By Sandra G. Boodman Some doctors call it "the other f-word" -- a problem they see on a daily basis but many are reluctant to address: kids who are too fat. The issue is not new, but experts say it has acquired greater urgency as obesity has ballooned in the past 25 years, accompanied by sharp increases in diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol, conditions that used to be largely the province of those middle-aged or older. In 1980, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 7 percent of children and 5 percent of teenagers were overweight; today the figures hover around 19 percent and 17 percent, respectively. Doctors at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, where 38 percent of patients are obese, say that in recent years they have treated a 9-year-old who suffered a heart attack, a child with a body mass index of 52 (a 5-foot-6 adult with a BMI of 52 would weigh 322 pounds) and several others so dangerously fat that they underwent gastric bypass surgery. So why are many doctors reluctant to mention an obvious problem? © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Obesity; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 9146 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Some people never forget a face. Heather Sellers never remembers one. She finds it almost impossible to recognize people simply by looking at them. She remembers the books she reads as well as anyone else, but movies and TV shows are impossible to follow because all of the actors’ faces seem so similar. She can recall a name or a telephone number with ease, but she is unable to remember her own face well enough to pick it out in a group photograph. Dr. Sellers, a professor of English at Hope College in Holland, Mich., has a disorder called prosopagnosia, or face blindness, and she has had it since birth. “I see faces that are human,” she said, “but they all look more or less the same. It’s like looking at a bunch of golden retrievers: some may seem a little older or smaller or bigger, but essentially they all look alike.” Face blindness can be a rare result of a stroke or a brain injury, but a study published in the July issue of The American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A is the first report of the prevalence of a congenital or developmental form of the disorder. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 9145 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Marie McCullough Over the centuries, coffee has been cursed for making soldiers undependable, women infertile, peasants rebellious, and worse. In England in 1674, for example, the anonymous authors of the Women's Petition Against Coffee complained that they were suffering in the bedroom because men were constantly in coffeehouses, slurping that "nauseous Puddle-water": "That Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE... has... Eunucht our Husbands... that they are become as Impotent as Age." Makes you wonder what those guys were putting in their daily grind besides cream and sugar. The point is, coffee has always been more than a beverage, and its health effects have always been controversial. After all, coffee is chock-full o' the drug 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine - better known as caffeine (even decaf has caf) - plus a wholelatte other chemicals and additives. Recently, the buzz on brew has been good. Glug enough of it, research suggests, and you'll lower your risk of diabetes, liver cirrhosis, Parkinson's disease, gallstones and suicide. You'll also sprint better. But not long ago, in the 1970s and '80s, coffee's name was mud. It was connected - tenuously or incorrectly, experts now say - to pancreatic cancer, heart attacks, birth defects, miscarriage, osteoporosis, and other ill effects. The surprising thing is that even after a thousand years, this ubiquitous liquid remains quite mysterious. So sit back, sip some drip, and ponder the latest research:

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9144 - Posted: 07.18.2006

By Briahna Gray It's said that if you're lucky, you'll grow old gracefully, accepting with aplomb the wrinkles, hair loss, and organ failure that come with age. However, these characteristics may not be the result of natural wear and tear. A new study published 19 July in Genes and Development suggests that how we age may be linked to a gene that, until now, was only thought to be involved with the body's internal clock. Scientists first noticed connection between aging and circadian rhythms in mice bred to lack a gene known as BMAL1. BMAL1 is part of the molecular machinery that keeps the body in synch with the daily rising and setting of the sun, and mice that lack the gene had irregular activity patterns--using their running wheel at strange times of day, for example. The mice also seemed to die a lot sooner than normal mice, but until now, no one had done a formal study to investigate why. To see if BMAL1 plays a role in aging, Marina Antoch, a molecular biologist at the Lerner Research Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, and her team observed a group of 30 BMAL1 knockout mice. The knockout mice lived only half as long as 30 normal mice did, the researchers found. They also found that the knockout mice aged at an accelerated rate: By 18 weeks of age, the knockouts had lost a significant amount of fat, muscle, and bone mass. They also exhibited organ shrinkage in their spleens, kidneys, hearts, lungs, and testes--all signs of aging. And, like older humans, the BMAL1 mice lost hair and developed cataracts in one or both eyes. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 9143 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have discovered genetic mutations that cause a form of familial frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a finding that provides clues to the underlying mechanism of this devastating disease and that may provide insight for future approaches to developing therapies. The mutations are contained in a single gene that scientists can now identify as responsible for a large portion of inherited FTD. A rare brain disorder, FTD usually affects people between ages 40 and 64 with symptoms that include personality changes and inappropriate social behavior. Published online July 16, 2006, in Nature, the research was funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The discovery builds on a 1998 finding of mutations in another gene that is responsible for a smaller proportion of inherited FTD cases. Amazingly, both the gene found in 1998 and the newly found gene were found on the same region of chromosome 17. Today’s discovery appears to explain all the remaining inherited FTD cases linked to genes on chromosome 17 and may provide new insights into the causes of the overall disease process. Geneticist Michael Hutton, Ph.D., of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Jacksonville, Fla., led an international scientific team to discover the new gene. “This new finding is an important advance in our understanding of frontotemporal dementia,” says NIA director Richard J. Hodes. “It identifies a mutation in the gene producing a growth factor that helps neurons survive, and it suggests that lack of this growth factor may be involved in this form of frontotemporal dementia.”

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 9142 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DENISE GRADY Several new studies suggest that diabetes increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, adding to a store of evidence that links the disorders. The studies involve only Type 2 diabetes, the most common kind, which is usually related to obesity. The connection raises an ominous prospect: that increases in diabetes, a major concern in the United States and worldwide, may worsen the rising toll from Alzheimer’s. The findings also add dementia to the cloud of threats that already hang over people with diabetes, including heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, blindness and amputations. But some of the studies also hint that measures to prevent or control diabetes may lower the dementia risk, and that certain diabetes drugs should be tested to find whether they can help Alzheimer’s patients, even those without diabetes. Current treatments for Alzheimer’s can provide only a modest improvement in symptoms and cannot stop the progression of the disease. The new findings were presented yesterday by the Alzheimer’s Association at a six-day conference in Madrid attended by 5,000 researchers from around the world. Alzheimer’s affects 1 in 10 people over age 65, and nearly half of people over 85. About 4.5 million Americans have it, and taking care of them costs $100 billion a year, according to the association. The number of patients is expected to grow, possibly reaching 11.3 million to 16 million by 2050, the association said. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 9141 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Houston, – In the second it takes you to read these words, tens of thousands of vesicles in your optic nerves are released in sequence, opening tiny surface pores to pass chemical signals to the next cell down the line, telling your brain what you're seeing and your eyes where to move. Thanks to two new studies – including one spearheaded by an undergraduate biochemistry student at Rice University and published online today by Nature Structural and Molecular Biology – scientists have defined the function of a key protein that nerve cells use to pass information quickly. Like all cells in our bodies, nerve cells are encased in a membrane, a thin layer of fatty tissue that walls off the outside world from the cell's interior. And like other cells, nerve cells use a complex system of proteins as sensors, switches and activators to scan the outside world and decide when to open membrane doorways to take in food, expel waste and export chemical products to the rest of the body. Many studies suggest that a group of proteins called SNAREs act like the cell's loading dock managers, deciding when to open the door to release shipments of chemical freight. SNAREs form a docking bay for cartons of chemicals encased in their own fatty membranes. "Nerve cells are one of the few cells in our bodies in which vesicles are prepositioned at the cell membrane, because they have to be ready to release neurotransmitter to the next nerve cell at a moment's notice," said principal researcher James McNew, assistant professor of biochemistry and cell biology.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 9140 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius Meerkats are natural teachers—one of the few animals other than people so far shown to have the knack, say researchers. Older hunters gradually introduce pups to the art of eating dinner before it runs away, reports Alex Thornton of the University of Cambridge in England. In the July 14 Science, he and his Cambridge colleague Katherine McAuliffe argue that these interactions meet the criteria for teaching. "It's really important to understand simple forms of teaching if we're going to understand how human teaching evolved," says Thornton. The definition of teaching that Thornton and McAuliffe use requires that in the presence of pupils, the teacher does something special or performs a task less efficiently than it would on its own and that the pupils learn faster than they would without the teacher's activity. Researchers previously argued that a British species of ant meets these criteria. To test these ideas in meerkats, Thornton and McAuliffe worked with animal groups in the Kalahari Desert, including the animals now starring in the television series Meerkat Manor. ©2006 Science Service.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9139 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Gorillas have been seen for the first time using simple tools to perform tasks in the wild, researchers say. Scientists observed gorillas in a remote Congolese forest using sticks to test the depth of muddy water and to cross swampy areas. Wild chimps and orangutans also use tools, suggesting that the origins of tool use may predate the evolutionary split between apes and humans. Gorillas are endangered, with some populations numbered in the hundreds. "We've been observing gorillas for 10 years here, and we have two cases of them using detached objects as tools," said Thomas Breuer, from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), who heads the study team in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo. "In the first case, we had a female crossing a pool; and this female has crossed this pool by using a detached stick and testing the water depth, and trying to use it as a walking stick," he told the BBC. The second case saw another female gorilla pick up the trunk of a dead shrub and use it to lean on while dredging for food in a swamp. She then placed the trunk down on the swampy ground and used it as a bridge. "What's fascinating about these observations is the similarity between what these creatures have done, and what we do in the context of crossing a pond," observed Dr Breuer. "The most astonishing thing is that we have observed them using tools not for obtaining food, but for postural support." (C)BBC

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 9138 - Posted: 07.15.2006

The regions in robins' brains responsible for singing and mating are shrinking when exposed to high levels of DDT, says new University of Alberta research--the first proof that natural exposure to a contaminant damages the brain of a wild animal. "These residues have been persisting since the late 1960s--that's what is really disturbing," said Dr. Andrew Iwaniuk, a post-doctoral research fellow in the U of A's Department of Psychology. "It has been years since it has been used and still has this effect." The new research, published in Behavioural Brain Research, strongly suggests that exposure to environmental levels of DDT causes significant changes in the brains of songbirds. Previous studies have suggested that exposure to DDT residues affect the brain, but none have actually demonstrated it. The research team, including Iwaniuk's supervisor, psychology professor and Tier II Canada Research Chair Douglas Wong-Wylie, used American Robins to test the idea. Birds are more susceptible to the effects of pesticide residues and other contaminants in the environment than other animals. As well, American robins are often exposed to high levels of DDT and other chemicals because they rely heavily on earthworms as part of their diet. They specifically chose these birds in the Okanagan Valley because at that location they are exposed to high levels of DDT, but relatively low levels of other chemicals.

Keyword: Neurotoxins; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 9137 - Posted: 07.15.2006

Roxanne Khamsi Living alone doubles the risk of heart disease, suggests the largest prospective study so far to examine a possible link. But the same research also suggests that divorce may do the heart some good – but only for women. Kirsten Nielsen of the Aarhus Sygehus University Hospital in Aarhus, Denmark, and colleagues used information from their national health database on people aged 30 to 69 living in Aarhus. They also examined these individuals’ health records from 2000 to 2002. The team hoped to understand the risk factors that predispose people to a form of heart disease known as acute coronary syndrome, which includes heart attacks and sudden cardiac death. Of over 138,000 people studied, 646 were diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome. Men above the age of 50, and women above 60, who lived alone were particularly at risk. Despite constituting just 8% of the whole study population, these groups accounted for more than 96% of all deaths within a month of a positive diagnosis, Nielsen notes. Overall, the risk of acute coronary syndrome among those who lived alone was double that of those who lived with someone else. However, the 10,000 or so divorced women had a 40% reduced risk of the syndrome, compared with women who were not divorced. But the researchers say they do not know what how many of the divorced women in their study were remarried. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Stress; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 9136 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Silk may be able to help repair damaged nerves, according to scientists. The UK researchers have shown how nerve cells can grow along bundles of a special fibre, which has properties similar to spider silk. They hope the silk will encourage cell re-growth across severed nerves, possibly even in damaged spinal cords. A picture of nerve cells growing on the silk is one of the winning images in this year's Wellcome Trust Biomedical Image Awards. It is one of 26 images - many revealing objects invisible to the naked eye - captured from medical research programmes across Britain. The silk, dubbed Spidrex, comes from silk worms that have been modified to give the fibres special properties that help cells to bind. Professor John Priestley, a neuroscientist from Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, and lead researcher, said the silk acted as a scaffold on which nerve cells could grow. The team has tested the silk in tissue culture (shown in the winning image) and in animals - and in both cases, said Professor Priestly, the results had been good. (C)BBC

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 9135 - Posted: 07.13.2006

By ANDREW POLLACK A paralyzed man with a small sensor implanted in his brain was able to control a computer, a television set and a robot using only his thoughts, scientists reported yesterday. Those results offer hope that in the future, people with spinal cord injuries, Lou Gehrig’s disease or other conditions that impair movement may be able to communicate or better control their world. “If your brain can do it, we can tap into it,” said John P. Donoghue, a professor of neuroscience at Brown University who has led development of the system and was the senior author of a report on it being published in today’s issue of the journal Nature. In a variety of experiments, the first person to receive the implant, Matthew Nagle, moved a cursor, opened e-mail, played a simple video game called Pong and drew a crude circle on the screen. He could change the channel or volume on a television set, move a robot arm somewhat, and open and close a prosthetic hand. Although his cursor control was sometimes wobbly, the basic movements were not hard to learn. “I pretty much had that mastered in four days,” Mr. Nagle, 26, said in a telephone interview from the New England Sinai Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Stoughton, Mass. He said the implant did not cause any pain. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Robotics; Regeneration
Link ID: 9134 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ST. LOUIS – Researchers at Saint Louis University School of Medicine have received nearly half a million dollars from the National Eye Institute to study a protein thought to be linked to Alzheimer’s disease and its possible relationship to age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in people over 60. Apolipoprotein E (apoE) is a protein component that helps transport cholesterol in the blood between the liver and other tissues, says Steven Fliesler, Ph.D., professor and director of research in the department of ophthalmology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and lead investigator. It also is present in the brain and other nervous tissues, including the retina. There are three genetically determined forms of apoE (apoE-2, apoE-3 and apoE-4), each encoded by a specific sequence of DNA . Studies suggest that apoE-3 may play a protective role in the nervous system, assisting in the repair of nervous tissue, such as after a brain injury. On the other hand, people who have elevated levels of the apoE-4 version of the protein are at an increased risk for developing the late onset, familial type of Alzheimer’s disease. The mystery SLU researchers are now trying to solve is why the reverse seems to be true when it comes to advanced macular degeneration. © 2003 Saint Louis University

Keyword: Alzheimers; Vision
Link ID: 9133 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Laura Blackburn "I really like wearing this new lipstick!" Coming from your sister, this comment probably wouldn't sound strange, but if your brother said it, you'd likely do a double-take. New research helps explain why. We all notice when someone says something we don't expect. The surprise arises, linguists believe, because the brain uses information about people to make sense of what they say. Some scientists have assumed that the brain processes the meaning of a sentence first, then worries about who said it. Psychologist Jos van Berkum of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and his colleagues were curious about whether this sequence actually held true. The research team attached 12 men and 12 women to an electroencephalograph (EEG) that measures brain electrical activity with high temporal resolution. Then the volunteers listened to sentences that were made nonsensical by an out-of-place word. These semantically incorrect sentences, such as "I wash my hands with horse and water" caused a big spike in brain activity 200 to 300 milliseconds after the misplaced word occurred. No spike occurred during the control: "I wash my hands with soap and water." © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 9132 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Celeste Biever A man paralysed from the neck down by knife injuries sustained five years ago can now check his email, control a robot arm and even play computer games using the power of thought alone. Matt Nagle's extraordinary abilities were first reported in March 2005. Now details of the technology that lets him perform these tasks are published in the journal Nature. Another study in the same issue reveals a technique that could dramatically improve the speed with which such implants work. Electrodes implanted in Nagle's brain measure the neural signals generated when he concentrates on trying to move one of his paralysed limbs. Software trained to recognise different patterns of neural activity then translates imagined gestures into the movement of an on-screen cursor or a robotic arm at Nagle's side. "The fundamental findings are that you can record activity from the brain years after injury, that thinking about movement is sufficient to activate the brain, and that we can decode the signal," says John Donoghue of Brown University in New York, who led the work. "Even though only one person was studied, the findings are impressive, especially as you can use the system while talking," says Maria Stokes a neurologist at the University of Southampton, UK. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 9131 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Helen Philips, Vienna Stress experienced by a pregnant female can alter the structure of her offspring’s brain, particularly regions vital for emotional development, scientists have discovered. Furthermore, in rodents at least, the effects differ in male and female offspring. That might help explain the different susceptibilities of men and women to emotional and psychiatric disorders, says Katharina Braun, from the University of Magdeburg, in Germany. Braun presented the work at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies' annual meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Tuesday. Braun and colleagues at the University of Jerusalem in Israel studied the effects of stress on pregnant rats. If they become stressed in the last trimester of pregnancy, their offspring developed fewer nerve connections in two brain regions that control emotions – the cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex. In addition, the nerve cells in several other regions show different branching patterns to normal, with different effects on males and females. In the hippocampus, an important region that controls memory and emotion, males show an increase in branching while females show a decrease. In the prefrontal cortex, the males develop shorter nerve branches, while the females do not. Braun has not yet tested the behavioural effects of these changes on adult rats, but the results could reveal a possible mechanism for the development of emotional disorders seen in humans. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Stress; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 9130 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have found in two studies that autism may involve a lack of connections and coordination in separate areas of the brain. In people with autism, the brain areas that perform complex analysis appear less likely to work together during problem solving tasks than in people who do not have the disorder, report researchers working in a network funded by the National Institutes of Health. The researchers found that communications between these higher-order centers in the brains of people with autism appear to be directly related to the thickness of the anatomical connections between them. In a separate report, the same research team found that, in people with autism, brain areas normally associated with visual tasks also appear to be active during language-related tasks, providing evidence to explain a bias towards visual thinking common in autism. “These findings provide support to a new theory that views autism as a failure of brain regions to communicate with each other,” said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “The findings may one day provide the basis for improved treatments for autism that stimulate communication between brain areas.” People with autism often have difficulty communicating and interacting socially with other people. The saying "unable to see the forest for the trees" describes how people with autism frequently excel at details, yet struggle to comprehend the larger picture.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 9129 - Posted: 06.24.2010

An experimental drug probably does not stop the progression of the brain disease vCJD, experts have concluded. However, the Medical Research Council said further large scale tests on animals should be carried out. The MRC monitored the effect of Pentosan Polysulphate (PPS) on seven patients with vCJD or other degenerative prion diseases. It conceded that the drug had appeared to help several people live longer than expected. Several patients have taken the drug, including Jonathan Simms, now the UK's longest-surviving vCJD patient. There is no cure for vCJD and the majority of people who have developed the disease have died. So far 111 people are known to have died from the disease in the UK, with another 45 probable fatalities. It is thought that five Britons are currently living with vCJD. The MRC did not originally include PPS in a trial of possible treatments on the advice of the Committee on the Safety of Medicines. However, the Simms family, from Belfast, won permission from the High Court to give Jonathan the drug in December 2002. Since then it has been given to others, including Holly Mills from North Yorkshire, who started treatment within weeks of being diagnosed with vCJD in October 2003. Her condition has been stable for 18 months. The drug must be surgically administered directly into the ventricles of the patient's brain. Lead researcher Professor Ian Bone accepted that his findings were not conclusive, as they were based on a small number of patients who were treated in different ways. However, he said any clear benefits of the drug would have been revealed by the study. (C)BBC

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 9128 - Posted: 07.12.2006

Ernest Hartmann, a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and the director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital in Boston, Mass., explains. The questions, "Why do we dream?" or "What is the function of dreaming?" are easy to ask but very difficult to answer. The most honest answer is that we do not yet know the function or functions of dreaming. This ignorance should not be surprising because despite many theories we still do not fully understand the purpose of sleep, nor do we know the functions of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is when most dreaming occurs. And these two biological states are much easier to study scientifically than the somewhat elusive phenomenon of dreaming. Some scientists take the position that dreaming probably has no function. They feel that sleep, and within it REM sleep, have biological functions (though these are not totally established) and that dreaming is simply an epiphenomenon that is the mental activity that occurs during REM sleep. I do not believe this is the most fruitful approach to the study of dreaming. Would we be satisfied with the view that thinking has no function and is simply an epiphenomenon--the kind of mental activity that occurs when the brain is in the waking state? © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 9127 - Posted: 06.24.2010