By STEPHANIE SAUL With a tendency to stare zombie-like and run into stationary objects, a new species of impaired motorist is hitting the roads: the Ambien driver. Ambien, the nation's best-selling prescription sleeping pill, is showing up with regularity as a factor in traffic arrests, sometimes involving drivers who later say they were sleep-driving and have no memory of taking the wheel after taking the drug. In some state toxicology laboratories Ambien makes the top 10 list of drugs found in impaired drivers. Wisconsin officials identified Ambien in the bloodstreams of 187 arrested drivers from 1999 to 2004. And as a more people are taking the drug — 26.5 million prescriptions in this country last year — there are signs that Ambien-related driving arrests are on the rise. In Washington State, for example, officials counted 78 impaired-driving arrests in which Ambien was a factor last year, up from 56 in 2004. Ambien's maker, Sanofi-Aventis, says the drug's record after 13 years of use in this country shows it is safe when taken as directed. But a spokeswoman, Melissa Feltmann, wrote in an e-mail message, "We are aware of reports of people driving while sleepwalking, and those reports have been provided to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as part of our ongoing postmarketing evaluation about the safety of our products." Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 8630 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Michael Schirber Insects hoping to outsmart their bat predators would do best to hide under a rock. New research shows that even in complex surroundings--where prey is closely interspersed with its environment--bats use a series of rapid calls to break through the clutter and find their quarry. When hunting or navigating, bats send out high-frequency chirps that bounce back from nearby objects, revealing their size and location. Not all of these "echolocating" chirps are the same, however. A bat flying out in the open will emit loud chirps separated by relatively long pauses (100 milliseconds) as it waits for something interesting to bounce back. If that bounce comes from an insect, the bat will focus its calls in the bug's direction and accelerate its chirps as it closes in. But what if the insect is near another object? Psychologist and bat expert Cynthia Moss of the University of Maryland, College Park, wondered if the overlapping echoes would confuse the bat. To find out, she and colleagues recorded the calls and flight patterns of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) in a closed room, called the Batlab. In one set of trials, the bats took just a few seconds to find and capture a worm suspended by string from the ceiling. But when the researchers hung a plant 10 centimeters from the worm, the bats only went for the snack half of the time--taking an average of a minute and a half to do so, the team reports online today in PLoS Biology. The bats fared better when the worm and plant were separated by 20 centimeters or more. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 8629 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Hatchery-reared steelhead trout show increased growth of some parts of the brain when small stones are scattered on the bottom of their tank, according to a new study by researchers at UC Davis. The brains of those young fish were closer to those of salmon reared in the wild, and the fish also showed behavior closer to wild than to hatchery-reared fish. "There's an obvious difference between the hatchery and the wild fish," said graduate student Rebecca Kihslinger, who carried out the study with Gabrielle Nevitt, professor of neurobiology, physiology and behavior at UC Davis. "A simple change affected brain growth in a large-scale way." The results could affect the design of hatcheries for breeding fish to restock wild populations, Kihslinger said. The study is published in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology. Wild steelhead lay their eggs in gravel nests on the riverbed. After hatching, the fry, called alevins, stay among the gravel and live off their yolk sac until they emerge as free-swimming fry. In hatcheries, the fish are reared in tanks of clean, well-aerated water, but without environmental features or enrichment.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Intelligence
Link ID: 8628 - Posted: 03.08.2006

Michael Hopkin Humanity's response to the challenges of the past few millennia, from adapting to different environments to taming crops and animals, are writ large in human society. Now geneticists have shown that they are also writ small - in our DNA. Researchers at the University of Chicago, Illinois, have identified the regions of our genetic sequence that show the strongest marks of natural selection. Their work highlights the genes that have been most important in adapting to new lifestyles, and could help to identify the genetic factors involved in complex medical conditions such as high blood pressure and alcoholism. Genes that show the most evidence of recent selection include those involved in milk digestion. Although most mammals drink milk only in infancy, humans seem to have adapted genetically to digest it throughout life. Genes for skin pigmentation also bear the hallmarks of rapid evolution - highlighting the fact that many populations have become more fair-skinned as they have colonized more extreme latitudes with less sunshine. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Evolution; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 8627 - Posted: 06.24.2010

An analysis of data from 24 clinical trials suggests that antidepressant medications may be linked to a modest increase in the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children, according to an article in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. For decades, some physicians have suspected that patients' risk of suicidality (suicidal thoughts and behavior) increased when pediatric patients first began taking antidepressants, according to background information in the article. Research indicates that there is no such association in adults. In 2003, a report submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suggested a link between the antidepressant paroxetine and suicidality in pediatric patients. The FDA then requested pediatric data from the manufacturers of eight other antidepressant drugs, the authors report. Tarek A. Hammad, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the FDA performed a meta-analysis of data from 23 short-term clinical trials received in response to the request, as well as one trial funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The 24 studies included 4,582 pediatric patients taking one of nine antidepressant medications for depression, anxiety or other psychiatric disorder.

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 8626 - Posted: 03.07.2006

By Stacey Colino When each of her three kids was an infant, Nichole Ahern of Chevy Chase had recurring visions of tumbling down the stairs with the baby in her arms. Last fall, Mindy Walker of Westchester, N.Y., had fleeting thoughts of letting her infant daughter drop out of her arms. Adele Morgan of Hillsborough, N.J., says that the challenges of caring for her first baby made her think about putting him in the microwave or throwing him off the deck when he wouldn't stop crying. None of these women ever harmed their babies, and all are successful, loving mothers. And these kinds of intrusive, unwanted thoughts -- mild versions of those associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) -- are extremely common among new parents. In a study of 85 new mothers and fathers conducted at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., researchers found that 89 percent experienced distressing, intrusive thoughts related to their infants: images of the baby suffocating or being contaminated with germs, or worries about the baby having an accident, being harmed or kidnapped. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 8625 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va – It has been well documented that, across human cultures and in most mammals, males are usually more aggressive and less nurturing than females. It’s simple to blame male hormones, like testosterone, for male behavior such as aggression. But maybe it’s in our genes, too. Indeed such social behavior also has a genetic basis, according to new research on mice by neuroscientists at the University of Virginia Health System. “The differences in sex chromosomes, XX versus XY, are also responsible for differences in adult behavior,” explained Emilie Rissman, PhD, a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at UVa, who studied aggression and maternal behavior in genetically engineered mice. “Sex chromosome genes may not be the whole story that determines how aggressive or motherly we are, but they are a partof it.” Rissman’s work is published in the Feb. 22 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, found online at www.jneurosci.org. Co-authors on the paper are scientists at the University of California Los Angeles and the National Institute for Medical Research in London, England. Using mouse models, Rissman and the research team uncoupled the testis-determining gene Sry on the male Y chromosome from other sex chromosome genes. The presence of Sry leads to the development of the testes and high levels of androgens in males, which is partly responsible for aggression. Sry was deleted from the Y chromosome and replaced by a transgenic copy. © 1998 – 2006 by the Rector & Visitors of the University of Virginia

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 8624 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By PAUL STEINBERG, M.D. The recent recommendation that Ritalin and other medications for attention-deficit disorder carry the most serious allowable warning will certainly slow the explosive growth in the use of those drugs. That was the intention of some members of the Food and Drug Administration advisory committee that called for the packaging alert, known as a black-box warning. But the recommendation and concerns about growth in the use of these drugs may force us to think about the disorder, known as A.D.H.D., in new and different ways, from an evolutionary and contextual standpoint. Every generation likes to believe that it is witnessing the most dramatic epoch in history. In the case of the current Western world, that belief may indeed be accurate, particularly in light of the striking changes of the last 30 years. As the business writer and consultant Peter Drucker pointed out, most people in the United States, Japan and parts of Europe are "knowledge workers." We live in an information age, in a knowledge-based economy. For those of us who have "attention-surplus disorder" — a term coined by Dr. Ned Hallowell, a psychiatrist in Boston who has A.D.H.D. — this knowledge-based economy has been a godsend. We thrive. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 8623 - Posted: 06.24.2010

BAR HARBOR, Maine - When it comes to the price of mice, you pay extra for defects. A mouse with arthritis runs close to $200; two pairs of epileptic mice can cost 10 times that. You want three blind mice? That’ll run you about $250. And for your own custom mouse, with the genetic modification of your choosing, expect to pay as much as $100,000. Always a mainstay of scientific research, mice have become a critical tool in the quest for new drugs and medical treatments because their genes are remarkably similar to a person’s. With proper manipulation — either by man or nature — a set of mouse genes can produce an animal with just about any human ailment, or a reasonable facsimile of it. Strains of mice that succumb to Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and countless other conditions are being used to study both the illnesses themselves and potential treatments. As many as 25 million mice are now used in experiments each year. Where do they come from? Where else? Mouse farms. © 2006 MSNBC.com © 2006 Microsoft

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Animal Rights
Link ID: 8622 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists at UCL (University College London) have discovered the area of the brain linked to dyscalculia, a maths learning disability. The finding shows that there is a separate part of the brain used for counting that is essential for diagnosis and an understanding of why many people struggle with maths. The paper, published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), explains that an area of the brain widely thought to be involved in processing number information generally, in fact has two very separate, specific functions. One function is responsible for counting 'how many' things are present and the other is responsible for knowing 'how much'. It is the discovery of the part responsible for counting or numerosity that is a major finding for Professor Brian Butterworth, who also published 'The Mathematical Brain' and is an authority on dyscalculia. He believes his finding is the key to diagnosis of dyscalculia. Professor Butterworth, of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said: "Now that we know where to look for the differences in brain activation between those who suffer from dyscalculia and those who don't have the learning disorder, we will be able to come up with better diagnosis and insights.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 8621 - Posted: 03.07.2006

The dissociation in the visual system between two separate functions – one that enables us to identify objects and the other to interact with them – has been clearly demonstrated for the first time in healthy humans by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. These separate vision-related actions have been documented from the beginning of the 20th century in patients who suffered damage to the visual system as a result of illness or injuries in which one or the other function – identification or action – was damaged. For example, persons suffering from ataxia are able to verbally identify an object presented to them but have difficulty in grasping it, while those who have agnosia can grasp an object if handed to them but are unable to name or indicate the position, size or texture of the object. This dissociation between action and perception suggests the existence of two separate visual streams However, despite the wide research triggered by this theoretical concept, it had not been proved in subjects in whom both streams are functioning normally.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 8620 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Betsy Mason, ScienceNOW Daily News When it comes to good recollection, elephants get the lion's share of the glory. But now an animal only slightly larger than an elephant's toenail is giving the largest land mammal a run for its memory. Hummingbirds can keep a running tab of multiple aspects of their visits to at least eight different flowers over the course of several days, displaying a type of memory once attributed solely to humans. Previous studies have shown that birds, rats, and primates can remember where they saw of an item or event, but it's not clear whether they can remember when they saw it. The time question is especially important to hummingbirds, who must be as efficient as possible as they remove nectar from a large number flowers in their territory. Hit the same flower too soon, and it's still empty. Wait too long, and a competitor has made off with the bounty. A team led by biologists Jonathan Henderson and Susan Healy of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom set out to check the birds' record-keeping skills. Using eight artificial flowers, the scientists tested three wild, male rufous hummingbirds in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The birds were able to recognize the difference between flowers that were refilled with nectar at 10 and 20 minute intervals, remember where the flowers were, and recall when they had last drained them. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 8619 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Healthy humans cannot tickle themselves or attribute their own voices to those of other people, according to a new study that determined that individuals anticipate their own actions, which can beneficially alter their sense of perception. Since it is now believed that a breakdown in this anticipation process may underlie the delusions of schizophrenics, the finding may lead to a better understanding of this mental disorder. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, around 51 million people worldwide suffer from schizophrenia. The study also solves the long-standing mystery as to why most humans and animals cannot tickle themselves. "It's well known that you can't tickle yourself," said Randy Flanagan, one of the study's authors. "One explanation is that since all the sensations are completely predictable, we do 'sensory attenuation,' which reduces our touch perception." Flanagan, a psychologist at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, added, "If we try to deal with all the sensory information directed at us at any given time, it's overwhelming. We can't focus attention on crucial changes in our environment that aren't a function of our own motions." © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Attention
Link ID: 8618 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Andy Coghlan Exercising during pregnancy might have unanticipated benefits – at least in mice, a new study suggests. Pups born to active mums developed bigger brains a few weeks after birth. Tantalisingly, the growth was confined to a very specific part of the brain linked with intelligence. Compared with the offspring of inactive mothers (those denied an exercise wheel) pups born to active mothers typically developed 40% more cells in the hippocampus, the area of the brain vital for learning and memory. But the extra cells came after birth. The pups from exercising mums actually grew fewer hippocampus cells while in the womb, and had a lower body weight when born. But more than a month after birth, the pups from active mums had more than made up for it, putting on a spurt which gave them the extra 40% of hippocampal cells overall. The researchers were not able to tell whether the pups of active mums were more intelligent in this experiment because the mice were sacrificed in order to examine their brains. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Intelligence
Link ID: 8617 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Some cases of chronic fatigue syndrome could be due to brain "injuries" caused during the early stages of glandular fever, scientists suggest. A University of New South Wales team has followed people with Epstein-Barr virus since 1999. They suggest those who remained ill after the virus had gone had suffered a "hit-and-run injury" to the brain. Writing in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, they said the brain appears to keep behaving as if a person is ill. Epstein-Barr virus causes glandular fever, sometimes known as "the kissing disease". Symptoms include fever, sore throat, tiredness, and swollen lymph glands. Most patients recover within a few weeks but one in 10 young people will suffer prolonged symptoms, marked by fatigue. If these symptoms persist, to a disabling degree for six months or more, the illness may be diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The researchers followed the course of illness among 39 people diagnosed with acute glandular fever. Eight patients developed a "post-infective fatigue syndrome" lasting six months or longer, while the remaining 31 recovered quickly. The scientists then looked for signs of the Epstein-Barr virus in blood samples collected from each individual over 12 months. Professor Andrew Lloyd, of the research team, said: "Our findings reveal that neither the virus nor an abnormal immune response explain the post-infective fatigue syndrome. (C)BBC

Keyword: Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 8616 - Posted: 03.06.2006

by Brendan O'Neill I've been on a lot of demos in my time, but none quite like Saturday's march in Oxford from Broad Street to South Parks Road to defend the building of a biomedical research laboratory at Oxford University where experiments will be conducted on animals. Animal rights activists have demonstrated against the lab almost every week for the past 18 months; the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a ragbag of self-deluded 'freedom fighters' for animals, even described all academics, students and other workers at Oxford as 'legitimate targets' in its 'war' on the laboratory. On Saturday, the fightback started: around 700 people, a mix of scientists, academics, Home County wives and a generous sprinkling of bright and angry students, marched on the lab shouting such memorable slogans as 'What do we want? The Oxford lab! When do we want it? Now!', and 'Animal research cures disease, Human beings over chimpanzees!' (that one made some of the Home County types a little uncomfortable). The pro-testing protest easily overshadowed the anti-testing protest (which was taking place, as usual, opposite the lab), both on the day itself and in the miles of media coverage that followed. Pro-Test, the group behind the pro-lab demo, is the brainchild of a 16-year-old school dropout from Swindon. He got the idea for it in late January, when he and two friends visited Oxford and decided to scribble the words 'Support progress: build the Oxford lab' on a makeshift placard and parade around the city centre. © spiked 2000-2006

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 8615 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Review by WILLIAM SALETAN JUDITH RICH HARRIS calls "No Two Alike" a "scientific detective story." The mystery is why people — even identical twins who grow up in the same home with the same genes — end up with different personalities. The detective is Harris herself, a crotchety amateur, housebound because of an illness, who takes on the academic establishment armed only with a sharp mind and an Internet connection. Harris the author scrupulously follows clues; Harris the protagonist drives the story forward through force of character, arriving at a theory of personality that could be said to describe herself. Eight years ago, Harris's book "The Nurture Assumption" set academic psychology on fire by attacking the notion that parenting styles shape children. Scholars, irked by this upstart former textbook writer and grad-school reject, scorned her argument. In her new book, Harris tries to embarrass her critics while synthesizing her work into a theory of personality. "No Two Alike" is two books: a display of human weakness, and a display of scientific courage and imagination. Every detective has a favorite method. Harris's is behavioral genetics, which attempts to tease out the genetic bases of behavior. To sort genetic from environmental factors, you study people with the same genes but different environments: identical twins raised apart. Or you study people with different genes but the same environment: adoptive siblings raised together. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 8614 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new study, led by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center, pinpoints the role that two genes – Factor H and Factor B – play in the development of nearly three out of four cases of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a devastating eye disease that affects more than 10 million people in the United States. Findings indicate that 74 percent of AMD patients carry certain variants in one or both genes that significantly increase their risk of this disease. Published in Nature Genetics, the research is a continuation of work published last year by the same team in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS, April 30, 2005 issue, see Columbia press release: http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/news/press_releases/AMD-Allikmets.html). Led by Rando Allikmets, Ph.D., the Acquavella Associate Professor in Ophthalmology, Pathology and Cell Biology at Columbia University Medical Center. The PNAS study showed that several variants in the Factor H gene significantly increase the risk of developing AMD. Factor H encodes a protein that helps shut down an immune response against bacterial or viral infection, once the infection is eliminated. People with these inherited risk-increasing variations of Factor H are less able to control inflammation caused by infectious triggers, which may spark AMD later in life. Though the effect of Factor H on AMD is large, variation in this gene alone does not fully explain who gets AMD and who doesn't. As described in the PNAS paper, about one-third (29 percent) of people with a Factor H risk variant had not been diagnosed with AMD.

Keyword: Vision; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 8613 - Posted: 06.24.2010

AUSTIN, Texas—Having a set of extra genes gave fish on separate continents the ability to evolve electric organs, report researchers from The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Harold Zakon and colleagues, in a paper recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that African and South American groups of fish independently evolved electric organs by modifying sodium channel proteins typically used in muscle contraction. Mutations in sodium channel proteins can cause serious muscular disorders, epilepsy and heart problems in humans and other vertebrates. But fish have two copies of many of their genes, and Zakon found that the duplicate sodium channel gene could mutate and evolve without harming the fish. “The spare gene gave [the electric fish] a little bit of evolutionary leeway,” says Zakon, professor of neurobiology. “This is really one of the first cases that the ancestral gene duplication in fish has actually been linked to a gene that has been freed up and evolving in accordance with a ‘new lifestyle.’” Zakon and colleagues looked at two sodium channel genes in the electric organs and muscles in electric and non-electric fish. Electric fish use their electric organs, which are modified muscles, to communicate with each other and sense their environment.

Keyword: Evolution; Animal Communication
Link ID: 8612 - Posted: 06.24.2010

DURHAM, N.C. -- Distinct regions of the human brain are activated when people are faced with ambiguous choices versus choices involving only risk, Duke University Medical Center researchers have discovered. The investigators found that they could predict activation of different brain areas, based on how averse study participants were toward either risk or ambiguity. The finding confirms what economists have long debated -- that different attitudes toward perceived risk and ambiguity in decision-making situations may reflect a basic distinction in brain function, the researchers said. Such fundamental knowledge of neural functioning will contribute to an understanding of why people make risky choices, and how such risk-taking can become pathological, as in addiction or compulsive gambling, they added. Their study appears in the March 2, 2006 issue of Neuron. The research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and Duke. "We were able to see individual differences in brain activation depending on the person's preferences or aversions to risk and ambiguity," said Scott Huettel, Ph.D., lead author and a neuroscientist with the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University. "People who preferred ambiguity had increased activation in the prefrontal cortex, and people who preferred risk had increased activation in the parietal cortex. This opens up the possibility that there are specific neural mechanisms for different forms of economic decision making, which is a very exciting idea." © 2001-2006 Duke University Medical Center

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 8611 - Posted: 06.24.2010