Tom Simonite A specialised microchip that could communicate with thousands of individual brain cells has been developed by European scientists. The device will help researchers examine the workings of interconnected brain cells, and might one day enable them to develop computers that use live neurons for memory. The computer chip is capable of receiving signals from more than 16,000 mammalian brain cells, and sending messages back to several hundred cells. Previous neuron-computer interfaces have either connected to far fewer individual neurons, or to groups of neurons clumped together. A team from Italy and Germany worked with the mobile chip maker Infineon to squeeze 16,384 transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto an experimental microchip just 1mm squared. When surrounded by neurons the transistors receive signals from the cells, while the capacitors send signals to them. Each transistor on the chip picks up the miniscule change in electric charge prompted when a neuron fires. The change occurs due to the transfer of charged sodium ions, which move in and out of the cells through special pores. Conversely, applying a charge to each capacitor alters the movement of sodium ions, causing a neuron to react. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 8717 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Enzymes that can harm the brain immediately after a stroke may actually be beneficial days later, according to new research. Insights from the study could change the way stroke is treated, extending the window for effective treatment from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks. The results may suggest new ideas for drug development. Working with rats, a team from the Harvard Medical School Departments of Radiology and Neurology found that the enzyme matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) may help remodel brain tissue seven to 14 days after a stroke. Their findings are published in the April 2006 issue of Nature Medicine, and were made available in an advance online publication on March 26, 2006. Matrix metalloproteinases are a large group of enzymes that help break down the extracellular matrix, a complex structure that surrounds and supports cells. Newer research is showing that MMPs may also contribute to blood vessel growth, as well as the death, proliferation, differentiation, and movement of cells. Sophia Wang, who was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) medical student fellow at Harvard Medical School, is second author of the article. She was deeply involved with the study's data analysis, and established a way to quantify the response of proteins involved in the cell growth and blood vessel remodeling that occurs after stroke. She also assisted with behavioral studies of rats that had received MMPs to see how well they recovered after a stroke. © 2006 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 8716 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rick Weiss Scientists in Germany said yesterday that they had retrieved easily obtained cells from the testes of male mice and transformed them into what appear to be embryonic stem cells, the versatile and medically promising biological building blocks that can morph into all kinds of living tissues. If similar starter cells exist in the testes of men, as several scientists yesterday said they now believe is likely, then it may not be difficult for scientists to cultivate them in laboratory dishes, grow them into new tissues and transplant those tissues into the ailing organs of men who donated the cells. The technique would have vast advantages over the current approach to growing "personalized" replacement parts -- an approach that has stirred intense political controversy because it requires the creation and destruction of cloned human embryos as stem cell sources. The new work suggests that every male may already have everything he needs to regenerate new tissues -- at least with a little help from his local cell biologist. No one knows whether cells with similar potential exist inside female bodies -- a crucial question if women, too, are to have access to new tissues genetically matched to themselves and so not susceptible to rejection by their immune systems. But recent studies have led many researchers to conclude that the possibility is greater than previously believed. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 8715 - Posted: 06.24.2010

People who mix alcohol with energy drinks like Red Bull can often feel less drunk than they really are, a study suggests. The Brazilian team compared the reactions of 26 men given either alcohol, Red Bull or a combination of both in three drinking sessions. Although the men perceived themselves to be less impaired when taking the mix physical tests proved the opposite. The study is published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. The team, led by psychology professor Maria Lucia Souza-Formigoni of the University of Sao Paulo, said those who mixed the caffeine drinks and alcohol reported an increased sensation of pleasure and a reduction in sleepiness. This had led some to suggest that the combination might reduce the depressive effects of alcohol. But the team's results showed a "considerable disconnect" between the subjects' perceptions and objective measures of their abilities. Professor Souza-Formigoni said: "In Brazil, as in other countries, people believe that Red Bull and other energy drinks avoid the sleepiness caused by alcoholic beverages and increase their capacity to dance all night. Her study in some ways reflected this assumption, with subjects on the combination of Red Bull and alcohol reporting less perception of headache, weakness, dry mouth and impairment of motor coordination. But objective measures of coordination showed Red Bull consumption did not reduce any of the negative effects alcohol has on coordination or visual reaction times. (C)BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 8714 - Posted: 03.27.2006

A visit to the doctor might not be your favorite thing, but everything — from the time you spend talking with the doctor to the diploma on the wall — could be helping to make you better. "The ritual of medicine, the context of medicine, is important to take into consideration in healthcare," says Harvard Medical School's Ted Kaptchuk. "There's an implication that how you describe your intervention, what you tell patients, has an impact on how that intervention effects their illness and health." Kaptchuk, who studied Chinese medicine in China, has been studying what's known as the placebo effect. "The effect of giving someone a dummy treatment, a treatment that appears like a real treatment, but actually has none of the active ingredients," he explains. So, Kaptchuk and his research team set out to see if different kinds of dummy treatments, or placebos could reduce patients' chronic arm pain. They compared a fake acupuncture procedure to a pill made of nothing but cornstarch. They found that, "A dummy procedure has a bigger impact on reducing pain than an oral dummy pill," he says. As they reported in the British Medical Journal, the study began by testing the effectiveness of two placebo treatments against active treatments at reducing self-assessed arm pain. "You can't give patients placebos without having a comparison with an act of intervention," explains Kaptchuk. After two weeks, the fake pill and fake acupuncture groups were continued and compared against each other. © ScienCentral, 2000-2006.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 8713 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Psychologists wanting to help old people safely cross the street and otherwise ambulate around this busy world have found that from age 70 and up, safe walking may require solid "executive control" (which includes attention) and memory skills. For the old, slow gait is a significant risk factor for falls, many of which result in disabling fractures, loss of independence or even death. The finding may help explain why cognitive problems in old age, including dementia, are associated with falls. Cognitive tests could help doctors assess risk for falls; conversely, slow gait could alert them to check for cognitive impairment. The findings are in the March issue of Neuropsychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA). Roee Holtzer, PhD, and his colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study of 186 cognitively normal, community-dwelling adults aged 70 and older at New York City's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Gait speed was tested with and without interference. In the interference conditions, participants had to walk while reciting alternate letters of the alphabet. Performance on cognitive tests of executive control and memory, and to a lesser extent of verbal ability, predicted "gait velocity" (walking speed) tested without interference. For gait velocity tested with interference, only executive control and memory were predictive. Adding interference to the tests of gait allowed the researchers to better simulate the real world, in which walkers continually deal with distractions. The authors conclude that executive control and memory function are important when the individual has to walk in a busy environment.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 8712 - Posted: 03.27.2006

People with Korsakoff Syndrome (KS), a brain disorder usually associated with long-term heavy drinking and thiamine deficiency, often have profound deficits in their "explicit memory" or ability to recall recent events. A study in the April issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research looks at a memory process called visuoperceptual learning, a component of "implicit memory," which does not require conscious recollection. Results suggest that individuals with KS retain the ability to learn information that is presented visually, even without a conscious recollection of that learning. "'Explicit events' refer to situations that an individual can consciously recall when asked, 'what did you do yesterday?' or 'what did you do over the holidays?,'" explained Edith Sullivan, a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and corresponding author for the study. "Individuals with KS cannot consciously recall what they did or information presented to them earlier in the day." "Explicit memory is often referred to as 'knowing what' and implicit memory to 'knowing how,'" said Sara Jo Nixon, professor and director of the Neurocognitive Laboratory at the University of Kentucky. "However, the impact of chronic excessive alcohol consumption on implicit memory has been less clear and less frequently studied. Visuoperceptual tasks likely engage a significant component linked to implicit memory functions. Thus, examining implicit memory using such a task in a comparison of Korsakoff alcoholics, non-Korsakoff alcoholics and controls is an effective way of disentangling alcohol's long-term effects on 'knowing how' versus 'knowing what.'

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 8711 - Posted: 03.27.2006

By GINA KOLATA Three groups of scientists report today that they independently replicated a controversial finding: severely diabetic mice can recover on their own if researchers squelch an immune system attack that is causing the disease. E-mail Gina Kolata at kolata@nytimes.com It is a discovery that was first published in 2001 and raised the hopes of people with Type 1 diabetes, which usually occurs in puberty and afflicts an estimated half-million to a million Americans. If the findings applied to humans, they might mean reversing a disease that had seemed incurable. The findings also gave rise to questions about using embryonic stem cells as replacement cells for diabetics, a method that is the focus of intense interest. If it is possible, in mice, for the pancreas to cure itself, and if the same finding holds true in humans — which, so far, is entirely unknown — adding embryonic stem cells as the source of new pancreas cells might provide little added benefit, if any. In any event, scientists are not yet ready to treat diabetic patients with embryonic stem cells; they first have to prod the cells to turn into insulin-secreting pancreas cells. Meanwhile, efforts to cure diabetes by transplanting pancreas cells from cadavers have met with limited success. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 8710 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Associated Press The narcolepsy drug modafinil should not be approved as a treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in children until more is learned about a possible link to a serious skin disease, federal advisers said yesterday. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted 12 to 1 against recommending modafinil as safe for children with ADHD. Earlier, the psychopharmacologic drugs panel unanimously agreed that modafinil works as a treatment for ADHD. The FDA is not required to follow the recommendations of its advisory panels but usually does. The committee recommended that Cephalon Inc. undertake a 3,000-patient trial to determine the risk modafinil may pose for Stevens-Johnson syndrome. Drug reactions cause nearly all cases of the sometimes fatal skin disease, which can produce widespread blistering and rashes, according to the Merck Manual. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: ADHD; Sleep
Link ID: 8709 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By John Bohannon Sick fathers aren't much fun. But a study of birds suggests that sometimes ill dads make better parents, especially when they fear they don't have much longer to live. According to one evolutionary theory, males from long-lived animal species are careful investors when it comes to reproduction. When deciding how much effort to put into taking care of themselves versus being a good father, they consider their future prospects. If the future looks good, with many years of potential mating ahead, then it pays to keep their own health top priority. But when animals reach their golden years, it makes more sense to disregard illness and invest more time and effort in caring for offspring. This strategy would boost the chances that the animal's genes are passed on to the next generation. But do animals really keep track of their future prospects so carefully? A team led by Roxana Torres, a biologist at the Mexican National Autonomous University in Mexico City, used the blue-footed booby as a test case. The birds usually live for about 15 years, and their chicks require a long investment--6 months of baby-sitting from both mother and father. The researchers captured 50 males from a booby colony 2 weeks before their mates were due to lay eggs. Then, to put the fathers between a rock and a hard place, the researchers injected the birds with a molecule from the cell wall of Escherichia coli bacteria. The molecule poses no threat to health, but it causes the immune system to go on red alert, bringing all the symptoms of a bacterial infection. As a control, they injected some birds with the buffering solution alone. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 8708 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius What Martin Nweeia noticed first when he encountered narwhals, he says, was the sound. In May 2000, as spring was just reaching Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, a famed local hunter took Nweeia out on the ice searching the open water for those tusk-bearing, high-Arctic whales. "I was sitting on a bucket out on the ice doing polar bear watch," he says. At that time of year, daylight lasts around the clock, and at 3 a.m., the gray sky had orange streaks. "The water was like glass, and a light mist was rolling in," he says. "Then, I heard the breathing." Nweeia soon traced the sound to the dark bodies of at least 10 narwhals that had risen to the surface out in the open water. Their heavy, low-frequency, methodical breaths carried through the night as if "they were breathing in my ear," Nweeia says. It took considerable discipline, he says, to break the spell of their arrival and wake the hunter to go after them. Many people have searched for narwhals, but Nweeia may be the only Connecticut dentist to have done so. He practices in that state and teaches at Harvard School of Dental Medicine in Boston. And what's there for a dentist not to love about an animal with a 3-meter-long tooth—and the only spiraling tooth ever reported? Copyright ©2006 Science Service.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Laterality
Link ID: 8707 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Andy Coghlan Men’s testicles may provide an “ethical” source of embryonic stem cells (ESCs), suggest new experiments in mice. A team in Germany has successfully grown mouse ESC-like cells from spermatagonial stem cells which normally turn into sperm. The ESC-like cells can be grown into all tissues of the mouse body, suggesting that if the same could be done in men, it would provide patients with a source of tissue-matched cells for repairing any damaged organs or tissue. So far, all existing colonies of human ESCs have been derived from surplus human embryos, leftover from infertility treatments. Because a human embryo is sacrificed in the process, many religious groups oppose such research, especially in the US where President George W Bush has placed heavy restrictions on federal stem cell researchers. The discovery that cells which behave like ESCs can now be obtained from adult mice may now open up the possibility of a similar “ethical” source from grown men. “We’re in the process of doing this in humans, and we’re optimistic,” says Gerd Hasenfuss of the Georg-August University of Göttingen, Germany, and head of the team which pioneered the breakthrough. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Stem Cells; Regeneration
Link ID: 8706 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JEREMY PEARCE Dr. James H. Schwartz, a neurobiologist at Columbia whose research helped explain the biochemical basis of learning and memory, died on March 13 at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital in Manhattan. He was 73. The cause was complications of leukemia, his family said. Dr. Schwartz was interested in the notion that changes in the electrochemical switches within the brain cause shifts in the function of brain circuits, leading to different behaviors. He studied sea slugs as a model for brain function in more complex animals. Much of his work involved the origins, at the cellular and molecular level, of learning and animal behaviors. Dr. Schwartz and others observed that learning was associated with changes in the structure of chromatin, a basic material found within a cell, in some neurons. With Dr. Eric R. Kandel and Thomas M. Jessell, Dr. Schwartz edited an influential textbook, "Principles of Neural Science" (1979), for medical students and neuroscientists. It is now about to enter its fifth edition. The book became "a standard of basic neuroscience, with a focus on how the nervous system generates and controls behavior" and includes clinical descriptions of neurological and psychiatric disorders, said John Koester, acting director of Columbia's Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, which Dr. Schwartz helped found in 1974. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 8705 - Posted: 03.24.2006

By Shankar Vedantam Antidepressants fail to cure the symptoms of major depression in half of all patients with the disease even if they receive the best possible care, according to a definitive government study released yesterday. Significant numbers of patients continue to experience symptoms such as sadness, low energy and hopelessness after intensive treatment, even as about an equal number report an end to such problems -- a result that quickly lent itself to interpretations that the glass was either half empty or half full. The $35 million taxpayer-funded study was the largest trial of its kind ever conducted. It provided what industry-sponsored trials have rarely captured: Rather than merely ask whether patients are getting better, the study asked what patients most care about -- whether depression can be made to disappear altogether. The study has been eagerly awaited by physicians, patients and the pharmaceutical industry. According to government statistics, depression afflicts 15 million Americans a year. About 189 million prescriptions for antidepressants were written last year, and the disease costs the nation $83 billion annually because of treatment costs, lost productivity, absenteeism and suicide. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 8704 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Nancy Etcoff Barbara Herbert of southern England never knew she had an identical twin until, while searching for her biological mother at age forty, she discovered a sister who had been adopted and raised by another British family. When the two met for the first time, twenty-five years ago at a London tube stop, Herbert instantly recognized her mirror image, a woman who not only looked like her (down to the color and style of the clothes she wore), but who also laughed the way she did. “It was a very strange sensation,” said twin Daphne Goodship. “We were strangers, but did not feel it.” Their separate lives had done nothing, it appeared, to erase the identity of their origins. The twins soon discovered they shared many preferences: the color lilac, coffee served black and cold, the actor Brad Pitt. They shared aversions, too, including the fear of falling down stairs and the sight of blood. They had been reading the same books and cooking from the same recipes. Fifty hours of psychological and medical tests and 15,000 questions later, a team of scientists at the Minnesota Center for Twin and Adoption Research told the sisters they both had heart murmurs, thyroid problems, and allergies. A slim one-point difference separated their IQs. What was most striking to everyone, though, was that the twins had similar personalities and similar levels of happiness. They were bubbly and high-spirited, easily amused, and imbued with a great sense of fun. They even made the same jokes. “Well, I won’t be wearing my ball dress tonight!” each one said as scientists put electrodes on their chests. Because they laughed the same way, researcher David Lykken called them “the giggle twins.” Could it be, scientists wondered, that happiness is a lucky accident of birth? © 2002 Science & Spirit Magazine.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Emotions
Link ID: 8703 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A single pain receptor is solely responsible for the kick delivered by mustard oil and garlic, according to research in the March 24 Cell. Mustard oil is the active ingredient in mustard and in the pungent green sushi condiment known as wasabi. The sensory receptor also underlies the response to a variety of environmental irritants, such as acrolein, the researchers report. Acrolein accounts for the toxic and inflammatory actions of tear gas, vehicle exhaust, tobacco smoke, and the byproducts of some chemotherapy drugs widely used in the treatment of cancer, severe arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and lupus. The insights therefore suggest potential new avenues for the development of anti-inflammatory and pain medications, according to the researchers. The research team, led by David Julius at the University of California San Francisco, report cellular and behavioral evidence in mice linking the sensory ion channel TRPA1 to the pain response evoked by mustard oil, garlic, and acrolein. Mice deficient for TRPA1 also show pronounced deficits in their reaction to a natural agent produced in response to injury, inflammation, or oxygen shortage, they found. "By understanding what triggers TRP channel receptors, we can learn something new about how pain is sensed," Julius said. The TRP family of channels includes receptors for a variety of natural plant products that elicit pain and inflammation by stimulating a subset of neurons, collectively known as nociceptors.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 8702 - Posted: 03.24.2006

Contrary to traditional wisdom, being a leftie promotes survival from attacks, at least in the world of snails and crabs, according to a report by researchers at Yale and Cornell in the Biology Letters of the Royal Society, UK. While rare in nature, many organisms including humans have some, but few, members that are lefties. Author Gregory P. Dietl, post-doctoral fellow in geology and geophysics at Yale has studied the survival advantages or disadvantages of being a "leftie" by working with snails and their predatory crabs. "One of the conclusions we draw from the interaction between crabs and these snails is that in the adversarial mode, lefties have a competitive advantage as long as they remain rare," said Dietl. This parallels some social interactions in human cultures, such as sporting competitions in which left-handed players enjoy an advantage over their right-handed opponents. The functional advantage of this rare reversal in shell-coiling direction, while a topic of fascination for scientists and laypersons alike, has evaded explanation. Persistence of handedness in snails is most often associated with a mating advantage. In this case, snails mate most effectively with snails whose shells coil in the same direction. The overwhelming majority of snail species are right-handed -- their shells coil clockwise. Dietl studied a species of snail that are lefties, and have shells that coil counterclockwise.

Keyword: Laterality; Aggression
Link ID: 8701 - Posted: 03.24.2006

Are you more like an active ape… or a motionless monkey? Biologists at Oregon Health and Science University's Oregon National Primate Research Center say the tendency to get a lot of exercise — or not — seems to be set before adulthood. "Some monkeys are very sedentary during the day and other monkeys are up to eight to 10-fold more active, day after day after day," says OHSU's Judy Cameron, a professor of behavioral neuroscience. As they reported at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, the researchers put motion-measuring devices on adult monkeys' collars to monitor their daily activity. "These are three-way accelerometers measuring movement in all three directions," she explains. "[They are] about the size of a wristwatch, so they can be very non-invasively put on a collar of an animal and the animal is very comfortable wearing them." This allowed the researchers to record the animals' activities twenty-four hours a day. Cameron and her colleagues decided to study monkeys because of their similarity to humans. It's difficult to translate activity studies done in more common lab animals, like mice, into meaningful information for people. "Rodents like to run for hours and hours at a time, and they may run thousands of rotations a night. It's hard to know what that's equivalent to in people — would it mean running a huge number of miles a day?" Cameron says. "So you want to use a species that would be more comparable to humans." As she explains, monkeys have similar patterns of natural movement to people, which include playing, sitting around, and socializing. © ScienCentral, 2000-2006.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 8700 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Laura Blackburn One of the chief instigators of multiple sclerosis (MS) has a split personality. Immune cells known as microglia usually protect the nervous system, but when things go wrong, they strip neurons of myelin--their protective coating--leading to muscle spasms and memory difficulties. Now researchers have uncovered new clues into what turns these cellular Dr. Jekylls into Mr. Hydes. When good microglia go bad, it's usually because of a protein called interferon gamma (IFN-gamma). Produced by the body's T-cells, IFN-gamma stimulates microglia to produce a myelin-damaging protein called tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha). To see if microglia could be turned away from the dark side, neuroimmunologist Michal Schwartz of the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovet, Israel, examined mouse and rat models of MS. When the researchers looked at the response of microglia in these animals to various levels of IFN-gamma and a related protein, interleukin-4 (IL-4), they found that only high levels of IFN-gamma trigger microglia's damaging rampages. When IFN-gamma is low, microglia protect neurons just fine. And when IL-4 is around, it overcomes the malicious effects of IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha, switching microglia from nasty to nurturing. Under these conditions, microglia encourage the cells that make myelin, called oligodendrocytes, to repair damaged neurons. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 8699 - Posted: 06.24.2010

In today's "24/7" society, many people cut back on sleep to squeeze in more time for work, family obligations, and other activities. But skimping on sleep can be harmful. A comprehensive new handbook from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) explains that sleep is not merely “down time” when the brain shuts off and the body rests. “Our brains are very active during sleep, and research has shown that adequate sleep is important to our overall health, safety, and performance," notes Michael Twery, PhD, acting director of NHLBI's National Center on Sleep Disorders Research. "Scientists also have a better understanding of how a chronic lack of sleep or an untreated sleep disorder can impair health. Like good nutrition and physical activity, adequate sleep is critical for continued good health.” “Your Guide to Healthy Sleep” provides the latest science-based information about sleep in an easy-to-understand format. The 60-page handbook describes how and why we sleep, and offers tips for getting adequate sleep, such as sticking to a sleep schedule, relaxing before going to bed, and using daylight or bright light to help you adjust to jet lag and shift work schedules. Sleep disorders such as insomnia (trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, or unrefreshing sleep), sleep apnea (brief periods of pauses in breathing or shallow breathing while you are sleeping), restless legs syndrome (an almost irresistible urge to move the legs that can make it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep), and narcolepsy (excessive and overwhelming daytime sleepiness despite adequate nighttime sleep) are also described with information on diagnosis and treatment. In addition, a sample sleep diary helps readers track their sleep-related habits.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 8698 - Posted: 06.24.2010