Almost half of patients treated for a cannabis related mental disorder go on to develop a schizophrenic illness, a study has suggested. The Danish study, in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found a third of them developed paranoid schizophrenia. Cannabis has been linked with the condition, but few studies have looked at people with drug-induced symptoms. The researchers said cannabis users showed signs of schizophrenic illness earlier than others with the condition. Researchers looked at the incidence of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, including schizophrenia, schizoptypal disorder and schizoaffective disorders. The team from Aarhus Psychiatric Hospital obtained information on 535 patients treated for cannabis-induced psychotic symptoms from the Danish Psychiatric Central Register, who were then followed for three years. They were then compared to 2,721 people treated for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders who had no history of cannabis-induced illness. It was found that 44.5% of those with cannabis-induced psychotic symptoms went on to be diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. (C)BBC

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 8244 - Posted: 12.01.2005

Oxford University has resumed building work on its controversial new laboratory complex on South Parks Road. Construction work on the biomedical facility had been halted in July 2004 after a sustained campaign of protest from animal rights groups. The building contractor, Walter Lilly & Co, said its staff had been subjected to threats and intimidation. The university has now engaged a new company and work on the £20m complex began early on Wednesday. Oxford said it was determined to finish the project, which is now well behind schedule. "The new biomedical research building will provide world-class facilities reflecting the university's commitment to animal welfare and to scientific progress," added David Holmes, the institution's Registrar. "Completing the project will be good for animal welfare, good for medial research and good for the treatment of life-threatening conditions all over the world." Mr Holmes confirmed that the government had been supportive and that assistance had been given by Thames Valley Police. He added that the £20m construction cost did not include security costs for the site. The facility was first conceived a decade ago; it has been in detailed planning for over five years and phase one of the project was originally to have been completed this Autumn. (C)BBC

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 8243 - Posted: 12.01.2005

by Elizabeth Svoboda For Rüdiger Gamm, the stakes were high. When the starting signal sounded, the second timed trial would begin, and he would have a final chance to better his score. For one minute, his only focus would be the fifty randomly chosen dates between the years 1600 and 2100 that appeared on the piece of paper in front of him. To figure out which day of the week each date fell on, he would have to work fast, but not too fast: If he got more than one answer wrong, he would be disqualified, no matter how many right answers came afterward. But if he could better Matthias Kesselschläger, Gamm would have what he had come to Annaberg-Buchholz seeking: the title of first-ever “Mental Calculation World Cup Winner for the category Calendar from Memory.” But that was not to be. The two Germans would finish first and second in the 2004 calendar calculations competition, but Kesselschläger would best Gamm’s twenty-two correct results with thirty-three of his own—a new world record. Still, Gamm, now thirty-four, is considered one of the best human calculators in the world, able to multiply eight-digit numbers in his head. He also can calculate ninth powers and fifth roots, and divide one integer by another to sixty decimal places. What may be even more remarkable is that up until the age of twenty, he had no interest—and no talent—in math. © 2002 Science & Spirit Magazine.

Keyword: Intelligence; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 8242 - Posted: 06.24.2010

(AP) Your medicine really could work better if your doctor talks it up before handing over the prescription. Research is showing the power of expectations, that they have physical — not just psychological — effects on your health. Scientists can measure the resulting changes in the brain, from the release of natural painkilling chemicals to alterations in how neurons fire. Among the most provocative findings: New research suggests that once Alzheimer's disease robs someone of the ability to expect that a proven painkiller will help them, it doesn't work nearly as well. It's a new spin on the so-called placebo effect — and it begs the question of how to harness this power and thus enhance treatment benefits for patients. "Your expectations can have profound impacts on your brain and your health," says Columbia University neuroscientist Tor Wager. "There is not a single placebo effect, but many placebo effects," that differ by illness, adds Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti of Italy's University of Torino Medical School, who is studying those effects in patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and pain. ©MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 8241 - Posted: 06.24.2010

To take advantage of the information emerging from the mouse genome sequencing efforts, it has become necessary to systematically collect normative phenotypic information at all biological levels. Accordingly, an international collaboration, the Mouse Phenome Database (MPD) project, was created to establish a collection of baseline phenotypic data from commonly used inbred mice, such as the C57BL/6J, 129S1/SvlmJ, DBA/2J and BALB/cByJ strains. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) neuroimaging phenotyping informatics emphasis has similarly been directed toward designing comprehensive three dimensional (3D) digital brain atlases of commonly used mice strains including variability of brain structures across a given strain. As part of this world-wide effort, we have constructed an adult male C57BL/6J mouse brain atlas database derived directly from T2*-weighted 3D magnetic resonance microscopy images acquired on a 17.6-T magnet @ University of Florida. The 3D neuroanatomical information of twenty segmented structures including structure variability data, are integrated into a comprehensive database with the following framework:

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 8240 - Posted: 12.01.2005

UPTON, NY -- Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have just launched a web-based 3-D digital atlas browser and database of the brain of a popular laboratory mouse (see http://www.bnl.gov/CTN/mouse/). "Neuroscientists around the world can now download these extremely accurate anatomical templates and use them to map other data -- such as which parts of the brain are metabolically active and where particular genes are expressed -- and for making quantitative anatomical comparisons with other, genetically engineered mouse strains," said project leader Helene Benveniste, who is a researcher in Brookhaven's medical department and a professor of anesthesiology at Stony Brook University. The database was created using high-resolution magnetic resonance (MR) microscopy at the University of Florida in collaboration with researchers from Brookhaven Lab's Center for Translational Neuroimaging. The work was done in parallel with an international collaboration, the Mouse Phenome Database (MPD) project, which was created to establish a collection of baseline phenotypic data from commonly used inbred mice. The new brain atlas database consists of 3-D anatomical data from 10 adult male mice of the strain C57BL/6J, and contains data on 20 segmented structures, including variability of brain structures across the strain, and downloadable visualization tools.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 8239 - Posted: 12.01.2005

Toni Baker A bi-polar hormone that can contribute to strokes and minimize their damage is emerging as a therapeutic target in the battle against these brain attacks, researchers say. “It costs about $56 billion a year to look after stroke patients, never mind the quality-of-life issues for these patients,” says Dr. Anne M. Dorrance, Medical College of Georgia physiologist and senior author of a review article on the cover of the November issue of Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism. Despite better management of blood pressure – the number-one risk factor for strokes – stroke incidence is not declining and aging baby boomers likely will cause rates to spike, says Dr. Dorrance. She is among an increasing number of scientists who think the hormone, aldosterone, is part of the problem and blocking it may be part of the solution. Scientific momentum surrounding the hormone secreted by the adrenal gland prompted the journal to ask Dr. Dorrance to write the article, “Aldosterone: Good Guy or Bad Guy in Cerebrovascular Disease.” Copyright 2005 Medical College of Georgia

Keyword: Stroke; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 8238 - Posted: 06.24.2010

PORTLAND, Ore. – A report written by an OHSU physician with more than a half century of medical experience contradicts both public and professional bias against the use of morphine in the final stage of life for patients with breathing difficulties. Because large amounts of morphine slows breathing, doctors have avoided prescribing the drug to dying patients with breathing difficulties for fear it would shorten life. However, the author of this new case series suggests that some patients who receive an appropriate level of morphine live a little longer because their fear and struggle for breath are reduced. The research is published in the current issue of the Journal of Palliative Care. "Much has changed in health care since the initial concerns about morphine and breathing difficulties were documented in the 1950's," said Miles Edwards M.D., Professor of Medicine Emeritus in the OHSU School of Medicine and a clinical consultant the Center for Ethics in Health Care at OHSU. "For decades, physicians have been advised to avoid prescribing even small doses of morphine to dying patients with breathing difficulties based on the traditional belief that the drug made breathing more difficult and hastened death. However that line of thinking seems to be a medical urban legend. In fact, this age-old advice should likely be reversed for some patients. By slowing down breathing with morphine and controlling panic, patients become fatigued less quickly. They are breathing at a slower pace, but they also require less oxygen so the condition and the drug don't act in conflict with one another as one might think."

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 8237 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists suggest they have found a reason why some shorter children perform less well at school. A Children of the 90s study by the University of Bristol found low growth hormone levels were linked to low IQ. The Pediatrics study suggests it would be possible to use diet to increase levels of the hormone. But other experts said, even if growth hormone levels did play a role, it would be a tiny part of the "jigsaw" of factors which affect development. It is already known that low birth weight babies develop more slowly, reaching development milestones later and having slightly lower IQs than normal weight babies. Short stature, linked to poor post-natal growth and nutrition, is also known to be related to poorer performance in intellectual development tests and in educational achievement. The Bristol team looked at what might happen in the body to explain these links, focusing on insulin growth factor (IGF-I) . Circulating levels of insulin-like growth factors are influenced by a variety of factors, including diet, and control the effects of growth hormone on tissues. IGFs play a key role in physical growth and organ development in childhood. It has been suggested that they could also affect the development of the brain. (C)BBC

Keyword: Intelligence; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 8236 - Posted: 11.30.2005

Boston = Researchers at The Forsyth Institute have discovered that the transport mechanisms for serotonin — the chemical substance involved in transmitting signals between neurons, and which has a role in anxiety and mood disorders — play a key role in determining where organs are positioned in the body during embryonic development. Transporters bring serotonin into cells. The research team, led by Dr. Michael Levin, found that when the transport of serotonin into cells was blocked, normal development was disrupted in frog and chick embryos. In particular, left-right asymmetry, the process through which cells “know” which side they are on as they form body organs such as the heart and liver, is controlled by serotonin transporters. Michael Levin, PhD., Associate Member of the Staff, conducted his research with substances commonly used to treat mood disorders in humans including the drug Prozac. These drugs address chemical imbalances in the brain by blocking serotonin’s removal from the space between neurons. “With this research, we’ve not only identified a novel role of the serotonin transporters, in contributing to left-right asymmetry, but have also confirmed that serotonin has a role in cells other than neurons,” Levin said. “This raises interesting questions related to embryonic development and also about the possible subtle side-effects of serotonin-related drugs like the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft) or the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs).” Copyright 2004, Forsyth Institute

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 8235 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News Normally cautious mice can be turned into daredevils by removing a gene in their brain that regulates fear, a new study has found. Scientists say stathmin, a gene that is normally present in high levels in a part of mammals' brains called the amygdala, controls both innate and learned fear. Switching off the gene makes a fearful mouse courageous. The discovery provides important information on how fear is experienced and processed. It could have important implications for the study of anxiety disorders in humans, and may aid in the development of gene-based therapies to treat such diseases. "Because stathmin controls both instinctive and learned fear, it provides genetic means to study how these two types of fear work and interact to govern our emotions," said Gleb Shumyatsky, a genetics professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Shumyatsky is the lead author on the study, which was reported in the November 18 issue of the science journal Cell. © 1996-2005 National Geographic Society.

Keyword: Emotions; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 8234 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The first images ever made of retinas in living people reveal surprising variation from one person to the next. Yet somehow our perceptions don't vary as might be expected. As they took pictures of the thousands of cells responsible for detecting color in the deepest layer of the eye, scientists found that our eyes are wired differently. Yet we all — with the exception of the colorblind — identify colors similarly. The results suggest that the brain plays an even more significant role than thought in deciding what we see. The eye, responsible for receiving visual images, is wrapped in three layers of tissue. The innermost layer, the retina, is responsible for sensing color and sending information to the brain. The retina contains light receptors known as cones and rods. These receptors receive light, convert it to chemical energy, and activate the nerves that send messages to the brain. The rods are in charge of perceiving size, brightness and shape of images, whereas color vision and fine details are the responsibility of the cones. © 2005 MSNBC.com © 2005 Microsoft

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 8233 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The more creative a person is, the more sexual partners they are likely to have, according to a pioneering study which could explain the behaviour of notorious womanisers such as poets Lord Byron and Dylan Thomas. The research, by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Open University in the UK, found that professional artists and poets have around twice as many sexual partners as those who do not indulge in these creative activities. The authors also delved into the personalities of artists and poets and found they shared certain traits with mentally ill patients. These traits were linked with an increased sexual activity and are thought to have evolved because they contribute to the survival of the human species. Some 425 British men and women, including a sample of visual artists and poets and schizophrenic patients, were surveyed for the report, which is published today in the academic journal, The Proceedings of the Royal Society (B). Although creative types have long been associated with increased sexual activity, this the first time that this link has been proved by research. Study participants filled in questionnaires which asked about their degree of creative activity in poetry and visual art, their psychiatric history, and their history of sexual encounters since the age of 18. They were also required to answer questions on a 'schizotypy inventory', a breakdown of characteristics linked with schizophrenic patients.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 8232 - Posted: 11.30.2005

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — The sexy sounds emitted by male pigeons send female pigeons into the bird version of rapture, and such vocalizations seem to affect the females more than when they watched a desirous male strut his stuff, a recent study determined. Since the males usually vocalize and strut at the same time, the findings suggest the strutting may be "redundant," meaning that it serves the same function as the sounds to hammer home a point, which in this case is that the male wants to mate. Humans communicate using comparable signals, such as when a person might raise his or her eyebrows while at the same time asking someone, "Care to dance?" The eyebrow move alone might be misunderstood or ignored, but together the facial expression and words suggest what the speaker is thinking. "The acoustic signals were very salient to the birds: when the females could hear but not see the males, they responded with some courtship behavior (circle walking and spreading their tails), but most importantly they began to coo," said lead author Sarah Partan, whose research was outlined in a recent issue of the journal Animal Behavior. © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Language
Link ID: 8231 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Michael Purdy — By peering into the minds of volunteers preparing to play a brief visual game, neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found they can predict whether the volunteers will succeed or fail at the game. "Before we present the task, we can use brain activity to predict with about 70 percent accuracy whether the subject will give a correct or an incorrect response," says lead author Ayelet Sapir, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research associate in neurology. Eleven seconds before volunteers played the game — discriminating the direction of a field of moving dots — scientists showed them a hint: an arrow pointing to where the moving dots were likely to appear. The dots were visible only for one-fifth of a second and therefore were easy to miss if a subject was not paying attention to the right area. After the hint and prior to the appearance of the moving dots, researchers scanned the volunteers with functional brain imaging, which reveals increases in blood flow to different brain areas indicative of increased activity in those regions. Based on brain activity patterns that reflected whether the subjects used the hint or not, scientists found they could frequently predict whether a volunteer's response would be right or wrong before the volunteers even had a chance to try to see the dots.

Keyword: Attention; Vision
Link ID: 8230 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A popular treatment for nicotine addiction can also cut cravings among crystal meth addicts, a US study suggests. Crystal meth – the commonly used term for methamphetamine – is a cheap and addictive drug that has become a massive problem in the US in recent years. It increases alertness and creates sensations of euphoria in users by stimulating the generation of dopamine and norepinephrine – neurotransmitters within the regions of the brain responsible for feelings of pleasure. Bupropion – the active chemical ingredient found in the nicotine addiction drug, Zyban, as well as the anti-depressant Wellbutrin – was found to reduce the drug-induced high experienced by methamphetamine users and also to lessen their urge to take the drug in response to visual cues, in a study by researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). Twenty methamphetamine users were given either 150 milligrams of bupropion twice a day for a week, or a placebo. Subjects were then injected with 30 milligrams of methamphetamine and asked to rate the high they experienced on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most intense imaginable. The users given doses of bupropion reported experiencing a significantly reduced high of, on average, 3 out of 10, compared to 5 out of 10 prior to the treatment. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Depression
Link ID: 8229 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DENISE GRADY Within seconds, they could actually feel their waists begin to shrink. It would have been a great advance in the world of weight loss - if only it had been real. But the shrinking feeling was just an illusion, created by scientists who wanted to study how the brain creates body image, people's perceptions of their own size and shape. The researchers, led by Dr. H. Henrik Ehrsson of University College London, fooled 17 people into feeling as if they were getting skinnier by outfitting them with gadgets that stimulated a tendon in each wrist to create the false sensation that both hands were moving inward. The subjects wore blindfolds and placed their hands at their waists, and then the stimulators were turned on, while an M.R.I. scanner measured activity in different parts of the brain. For the subjects, the feeling that their wrists were flexing inward was so powerful that they felt their waists had to be getting smaller. Their study is published today in the journal Public Library of Science Biology (www.plosbiology.org). The technique is a variation on the Pinocchio illusion, an experiment first done - and named - in 1988 by another researcher, James R. Lackner of Brandeis University, in which stimulation of wrist tendons convinced blindfolded people who were touching their noses that their noses were growing. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 8228 - Posted: 11.29.2005

By GINA KOLATA Christina Koenig found out she had breast cancer on a Friday afternoon. She was just 39 years old. On Monday, she thought she knew why the cancer had struck. "I went in and talked to a team of medical professionals who ultimately performed a lumpectomy, and I said, 'How long has this been there?' They said, 'Five to ten years.' And immediately, my mind jumped to: 'Well, I did go through a divorce. I did have stress.' " Ms. Koenig, who lives in Chicago, was divorced four years before her cancer was diagnosed. Was it just a coincidence, she wondered? Now, four years later, she still wonders. So do many other women who get breast cancer. Ms. Koenig now works for Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization, which gets 40,000 calls a year on its hot line. Over and over, she says, women ask, Did stress cause their cancer by weakening their immune system and allowing a tumor to grow? Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 8227 - Posted: 11.29.2005

Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer Insects were the world's first aviators, and to this day their evolutionary descendants perform aerial stunts more dashing than the Blue Angels: They zip past your eyes like meteors, then hover like helicopters over flowers, then vanish out of sight before you can swat them. Scientifically speaking, insect flight was shrouded in mystery for much of the 20th century and even now is haunted by enigmas. Studies have shown how insects fly by frantically flapping their wings and taking advantage of physical forces too microscopic to be exploited by airplanes. Now scientists are beginning to investigate how insects' brains, although extremely tiny, can manage the incredibly complex motions required for them to stay aloft. Traditionally, scientists assumed that the basic physics of insect flight resembled the basic physics of human aviation. For example, there's an urban legend that many decades ago, scientists analyzed the plump bodies and stubby wings of bumblebees and concluded they were too heavy to fly. Over the years, during repeated retellings of this story in schoolyards and barrooms, it acquired a punch line: "But bees don't know they can't fly, so they fly anyway." ©2005 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 8226 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Feeling thin or fat is an illusion constructed in the brain, according to a new study published in the journal Public Library of Science Biology. The collaborative study led by UCL (University College London) used a trick called the Pinocchio illusion to scan people's brains while they experienced the sensation that their waists were shrinking. The study reveals which parts of the brain are involved in body image and may shed some light on anorexia and body dysmorphic disorder, where sufferers are overly concerned by a small or imagined defect in their body, and frequently overestimate or underestimate their actual body size. The study, led by Dr Henrik Ehrsson of the UCL Institute of Neurology, used the Pinocchio illusion in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging to study volunteers' brains. For each volunteer, a vibrating device was placed on their wrist to stimulate the tendon and create the sensation that the joint was flexing, even though it remained stationary. With their hand touching their waist, volunteers felt their wrists bending into their body, creating the illusion that their waists were shrinking. During the tendon exercise, all 17 participants felt that their waist had shrunk by up to 28 per cent. The researchers found high levels of activity in the posterior parietal cortex, an area of the brain that integrates sensory information from different parts of the body. Volunteers who reported the strongest shrinking sensation also showed the strongest activity in this area of the brain.

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 8225 - Posted: 11.29.2005