Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) – shock treatment –improves quality of life in patients with major depression, and that improved quality of life continues for six months, according to a report in the February Journal of Affective Disorders. The study was conducted in seven hospitals in New York City – two private psychiatric hospitals, three community hospitals and two academic medical centers, said W. Vaughn McCall, M.D., M.S., the lead author and professor and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. "This study adds to the accumulating evidence that ECT is associated with a net health benefit in depressed patients who attain and sustain remission," wrote McCall and colleagues. ECT has long been known to be an effective treatment for major depression. The results from 283 severely depressed patients at the seven New York City hospitals confirm results from an earlier study McCall did of 77 ECT patients at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, a study that was published in the November 2004 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. In that study, he said, "Quality of life and function are improved in ECT patients as early as two weeks after the conclusion of ECT." In the new study, the psychiatrists said, "ECT is associated with improved health-related quality of life in the short term and the long term." Most of the improvements were largely explained by the control of depressive symptoms, McCall said.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 8529 - Posted: 06.24.2010

All is fair in love and war — especially when the two are intertwined. Just ask the male Australian cuttlefish. "The male cuttlefish has quite a challenge on his hands when it comes to the end of their yearly life cycle," explains Roger Hanlon, senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory. "There are four, five, even ten males for every female on the spawning grounds, so the challenge they face is, 'How do I get my genes into the next generation?' There's enormous competition among the males for the relatively few females that are on the spawning ground." Hanlon and his team spent five spawning seasons observing cuttlefish underwater in a remote coastal area of Australia. As one might expect, the largest males used their size advantage to find a female partner and guard her from other males. Hanlon observed that smaller males were able to get to the female while the guard male was fighting other males away, or by meeting the female in a "secret rendezvous" under a rock, for instance. But he found that the small males with the biggest success rate employ the same camouflage trick that allows them to escape predators: these so-called "sneaker" males change their skin pattern and body shape to disguise themselves as females, and swim right past a large guard male, who thinks he's getting another girlfriend. © ScienCentral, 2000-2006.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 8528 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers at a trio of universities have found that reactivating a specific memory does not affect associated or related memories, adding to our understanding of how memories are stored and influenced. The study appears in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study's authors are Jacek Debiec and Joseph LeDoux of New York University's Center for Neural Science, Valérie Doyère of NYU and Université Paris-Sud, and Karim Nader, a psychology professor at McGill University. Memories are made in stages. These initial stages involve learning followed by consolidation--a process during which the memory trace is formed. Unconsolidated memories are susceptible to disruption. Therefore, various pharmacological agents or interfering tasks applied before consolidation occurs prevent a memory from persisting. However, once consolidation occurs, memories may be long lasting--one experience may create memories that last a lifetime. For years it had been believed that consolidated memories were resistant to drug manipulations, which are effective in the early stages of memory formation. However, increasing number of data indicate that reactivation of consolidated memories renders them susceptible to treatments, which may result in either impairment or enhancement of the reactivated memory. This process is often referred to as reconsolidation, which has been proposed as a possible way of treating traumatic memories.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Emotions
Link ID: 8527 - Posted: 02.14.2006

Up to 80% of the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease is genetic, a study has suggested. US researchers looked at almost 400 sets of elderly twins, where at least one had Alzheimer's. It also found that genetic factors appeared to determine when a person developed the condition. UK experts said the research, published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, would help quantify the role genetics played. Two-thirds of adults aged 65 years and older with dementia have Alzheimer's. The number of cases is expected to rise with the growing older adult population. Gene mutations which could affect risk have been found, but it is thought they only apply to a tiny number of cases. Scientists trying to determine whether genetic or environmental factors influence disease risk often study twins. Identical (monozygotic) twins share all their genes. So if a disease does have a strong genetic basis, it is likely to be seen in both or neither. But if only one has a condition, it is likely that environmental factors play a relatively greater influence. In the US study, researchers from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and colleagues identified 392 pairs of twins where one or both had Alzheimer's from the Swedish Twin Registry. (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 8526 - Posted: 02.13.2006

Helen Pearson Idlers, loafers and layabouts, listen up. A new study suggests that the times when we sit around twiddling our thumbs could in fact be vital for learning. The idea stems from experiments in which neuroscientists eavesdropped on the brains of rats as they explored their environments. They found that the rats' brains 'replay' their experiences in reverse when the animals pause briefly to rest. The scientists, David Foster and Matthew Wilson working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, inserted a pincushion of fine wires into the animals' skulls. These allowed the team to simultaneously monitor the electrical activity of around 100 individual brain cells in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning and memory. The researchers placed each wired-up rat in a straight 1.5-metre run. They recorded brain-cell activity as the rats scurried up and down, pausing at each end to eat, groom and scratch their whiskers. As the rats ran along the track, the nerve cells fired in a very specific sequence. This is not surprising, because certain cells in this region are known to be triggered when an animal passes through a particular spot in a space. But the researchers were taken aback by what they saw when the rats were resting. Then, the same brain cells replayed the sequence of electrical firing over and over, but in reverse and speeded up. "It's absolutely original; no one has ever seen this before at all," says Edvard Moser, who studies memory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 8525 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The mystery of cot death may be explained by new research published online in Nature Neuroscience today [Sunday 12 February 2006]. A failure to 'gasp' has long been proposed as the basis for sudden infant death syndrome, or cot death. A team at the University of Bristol has discovered a subset of cells in the brain that have the ability to self-generate nervous impulses, which appear essential for gasping. These cells have been termed 'pacemakers'. Professor Julian Paton who heads up the research team at Bristol University said: "Our studies resolve a 15-year long controversy by showing that pacemaker cells in the brain appear responsible for gasping but not normal breathing. Importantly, cot death has been proposed to result from a failure of autoresuscitation and gasping." Using a unique experimental set-up developed in Bristol, Paton combined forces with two other world leaders in respiration – Dr. Jeffrey Smith (NIH, USA) and Professor Walter St.-John (Dartmouth, USA) – to discover how gasping works. They found that many different types of brain cells are essential for normal breathing, but only a small subset of these is required for gasping or autoresuscitation. If normal breathing should stop, this backup system is activated to induce gasping. This restores oxygen supplies and kick-starts the heart beat so that normal breathing can resume.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 8524 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new study to examine facial preference, has found that people are attracted to facial characteristics indicative of personality traits similar to their own Biological scientists at the University of Liverpool launched the study to investigate the reasons why many couples tend to look similar to each other. The team, in collaboration with the University of Durham and the University of St Andrews, asked participants to judge perceived age, attractiveness, and personality traits of real-life married couples. Photographs of female faces were viewed separately to male faces, so that participants were unaware of who was married to whom. Dr Tony Little, from the University's School of Biological Sciences, explains: "There is widespread belief that couples, particularly those who have been together for many years, look similar to each other. To understand why this happens, we looked at the assumptions that people make about a person's personality, based on facial characteristics. We found that perceptions of age, attractiveness and personality were very similar between male and female couples. For example if the female face was rated as 'sociable' then her partner was also more likely to be rated as 'sociable.' "We also found that couples who had been married for a long period of time, were perceived as having more similar personalities than those who had not been together very long. This may come from sharing experiences together - affecting how their face appears."

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 8523 - Posted: 02.11.2006

Washington, D.C. — Based on laboratory research, scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have a new theory as to why people with Alzheimer's disease have trouble performing even the simplest memory tasks, such as remembering a family member’s name. That’s because they discovered a physical link between apolipoprotein E (APOE), the transport molecules known to play a role in development of the disease, and glutamate, a brain chemical necessary for establishing human memory. In a study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the research team specifically found that receptors on the outside of brain nerve cells (neurons) that bind on to APOE and glutamate are connected on the surface of neurons, separated from each other by only a small protein. While the researchers don’t know why these receptors are linked together, they say inefficient or higher-than-average levels of APOE in the brain could possibly be clogging these binding sites, preventing glutamate from activating the processes necessary to form memories. “We have found out that two receptors previously thought to have nothing to do with each other do, in fact, interact, leading us to conclude that APOE affects the NMDA glutamate channel that is important in memory,” says the study’s senior author, G. William Rebeck, PhD, associate professor of neuroscience in Georgetown’s Biomedical Graduate Research Organization.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 8522 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have linked a hormone known to adjust levels of key brain chemicals to the quality of our hearing as we age. The more of the hormone that older people have in their bloodstream, the better their hearing is, and the less of the hormone, the worse their hearing is. The hormone, aldosterone, is known to regulate kidney function and also plays a role in controlling levels of two crucial signaling chemicals in the nervous system, potassium and sodium. For nerves to send signals crisply and work properly, potassium and sodium must be in precise proportion, without any disruption in the molecular channels or gates through which they move. Levels of potassium are particularly crucial in the sensitive inner ear, where fluid rich in potassium plays a central role in converting sounds into signals that the nervous system recognizes. The team of scientists in Rochester, N.Y., put 47 healthy men and women between the ages of 58 and 84 through a battery of sophisticated hearing tests. Scientists also measured their blood levels of aldosterone, which is known to drop as people age. They found that people with severe hearing loss had on average about half as much aldosterone in their bloodstream as their counterparts with normal hearing. The researchers noted, however, that the levels of aldosterone found in all the participants is considered normal, and that no patients or physicians should consider altering aldosterone levels without more research.

Keyword: Hearing; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 8521 - Posted: 02.11.2006

Bruce Bower The concept of identity theft assumes an entirely new meaning for people with brain injuries that rob them of their sense of self—the unspoken certainty that one exists as a person in a flesh—bounded body with a unique set of life experiences and relationships. Consider the man who, after sustaining serious brain damage, insisted that his parents, siblings, and friends had been replaced by look-alikes whom he had never met. Everyone close to him had become a familiar-looking stranger. Another brain-injured patient asserted that his physicians, nurses, and physical therapists were actually his sons, daughters-in-law, and coworkers. He identified himself as an ice skater whom he had seen on a television program. The sense of "I" can also go partially awry. After a stroke had left one of her arms paralyzed, a woman reported that the limb was no longer part of her body. She told a physician that she thought of the arm as "my pet rock." Other patients bequeath their physical infirmities to phantom children. For instance, a woman blinded by a brain tumor became convinced that it was her child who was sick and blind, although the woman had no children. Copyright ©2006 Science Service.

Keyword: Laterality; Attention
Link ID: 8520 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Female baboons that suffer the loss of a close friend or relative turn to other baboons for comfort and support, according to a new study that encompassed 14 years of observing over 80 free-ranging baboons in Botswana's Okavango Delta. The study provides the first direct evidence that certain animals mourn the loss of individuals, even when the rest of their social group remains intact. The findings also suggest that friendship may be just as important to some primates as it is for humans. Researchers particularly were struck by the behavior of one female chacma baboon (Papio hamadryas ursinus) named Sylvia, who was described as "the queen of mean" and disdainful of other baboons until she lost her daughter, Sierra, to a lion kill. "In the week after Sierra died, Sylvia was withdrawn," said Anne Engh, who led the project. "When the other females were grooming and socializing, she tended to sit alone and rarely interacted even with her other relatives." Copyright © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 8519 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Prashant Nair TWO antibodies that enabled the severed spinal nerves of rats to be regenerated are to be tested in humans. The antibodies have helped rats with damaged spinal cords to walk again, by blocking the action of Nogo, a protein that stops nerve cells sprouting new connections. But there were concerns about whether blocking Nogo would lead to uncontrolled neuronal rewiring in the brain or spinal cord and it was also unclear how such a therapy could be given to humans. Now Martin Schwab and his colleagues at the University of Zurich in Switzerland have infused two antibodies, 11C7 and 7B12, into the damaged spinal cords of rats. An osmotic mini-pump connected to a fine catheter was used to deliver the antibodies directly into the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the injured part of the spinal cord - a method of delivery that could easily be applied to humans, they say. The antibodies triggered regeneration of axons, the fine thread-like extensions that connect neurons, and enabled injured rats to swim, cross the rungs of a ladder without slipping and traverse a narrow beam (Annals of Neurology, vol 58, p 706). Moreover, the antibodies did not cause hyperalgesia, a condition in which even a simple touch is sensed as pain - a sign that would have indicated wrong neuronal connections had been made. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 8518 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi Colour vision may have evolved in primates to help them pick up on changes in blood and oxygen concentrations beneath the skin’s surface, giving access to emotional cues, a new analysis proposes. Previously research has suggested that primates – the only mammals with the ability to see in colour – evolved this facility to spot ripe fruits or nutritional leaves. The new analysis compared variations in skin colour change with the colour sensitivities of primate vision cells. These cells, known as cones, sit in the retina of the eye and allow primates to discriminate colour. Charting the receptivity of these cells was no small task. “Basically, careful retinal neurophysiologists and psychophysicists spent untold numbers of hours measuring how sensitive each cone is to each wavelength of light,” says Mark Changizi at Caltech in Pasadena, California, US. Changizi, who led the new study, and his colleagues built on this previous research by analysing how different primates’ cone cells might pick up on shifting blood oxygen levels, which show through the skin. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Vision; Emotions
Link ID: 8517 - Posted: 06.24.2010

There is no evidence the hormone melatonin is effective in preventing jet lag or treating sleep disorders, research has found. Melatonin plays a role in controlling daily body rhythms, and has become popular in supplement form to treat sleep problems. The University of Alberta study suggests there is little evidence to support this. But UK experts have challenged the British Medical Journal study. Melatonin is produced naturally by the pineal gland in the brain. Research has shown that levels rise at night and fall in the morning. The researchers looked at the use of melatonin to treat people with 'secondary' sleep problems, often caused by medical or psychological conditions, or substance misuse They also assessed whether the hormone could help people with disturbed or restricted sleep, such as shift workers, or those with jet lag. In total, they examined data from 16 trials including more than 500 people. Melatonin had no significant impact - either on increasing amount of sleep, or reducing the time taken to fall asleep - among people with disturbed or restricted sleep. It did increase amount of sleep among people with secondary sleep problems. But the effect was so small - less than 10 minutes extra sleep in an eight-hour period spent in bed - that the researchers dismissed it as clinically unimportant. (C)BBC

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 8516 - Posted: 02.10.2006

Misfolded and damaged proteins are common to all human neurodegenerative diseases. Clumps of these aggregated proteins destroy neurons within the brain and cause disease. But explanations for the mechanism that actually causes cell death have varied widely, puzzling scientists and leading them to ask whether Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's and Creutzfeldt-Jakob diseases and familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are related diseases or very different diseases. Northwestern University scientists now offer a clue that may get to the core of the cell death question and establish a common mechanism in these diseases. In a study to be published online Feb. 9 by the journal Science, the research team shows that polyglutamine (the toxic component of the protein responsible for Huntington's disease) is so demanding on the cell's system that it changes the environment within the cell, causing other metastable, or partially folded, proteins to crash and lose function. Over time, this can cause the organism to die. "Our results suggest that these disease-associated, aggregation-prone proteins may exert their destabilizing effects by interfering generally with other proteins that are having difficulty folding," said Richard I. Morimoto, Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology, who led the study. Morimoto is an expert in Huntington's disease and on the cellular and molecular response to damaged proteins.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Huntingtons
Link ID: 8515 - Posted: 02.10.2006

Falling in love can make us behave quite differently oddly. We'll give up all our worldly possessions, travel half way around the globe and completely change our lives to be with the people we love. A British king, Edward VIII, even gave up his throne for love. "You will do quite irrational things, or inventive things. You might even get up, and jump up and down on a couch," says neuroscientist Lucy L. Brown, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Brown discovered that the intoxicating feeling of falling in love is not an emotion. It's a reward — produced by an unconscious brain system, much older than other systems and therefore considered essential to survival. This primitive reward system is shared by many animals and is similar to the one that motivates us to find food when we're hungry, or water when we're thirsty. "It suggests that the person we're in love with is a goal that we must have, just in the same way that we must have food or water," Brown says. "We can have varied emotions around love — happiness, anxiety, even anger sometimes — but the most important aspect of love is this core motivation that drives us." © ScienCentral, 2000-2006.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 8514 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A Florida State University scientist used a gene transfer technique to block the expression of a gene associated with clinical depression in a new study of mice that could lead to better treatment of human beings with this condition. Carlos Bolanos, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, was among a team of researchers that identified the role of a gene called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) in the development of social aversion. Mice treated with a transfer technique to block expression of the BDNF gene in a small area of the mid-brain did not develop the aversion despite repeated encounters with aggressive rodents. The study will be published in the Feb. 10 issue of the journal Science. "It's very exciting because we are slowly but surely identifying mechanisms in the brain underlying psychiatric disorders that have a social withdrawal component, such as social phobia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and that will allow us to find better ways to treat these disorders," Bolanos said. "This study is significant because it gives us an animal model of the disorder and opens up new areas of study." In the experiment, the researchers subjected mice to daily bouts of social threats and subordination by aggressive rodents and continuous sensory contact with the aggressors for 10 days. Afterward, the defeated mice avoided any social contact by spending most of their time in the corner of their cages opposite other mice, including those that had not been aggressive toward them.

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 8513 - Posted: 02.10.2006

Helen Pearson A single genetic change can render mice immune to the consequences of hostile bullying, and this may point the way to drugs for social phobias and depression. Mice, somewhat like people, become withdrawn and unhappy when they are exposed to other, aggressive mice. Now a team led by Eric Nestler at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas has exposed what is going on in the brains of these introverted animals. The researchers placed a small, brown mouse of one strain in a cage with a larger, white, aggressive mouse from another. "They're just naturally mean mice," Nestler says of the intimidating white strain. After ten daily bouts with a different tyrant, the brown mice seemed socially scarred. Even a month after the bullying sessions, normally gregarious animals clung to the corner of their cage, shying away from both white mice and familiar brown ones. The researchers showed that these social problems are controlled by a reward circuit in the brain that is known to tell the animals that food, sex and drugs are gratifying. They did this by taking a group of mice and removing a key protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) from this reward circuit. Mice lacking BDNF were no longer browbeaten by the aggressive mice, they found. The researchers suggest that BDNF is needed for the animals to learn that bullying mice are very far from rewarding, and are actually horrible. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Trophic Factors
Link ID: 8512 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists hope a new drug could cut the risk of serious disability following a stroke. A trial, led by Glasgow University researchers, involving more than 1,700 patients in 154 hospitals worldwide has produced promising results. The treatment, known as NXY-059, works by minimising brain damage in the early hours after an clot-related stroke. Stroke is one of the most common causes of death and long-term disability around the world. A clot-related, or ischaemic, stroke is caused by a blockage in the blood vessels supplying the brain. It can cause symptoms including facial weakness, arm weakness and problems speaking. But it is estimated that under 1% of stroke patients in the UK currently receive drugs to reduce the risk of further clots. During the latest trial, patients were examined when they arrived at hospital within six hours of developing symptoms of a stroke. Half were given normal fluids through a drip, while the others received normal fluids and NXY-059. Lead researcher Professor Kennedy Lees said: "Patients who were given this new drug were more likely to have made a full recovery from stroke after three months." (C)BBC

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 8511 - Posted: 02.09.2006

By GARDINER HARRIS WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — Twenty-five people died suddenly and 54 others suffered serious unexplained heart problems while taking stimulant drugs like Ritalin from 1999 through 2003, according to reports sent to federal drug regulators. It is impossible to determine whether the deaths and injuries resulted from the drugs or from other factors, federal drug regulators wrote in a 2004 report released publicly Wednesday. But stimulant drugs are among the most widely prescribed medicines in the world, and so any hint that they may cause health problems leads to intense concern. Few mental health experts believe that the drugs are dangerous. "Controlled trials have never found anything" suggesting that drugs to treat hyperactivity injure the heart, said Dr. Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. Children accounted for 19 of the deaths noted in the 2004 report and 26 of the serious heart problems, and the report, using the abbreviation for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, said, "The rare occurrence of pediatric sudden death during stimulant therapy of A.D.H.D. is an issue that warrants close monitoring." An advisory committee for the Food and Drug Administration will meet Thursday to discuss the report and recommend ways to research whether the drugs are to blame for the deaths. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 8510 - Posted: 06.24.2010