By BENEDICT CAREY His mother in Ireland is entirely unaware of his international reputation, as far as he can tell. His neighbors in the hamlet of Porthaethwy, on an island off the coast of Wales, are equally oblivious, or indifferent. His wife, who knows too well the furor he has caused, says simply, "How could you be right and everyone else wrong?" THE CRITIC David Healy spoke to a reporter after a lecture last month. Dr. David Healy, a psychiatrist at the University of Cardiff and a vocal critic of his profession's overselling of psychiatric drugs, has achieved a rare kind of scientific celebrity: he is internationally known as both a scholar and a pariah. In 1997 he established himself as a leading historian of modern psychiatry with the book "The Antidepressant Era." Around the same time, he became more prominent for insisting in news media interviews and scientific papers that antidepressants could increase the risk of suicide, an unpopular position among his psychiatric colleagues, most of whom denied any link. By 2004, British and American drug regulators, responding in part to Dr. Healy and other critics, issued strong warnings that the drugs could cause suicidal thinking and behavior in some children and adolescents. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 8175 - Posted: 11.15.2005

Researchers at Northwestern University and Columbia University have found that "wiring" in female rat brain memory area expands and retracts in relation to the amount of estrogen present during the estrous/menstrual cycle. A study describing this research will be presented on Nov. 14 by Aryeh Routtenberg, professor of psychology, neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern University, at the 2005 Society for Neuroscience Meeting in Washington, D.C. Because this area of the brain, the hippocampus, has been shown to be critical to both humans and animals for memory processes, the group's finding lends support to a vast array of empirical and anecdotal evidence concerning variations in cognition and memory processes as a function of the time of the female cycle. That this rewiring is due to estrogen was shown in experiments using hormone replacement therapy to compare females with low, moderate or high levels. Only when the high physiological level was reached – similar to that seen during the peak of estrogen levels during the estrous cycle – was the growth observed. The investigators suggest the provocative hypothesis that the ability of the female brain network to modify itself in the presence of increased estrogen may facilitate processing of complex spatial environments to enhance reproductive success, for example, selecting a mate or, as a mother, finding food, water and shelter while avoiding predators.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 8174 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---When the going gets tough, older adults' brains get going, according to new research by a University of Michigan professor studying how key regions of the brain click on when needed. Several regions in the brain, especially in the frontal cortex, are involved in helping people meet the demands of a constantly changing environment. While earlier research focused on older adults' failures to activate these regions, the new U-M research found that older adults can activate these regions in response to a challenging task, and may also bring additional brain regions online to help their performance. "Older adults' brains can indeed rise to the challenge, at least in some situations, although they may do so differently than young adults," said Cindy Lustig, a U-M assistant psychology professor who designed the study, which was conducted at Washington University in St. Louis. "We are continuing to collect data from these groups and are also beginning to test young children and middle-aged adults as well." Lustig and her colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity in young adults (ages 18 to 30) and older adults (ages 65 and up) while they performed easy or difficult tasks.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 8173 - Posted: 11.15.2005

New evidence points to production of myelin, a fatty insulation coating the brain's internal wiring, as a neural Achilles' heel early in life. An upcoming application of a novel model of human brain development and degeneration pioneered by a UCLA neuroscientist identifies disruption of myelination as a key neurobiological component behind childhood developmental disorders and addictive behaviors. Detailed in an article in press with the upcoming annual peer-reviewed publication Adolescent Psychiatry (Hillsdale, N.J.; The Analytic Press Inc.; 2005) the analysis suggests that many factors can disrupt myelination and contribute to or worsen disorders such as autism, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and schizophrenia. In addition, the analysis suggests that alcohol and other drugs of abuse have toxic effects on the myelination process in some adolescents, contributing to poor treatment outcomes and exacerbating co-existing psychiatric disorders. Author Dr. George Bartzokis, a professor of neurology at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, concludes that the high incidence of impulsive behaviors that characterize the teen years as well as many psychiatric disorders that occur in the teens and 20s are related to incomplete myelination of inhibitory "stop" brain circuits, while the "go" circuits become fully functional earlier in development. These inhibitory circuits are not on line to quickly interrupt high-risk behaviors that are so prevalent in teens and young adults.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; ADHD
Link ID: 8171 - Posted: 11.15.2005

Jim Giles People can have physical brain abnormalities similar to those found in autistic individuals without having the disorder themselves. These results come from two studies, which were presented at a conference over the weekend. Brain scans show striking similarities between the brains of autistic patients and those of their non-autistic parents and siblings. The results are prompting researchers to ask how some people can be unaffected by brain deficits that cause such pronounced behavioural abnormalities in others. In one study, Eric Peterson of the University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues scanned the brains of 40 parents of autistic children and compared the results with functional magnetic imaging (MRI) scans from 40 controls. The data look much like those obtained for comparisons between autistic and non-autistic brains, says Peterson. The results were discussed on 13 November at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington. Some areas of the brain region known as the prefrontal cortex were smaller than normal in the parents of autistic children, for example. This part of the brain is involved in understanding other peoples' motivations, something that autistic people find difficult and is thought to lie behind the problems they face in interacting socially. ©2005 Nature Publishing Group |

Keyword: Autism; Brain imaging
Link ID: 8170 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Alison Motluk The drug ecstasy reduces the brain’s defences, reveals a new study of rats, leaving it vulnerable to invasion by viruses and other pathogens. The researchers behind the study warn of "clinical considerations which may apply to the treatment of people who abuse MDMA". For example, anaesthetics could find it easier to penetrate the brain, "greatly increasing the risk of unwanted sedation". And they say infections could cause permanent damage to brain cells or alter the ability of the brain to function normally. The brain is protected by a fence of tightly packed cells, called the blood-brain barrier. This prevents all but the smallest molecules from passing through. But the new experiments show that MDMA – the chemical name for ecstasy, or “E” – somehow forces open that barrier, allowing larger molecules access to the brain. Bryan Yamamoto at Boston University, US, and colleagues gave rats four doses of MDMA over 8 hours. “We were trying to approximate a human dosaging pattern,” says Yamamoto. The scientists also injected a blue dye, made of molecules too large to get into the rats' brains under normal circumstances. One day later, the researchers found the dye had made its way into parts of the brain, such as the caudate and the hippocampus. Ten weeks later, despite no further doses of MDMA being given, new injections of dye were still passing through the blood brain barrier. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 8169 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists at the Universities of Heidelberg and Ulm and a unit of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Monterotondo, Italy, have discovered that a specific signal within brain cells may determine whether they live or die after a stroke. Their study, published online (November 13) by Nature Medicine, strongly suggests that new therapies for victims of strokes could be developed by controlling a molecule involved in passing the signal. Strokes lead to death or permanent disabilities for millions of people every year when an interruption of the flow of blood to brain cells deprives them of vital oxygen and nutrients. But the fate of the cells seems to depend on what happens next. Scientists discovered that damaged and dying brain cells are very actively using an internal "communications network" known as the NF-kB signalling pathway. Cells have many such networks; their function is usually to switch genes on or off, changing the chemistry and behavior of the cell. Most drugs work by interfering with molecules that play important roles within these networks. Scientists knew that NF-kB signaling was active in neurons, but its function was unclear. "We had some evidence that in nerve cells, it could trigger a self-destruction program called apoptosis," says Markus Schwaninger of the University of Heidelberg, one of the heads of the project. "If that was the case, the signal could certainly be playing a role in the death of neurons after stroke and other types of brain damage." To address this hypothesis, Schwaninger's group had established a sophisticated method of creating a stroke-like condition in mice, a model that can be used to investigate new therapies.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 8168 - Posted: 11.14.2005

The recent publication of a Cochrane systematic review concluding that there is "no credible evidence" of a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and either inflammatory bowel disease or autism provoked demands that the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail apologise for its role in promoting the MMR-autism scare (http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004407/frame.html). Instead, on 31 October, the paper published a feature by leading columnist Melanie Phillips insisting that claims that MMR was safe were "a load of old baloney" (www.melaniephillips.com). Phillips proclaimed that, far from having received the "all-clear," the "MMR scandal" was "getting worse." The otherwise unanimous verdict of the media was that the Cochrane review—following a series of studies coming to the same conclusion—confirmed that the scare launched following the now notorious Andrew Wakefield Lancet paper in 1998 was finally over ( Lancet 1998;351: 637[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]). Phillips's defiant article stands as a symbol of the woe-ful role of the media in the course of the MMR controversy. It is true that the MMR-autism scare did not start in the press. Both a reputable London teaching hospital and a prestigious medical journal allowed the scare to start. Yet, once Wakefield decided to go public with his anti-MMR campaign, the media played a major part in promoting the scare. Phillips's response to the Cochrane study follows the familiar themes of numerous anti-MMR articles over the years, including several by Phillips herself. © 2005 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd

Keyword: Autism; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 8167 - Posted: 06.24.2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- People don't have to run marathons to keep their brain cells in shape -- regular, light activity may do the trick. In the first study to show that lifelong exercise decreases cellular aging in the brain, scientists from the McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida say that moderately active rats have healthier DNA and more robust brain cells than their less active counterparts. The research was presented today (Nov. 12) at the Society for Neuroscience's 35th annual meeting in Washington, D.C. "It would be wonderful if we had a pill that contained all the benefits of exercise, but we don't," said Thomas Foster, Ph.D., the Evelyn F. McKnight chair for brain research in memory loss at the College of Medicine. "For this study animals were not forced to run; they did it because it was entertaining, the same as a pet hamster on a running wheel. The results show that regular mild exercise can prevent oxidative damage. In people, that translates to a daily 30-minute walk or a light 1-mile run." Oxidative damage in the brain is believed to be a natural consequence of aging and a contributor to memory loss. In addition, increased oxidative damage has been implicated in the loss of brain cells that is associated with Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Oxidative damage can occur when molecules of oxygen gain electrons and become free radicals. The free radicals regain their balance by giving electrons to their neighbors.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 8166 - Posted: 11.14.2005

Researchers working with rats have found the first solid evidence that still "sharp" older brains store and encode memories differently than younger brains. This discovery is reported by a Johns Hopkins team in the issue of Nature Neuroscience released online Nov. 13. Should it prove to apply as well to human brains, it could lead eventually to the development of new preventive treatments and therapies based on what healthy older brains are doing, rather than on the less relevant, younger brain model, according to study co-author Michela Gallagher, chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins' Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. "We found that aged rats with preserved cognitive abilities are not biologically equivalent to young rats in some of the basic machinery that neurons use to encode and store information in the brain," said Gallagher, who collaborated with Alfredo Kirkwood and Sun Seek Min of Johns Hopkins' Krieger Mind/Brain Institute and Hey-Kyoung Lee, now of the University of Maryland College Park. Lee was a research associate at the Mind/Brain Institute when the research was done. The Gallagher-Kirkwood team compared the brains of 6-month-old rats with those of 2-year-old (considered "aged") rodents that had performed in the "young" range on various learning tasks. The aged rats' brains also were compared with those of older rats which showed declines in their abilities to learn new things. The researchers were looking at a key set of nerve cell connections that store information by modifying the strength of chemical communications at their synapses. (Synapses are the tiny gaps between nerve cells, where chemicals released by one cell act upon another.) Synaptic communication is the way brains register and preserve information to form memories.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Alzheimers
Link ID: 8165 - Posted: 11.14.2005

Loneliness may run in the family, researchers have suggested. Teams from the Free University in Amsterdam and the University of Chicago looked at data on 8,000 identical, and non-identical, twins. They found genetics had a significant influence on loneliness. The researchers, whose study appears in Behavior Genetics, said it showed helping lonely people was not simply a matter of changing their environment. Loneliness has been linked to heart disease as well as emotional problems, such as anxiety, self-esteem problems and sociability. The researchers suggest that loneliness may stem from prehistoric times, where hunter-gatherers may have deliberately shut themselves away from others so they did not have to share food. That would have meant they were better nourished and therefore better able to survive and have children. But they added that the strategy had a downside, in that it also developed dispositions towards anxiety, hostility, negativity and social avoidance. In the study, the twins, who have been surveyed regularly since 1991 when they were aged 13 to 20, were asked if they agreed or disagreed with certain statements, such as "I lose friends very quickly" and "nobody loves me". The researchers compared the responses of adults in identical, and non-identical, twin pairs, all of whom had been brought up in the same households. They found less difference in loneliness ratings between identical twins. (C)BBC

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Emotions
Link ID: 8164 - Posted: 11.12.2005

By Charles Q. Choi Mothers could literally always have their kids on their minds. Researchers find that in mice, cells from fetuses can migrate into a mother's brain and apparently develop into nervous system cells. The discovery comes from Gavin S. Dawe of the National University of Singapore and Zhi-Cheng Xiao of Singapore General Hospital, along with their colleagues from China and Japan. They were looking to design therapies for stroke or diseases such as Alzheimer's. Scientists have known for years that fetal cells can enter a mother's blood; in humans, they may remain there at least 27 years after birth. Like stem cells, they can become many other kinds of cells and in theory might help repair damaged organs. The neurobiologists bred normal female mice with males genetically modified to uniformly express a green fluorescent protein. They found green fetal cells in the mothers' brains. "In some regions of some mothers' brains, there are as many as one in 1,000 to sometimes even 10 in 1,000 cells of fetal origin," Xiao reports. The fetal cells transformed into what seem like neurons, astrocytes (which help to feed neurons), oligodendrocytes (which insulate neurons) and macrophages (which ingest germs and damaged cells). Moreover, after the scientists chemically injured the mouse brains, nearly six times as many fetal cells made their way to damaged areas than elsewhere, suggesting the cells could be responding to molecular distress signals released by the brain. © 1996-2005 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 8163 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have long known that different parts of the brain are generally responsible for different functions, but only since the development of new, highly sophisticated scanning devices have they been able to watch the brain in action. Using a Magnetic Resonating Imaging scanner or MRI, they can watch portions of the brain "light up" when different things happen. Allan Reiss, director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Science and Research at Stanford University, has been using this device to study how volunteers' brains react to something funny. His goal is to learn more about how we use humor as a way to cope with things like stress. He says, "The way that we do it is we show them black and white cartoons, fairly simple, most of them have captions." By using the MRI, "We can actually see the brain lighting up, specific areas of the brain lighting up in response to the person viewing the cartoon," he explains. In previous research, Reiss found that the brain's reward center was "explicitly involved in perception of humor." But now, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Reiss has confirmed that men and women perceive humor differently. Additionally, he's found that personality differences play a role that may be even more important than gender does. © ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Emotions; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 8162 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Squirrels can be very vocal animals, as backyard and park observers know, and now scientists have translated some of their squirrel-speak. The findings, published recently in the journal Animal Behavior, present some of the most detailed information to date on squirrel vocalizations, which the researchers now believe constitute a complex language that is unique to the animals. The team of zoologists focused their analysis on alarm calls of the Richardson's ground squirrel, Spermophilus richardsonii, which is the most common ground squirrel in Canada. Squirrels often communicate with whistles, chirps and chucks, which sound like the word "chuck." Whistles and chirps resemble the sounds that many birds make. "A chuck is a short duration trailing element, which when added to the end of a syllable, harshens the offset of a call so that it punctuates the end of the syllable with a click," explained James Hare, one of the study's authors. Hare, an associate professor of zoology at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, added, "The squirrel whistles and chirps are roughly equivalent to those of birds, with a whistle having a more or less constant pitch and a chirp decreasing in pitch over its duration." © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 8161 - Posted: 06.24.2010

KINGSTON, Ont. – A simple test that measures eye movement may help to identify children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and ultimately lead to improved treatment for the condition, say Queen's University researchers. At present there are no objective diagnostic tools that can be used to distinguish between children with FASD – which affects approximately one per cent of children in Canada – and those with other developmental disorders such as Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Researcher James Reynolds and graduate student Courtney Green, of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and the Centre for Neuroscience Studies, will present their findings next week at the annual meeting of the international Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C. "Having a set of tests that can be used as diagnostic tools for fetal alcohol syndrome and all of the other behavioural disorders classified under the broader term fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is tremendously valuable," says Dr. Reynolds, who is part of a $1.25-million Queen's-led team focusing on fetal alcohol syndrome, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. "Now we can begin to identify specific deficits in these children." Many of the behavioural tests used to assess children with FASD are geared to white, middle-class English-speaking people, notes Ms Green. "The biggest problem [in current tests] is cultural insensitivity," she says. "By measuring eye movement we can cut across cultural barriers and provide objectivity in identifying the disorder."

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 8160 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have identified another hormone involved in regulating hunger. Obestatin joins a raft of other hormones which can boost or suppress a person's appetite. The team at Stanford University, US, carried out a computer search of genetic information which led to obestatin, Science magazine reports. A UK expert said that the research would help enable scientists to fully control appetite within the next five to 10 years. The researchers looked at gene sequences in humans and animals, including one which codes for ghrelin, an appetite-boosting hormone. They found another hormone - later dubbed obestatin - was processed from the same protein precursor that produced ghrelin. But obestatin was found to suppress appetite - the opposite effect to ghrelin. When rats were given injections of obestatin in their abdomens and brains, they ate about half as much as animals who were not given the hormone. They also put on less weight. Obestatin also slowed the movement of food from the stomach to the intestines. (C)BBC

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 8159 - Posted: 11.11.2005

By DENISE GRADY Hungry or full, fat or thin: it is mostly a matter of hormones, dozens of them, carrying messages between the digestive tract, the fat cells and the brain. Eat. Don't eat. Burn calories. Store fat. Today, researchers at Stanford University are reporting that they have found a previously unknown member of this chemical cascade, a hormone with a much coveted power: it sharply reduces the desire to eat. The new substance, which the scientists named obestatin (OHB-statin), is made in the stomach and small intestine, and it seems to prompt the brain to send out a signal that says "eat less." Mice given the hormone for eight days ate half as much as usual and lost weight, the researchers are reporting today in the journal Science. The hormone seems to reduce hunger in part by slowing the passage of food through the stomach and small intestine. The study's director, Dr. Aaron Hsueh, said obestatin had not been studied in people and had been tested only in mice. But Stanford issued a statement saying Johnson & Johnson, which sponsored the research, has rights to the discovery. With obesity rates shooting up worldwide, drug companies are scrambling to develop weight-loss drugs, especially appetite suppressants. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 8158 - Posted: 11.11.2005

STANFORD, Calif. - When the appetite-enhancing hormone ghrelin was discovered a few years ago, researchers thought they had found the last of the major genes that regulate weight. They were wrong. Introducing: obestatin, a newly discovered hormone that suppresses appetite. The finding, to be published in the Nov. 11 issue of Science, offers a key to researchers developing treatments for obesity. In a nation that desperately needs to slim down - the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 65 percent of Americans over the age of 20 are either overweight or obese - obestatin is likely to generate interest from scientists and drugmakers alike. The research was sponsored by Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, LLC, which has certain license rights to the discovery. Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine uncovered obestatin by using the principles of evolution to pick clues from data held in the Human Genome Project, as well as the genome sequencing projects for many other organisms, among them, yeast, fruit flies and mice. "Darwin led us to this new hormone," said senior author Aaron Hsueh, PhD, an endocrinologist and professor of obstetrics and gynecology. Jian V. Zhang, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in Hsueh's laboratory, is the lead author.

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 8157 - Posted: 11.11.2005

Juliet Clutton-Brock In Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers, Richard W. Bulliet divides the history of human-animal relations into four eras: separation, the time when he presumes that humans or pre-human hominids became self-aware as a species; predomestic, the period of hunter-gathering; domestic, lasting from the Neolithic until, say, 1900, when around 40 per cent of US citizens lived on farms and were self-sufficient on their land; post-domestic, our present age of mass production when only about 2 per cent of US citizens live on farms. These divisions are used by Bulliet as a basis for his hypothesis that the changing patterns of how humans perceive animals, both wild and domestic, are a reflection of the development of societies over time. However, the divisions might have been easier to understand if domestic had been named the “age of the home farm” and post-domestic the “age of the factory farm”. In Bulliet’s view, domestic societies lived close to the land, and people took for granted the killing of farm animals and had few moral qualms about consuming animal products. In early domestic societies, the sacrificial killing of animals was common practice, while later, in Europe, blood sports such as bear- and bull- baiting were immensely popular. In post-domestic societies, there has been a great change, and with the divorce from the realities of keeping, breeding and killing livestock, people experience feelings of guilt, shame and disgust when they think about the industrial processes to which domestic animals are subjected. In future, as urbanism spreads, post-domestic people will be separated increasingly from live animals and they will gain their only experiences of them from print and from the electronic media.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 8156 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Genes that favor enhancements to male sexual potency may be exerting a strong influence on human evolution, a recent study suggests. The study determined that at least one new gene has emerged once every million years on the human lineage during the past 63 million years of primate evolution. Most of these new genes appear to be linked to male sexual prowess. Since the new genes evolved from genes that are not directly related to male sexual function, this suggests natural selection aggressively promotes positive changes to male reproductivity. Scientists focused their research on a specific kind of gene, called a retrogene. Retrogenes, which also are called processed genes, can emerge when RNA, or ribonucleic acid, from a parent's gene converts to DNA and makes a copy of itself. These copies are identical, or nearly identical, to the original. The identical, or slightly altered, copy then may give rise to active retrogenes. The overall process is called retroposition, and for some reason it has been happening a lot in primates, including humans, over the last several million years. "The burst of retroposition seems to have generated a number of genes that have contributed to new phenotypes (physical characteristics) to humans and related non-human primates, in particular to male reproduction," said Henrik Kaessmann, one of the authors of the study, which is featured in the November issue of PLoS Biology. © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 8155 - Posted: 06.24.2010