would only be blocked there and nowhere else in the body. The effect was dramatic - the females refused to have sex. “They became extremely aggressive towards males, and started biting and kicking when males approached,” says Ogawa. The females refused to mate and none of them showed the usual signs of sexual receptivity. By contrast, control females injected with neutral RNAs mated as usual. View a video of the normal mice (top) and those in which sexual receptivity was blocked (bottom). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 9065 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Over 80% of people with Parkinson's disease frequently experience depression, a European survey finds. But the poll of 500 patients with mild-to-moderate forms of the disease found 40% rarely - or never - talked to their doctors about depression. And two thirds of doctors polled said they considered other symptoms were more important than depression. But Parkinson's experts said depressive symptoms were as important as motor problems for people with the disease. Around one in 500 people in the UK have Parkinson's disease. Around 10,000 new cases are diagnosed annually, with one in 20 affected someone under 40. The most well-known symptom is tremors in the arms and legs. But depression can stem from people's feelings about their condition, or as another symptom caused by the neurological effects of the disease. This survey covered patients in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. Researchers also spoke to 500 specialist doctors in the same countries. Virtually all said the majority of their patients "often" or "sometimes" experienced symptoms of depression. But 49% said such symptoms were difficult to recognise. Doctors said the main reason they did not discuss depression was that they felt that patients did not rate these symptoms as being as important as other aspects of their condition. But patients said depression was almost as significant for them as movement problems. (C)BBC

Keyword: Parkinsons; Depression
Link ID: 9064 - Posted: 06.26.2006

By BENOIT DENIZET-LEWIS Last month, the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was host to a conference about addiction for a small, invitation-only crowd of neuroscientists, clinicians and public policy makers. It was an unusual gathering. Addiction conferences are usually sober affairs, but M.I.T. offered a lavish cocktail reception (with an open bar, no less). More important, the conference was a celebration of the new ways scientists and addiction researchers are conceptualizing, and seeking to treat, addiction. While many in the treatment field have long called addiction a "disease," they've used the word in vague and metaphorical ways, meaning everything from a disease of the mind to a disease of the spirit. Many assumed that an addict suffers from a brain-chemistry problem, but scientists had not been able to peer into our heads to begin to prove it. Discuss medical approaches to treating addiction. Now they can, using advances in brain-imaging technology. And they tend to agree on what they see, although not necessarily on how to fix it: addiction — whether to alcohol, to drugs or even to behaviors like gambling — appears to be a complicated disorder affecting brain processes responsible for motivation, decision making, pleasure seeking, inhibitory control and the way we learn and consolidate information and experiences. This new research, in turn, is fueling a vast effort by scientists and pharmaceutical companies to develop medications and vaccines to treat addiction. The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism are studying, or financing studies on, more than 200 addiction medications. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9063 - Posted: 06.24.2010

People who have been exposed to pesticides are 70 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than those who haven't, according to a new study. The results suggest that any pesticide exposure, whether occupationally related or not, will increase a person's risk of the disease. This means that using pesticides in the home or garden may have similarly harmful effects as working with the chemicals on a farm or as a pest controller. The research, published in the July issue of Annals of Neurology, provides the strongest evidence to date of the link between pesticide exposure and Parkinson's. The study included over 143,000 men and women who completed extensive lifestyle questionnaires beginning in 1982, and follow-up surveys through 2001. All subjects were symptom-free at the beginning of the project, when they were asked about their occupation and exposure to potentially hazardous materials. Since then, 413 of them have developed confirmed cases of Parkinson's, with a greater incidence of the disease in those who spent time around pesticides. "Low- dose pesticide exposure was associated with a significant increase in risk for Parkinson's disease," says lead author Alberto Ascherio of the Harvard School for Public Health. "I think this is one reason to be careful about using pesticides in general." Although the causes of Parkinson's are not well understood, it has long been suspected that environmental factors play a large role. Animal studies have shown that chemical compounds commonly used as pesticides can cause a degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons. © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc

Keyword: Parkinsons; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 9062 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have discovered in the placenta what may be the earliest marker for autism, possibly helping physicians diagnose the condition at birth, rather than the standard age of two or older. The findings are reported in the June 26 online issue of Biological Psychiatry. Autism is a developmental disorder that has a profound effect on socialization, communication, learning and other behaviors. In most cases, onset is early in infancy. Information on the earliest development aspects of autism in children has been limited even though approximately one in every 200 children is diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The earlier the diagnosis is made, the greater the treatment impact. Current studies are searching for characteristics in children at risk for ASD so that the diagnosis can be made prior to age one. The ideal time for diagnosis would be at birth, according to senior author on the study Harvey J. Kliman, M.D., research scientist in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the Yale School of Medicine. In previous work, Kliman had observed an unusual pathologic finding in the placentas from children with Asperger Syndrome, an ASD condition which, like autism, impairs the ability to relate to others. They found that the placentas from ASD children were three times more likely to have the inclusions. Kliman and the team identified trophoblast inclusions by performing microscopic examinations of placental tissues.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 9061 - Posted: 06.26.2006

MADISON-Although millions depend on medications such as Ritalin to quell symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), scientists have struggled to pinpoint how the drugs work in the brain. But new work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is now starting to clear up some of the mystery. Writing in the journal Biological Psychiatry, UW-Madison researchers report that ADHD drugs primarily target the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a region of the brain that is associated with attention, decision-making and an individual's expression of personality. The finding could prove invaluable in the search for new ADHD treatments, and comes amidst deep public concern over the widespread abuse of existing ADHD medicines. "There's been a lot of concern over giving a potentially addictive drug to a child [with ADHD]," says lead author Craig Berridge, a UW-Madison professor of psychology. "But in order to come up with a better drug we must first know what the existing drugs do." A behavioral disorder that afflicts both children and adults, ADHD is marked by hyperactivity, impulsivity and an inability to concentrate. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 2 million children in the U.S. suffer from the condition, with between 30 to 70 percent of them continuing to exhibit symptoms in their adult years.

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 9060 - Posted: 06.26.2006

Helen Pearson Stimulating a protein on the surface of the brain's stem cells helps rats recover after a stroke, US researchers have found. The discovery suggests that in humans it could be possible to provoke the body's own stem cells into repairing an injury, rather than laboriously growing and transplanting new cells. Researchers believe that many of the body's tissues harbour stem cells capable of dividing to make new tissue. But some of these are recalcitrant and do not naturally divide to repair damage wreaked by severe injuries such as stroke or spinal-cord damage. Ronald McKay and his colleagues at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland, have now shown that one protein, called Notch, can boost the survival of three different types of stem cell1. Notch sits on cell surfaces and is vital for the correct growth of embryos. The team studied rats afflicted with a stroke-like brain injury that normally dulls their movement. When they infused the animals' brains for one week with a molecule that stimulates Notch, the animals' movements improved. The rats also sprouted a collection of new cells in the brain. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Stroke; Regeneration
Link ID: 9059 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NICHOLAS WADE Biologists say they have gained a new insight into the basic cause of Parkinson's disease that, if confirmed, could lead to a novel class of drugs. The cause of the disease appears to lie in the nerve cell's internal delivery system for shuttling packets of chemicals around, a team of researchers led by Susan Lindquist of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., report in today's issue of Science. Tremors and other symptoms of Parkinson's result from the death of certain neurons. Another sign of the disease is the appearance inside these neurons of clumps of protein known as Lewy bodies. Many experts believe the clumps are toxic to the neurons. But the reason for the clumps is obscure, as is the presence in them of large amounts of a mysterious protein known as alpha synuclein. Dr. Lindquist and her colleagues believe they have come close to defining the normal role of this protein. It appears to be involved in the elaborate system by which packets of chemicals are transferred between compartments within the cell, and may accumulate in human cells because of a breakdown in this rapid and tightly controlled traffic, she believes. She has also been able to reverse the damage, at least in laboratory organisms, by inserting genes that counteract synuclein. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 9058 - Posted: 06.24.2006

By Shankar Vedantam Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States. A quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal troubles, more than double the number who were similarly isolated in 1985. Overall, the number of people Americans have in their closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two. The comprehensive new study paints a sobering picture of an increasingly fragmented America, where intimate social ties -- once seen as an integral part of daily life and associated with a host of psychological and civic benefits -- are shrinking or nonexistent. In bad times, far more people appear to suffer alone. "That image of people on roofs after Katrina resonates with me, because those people did not know someone with a car," said Lynn Smith-Lovin, a Duke University sociologist who helped conduct the study. "There really is less of a safety net of close friends and confidants." If close social relationships support people in the same way that beams hold up buildings, more and more Americans appear to be dependent on a single beam. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 9057 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Neely Tucker A politician with clinical depression? What kind, the staggering bipolar variety? The fluttering veils of gray known as dysthymia? He's on medication? Is it a mild dosage of Prozac, a few milligrams of Zoloft? Heavyweight dosages of lithium? Twenty, thirty years ago, it wouldn't have mattered. Any open admission of an illness associated with asylums would have been the kiss of political death. It was "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" territory. Ask Tom Eagleton. But much has changed about the stigma around mental illness, mood disorders and their role in American politics since Eagleton was dumped from the vice presidential spot on the 1972 ballot after it was learned he had undergone electroconvulsive therapy. Back then, they said it was for "nervous exhaustion." Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan's announcement yesterday that he was dropping out of the Maryland governor's race because of clinical depression startled observers, but mainly because the 50-year-old Duncan had been in public office for more than a dozen years with little indication of depressive behavior. He said yesterday that his family has a history of depression, but he did not elaborate on details of his condition or treatment. He said he had begun medication on Monday. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 9056 - Posted: 06.24.2010

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA -- Late-onset depression, which first emerges in people aged 60 and over, is linked to a decline in the brain's executive functions that leads to repetitive, negative thought patterns a new study reveals. Executive functions are those that enable people to plan and control their thoughts and actions. Published in the current issue of Cognitive Therapy and Research, the finding is based on a survey of 44 people suffering from depressive symptoms. Aged 66–92 years, the study's participants came from retirement communities in Sydney, Australia. The study's lead author, Bill von Hippel, says evidence for the conclusion is based on three findings. "First, the people with late-onset depressive symptoms showed poorer performance on executive function tests than those with early onset depression." "Executive decline" is a normal part of ageing linked to decreased efficiency in the brain's frontal lobes. Typical signs of executive decline include disinhibition, rigid thinking, inattention and a decline in working memory. "Second, we saw that executive decline was associated with rumination – a tendency for repeated negative thinking patterns -- among those with late-onset depression," says von Hippel, who is associate professor of psychology at the University of New South Wales. "We saw no such link among those who had early-onset depression." "Third, the link between executive decline and late onset depression was brought about by their joint association with rumination. That is, executive decline was only associated with late-onset depression to the degree that it led people to ruminate. When executive dysfunction did not lead to rumination, it did not predict late-onset depression.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 9055 - Posted: 06.24.2010