CHICAGO – Patients with multiple sclerosis showed significant improvement in their depression during 16 weeks of telephone-administered psychotherapy treatment, according to an article in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Although two-thirds of depressed patients prefer psychotherapy over antidepressants, only 10 to 45 percent ever make a first appointment and nearly half will drop out before the end of treatment, background information in the article states. Barriers to receiving psychotherapy include physical impairments, transportation problems, proximity of services and lack of time or financial resources. In the 1990s, the use of telephone psychotherapy increased in part due to the advent of 1-900 number counseling services and the increased use of telephone support services by insurance and medical groups. David C. Mohr, Ph.D., from the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues tested the efficacy of telephone-administered psychotherapy for depression in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). One hundred twenty-seven patients were randomized into one of two 16-week psychotherapies: telephone-administered cognitive-behavioral therapy (T-CBT) or telephone-administered supportive emotion-focused therapy (T-SEFT). The two therapies differ in that the goal of T-CBT is to "teach skills that help participants manage cognitions and behaviors that contribute to depression and improve skills in managing stressful life events and interpersonal difficulties," while T-SEFT has the goal of "increasing participants' level of experience of their internal world." All patients spoke with a psychologist on the phone for 50 minutes each week and were followed-up for 12 months.

Keyword: Depression; Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 7850 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHICAGO – Women who have had a certain type of anorexia nervosa show an alteration of the activity of a chemical in their brain that is widely associated with anxiety and other affective disorders more than one year after recovery, according to a study in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Anorexia nervosa, a disorder characterized by the relentless pursuit of thinness and obsessive fear of being fat, has two subtypes, a group that restricts their eating (restricting-type AN) and a group that alternates restrictive eating with bulimic symptoms such as episodes of purging and/or binge eating (bulimia-type AN), according to background information in the article. Previous evidence has suggested that alterations in the activity of serotonin (a brain chemical involved in communication between nerve cells) may contribute to the appetite alteration in anorexia nervosa as well as playing a role in anxious, obsessional behaviors and extremes of impulse control. Ursula F. Bailer, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, and colleagues compared the activity of serotonin in women who had recovered from each of the two types of anorexia nervosa and a control group of healthy women using positron emission tomography (PET). The researchers injected a molecule that can bind to a serotonin receptor in much the same way that serotonin does into specific areas of the women's brains and used PET scans to measure the extent of the molecule-receptor binding. This molecule-receptor binding served as a marker for alterations of serotonin neuronal activity. Thirteen women recovered from restricting-type AN, 12 women with bulimia-type AN and 18 healthy control women were included in the study.

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 7849 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Psychiatrists at Rush University Medical Center are the first in Chicago to use a vagus nerve stimulator (VNS), an implantable, pacemaker-like device, as a therapy to treat long-term, treatment-resistant depression (TRD) in adults. Dr. John Zajecka led the VNS therapy clinical trial at Rush. The procedure to place the device, which is usually performed under general anesthesia on an outpatient basis, takes about an hour. Two small incisions are required: one on the upper chest area for the pulse generator and one on the left neck for the thin, flexible wires that connect the pulse generator to the vagus nerve. The incisions heal in one to two weeks, and the scars fade over time. The neck scar is usually located within a natural crease of the neck and is therefore not very visible. "The pulse generator, which is like a pacemaker, is implanted in the chest area and sends mild pulses to the brain via the vagus nerve in the neck. A thin, thread-like wire attached to the generator, runs under the skin to the left vagus nerve. The vagus nerve, one of the 12 cranial nerves, serves as the body's 'information highway' connecting the brain to many major organs," said Zajecka. ©2004 Rush University Medical Center,

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 7848 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Children as young as 2 years old may be influenced by their parents’ tobacco habits, many years before they even consider using cigarettes themselves, a novel study has shown. Young children’s attitudes to smoking and alcohol have been difficult to assess due to their limited language skills, so information on social influences has focused on teenagers – the group most likely to take up smoking or drinking. But a new study offers insight into the effect early exposure can have on the behaviour of very young children. Researchers from Dartmouth Medical College in New Hampshire, US, used dolls in a role-playing game with children from 2 to 6 years of age. The child was told to take the doll shopping as there was no food in the dollhouse. When the doll entered the doll grocery store, which had 73 products on display, the researchers noted which products were “purchased”. Children were nearly four times as likely to buy cigarettes if their parents smoked, and three times as likely to choose wine or beer if their parents drank alcohol at least once a month. Children who viewed PG-13 or R-rated movies were five times as likely to choose alcohol, they found. “Several children were also highly aware of cigarette brands, as illustrated by the 6-year-old boy who was able to identify the brand of cigarettes he was buying as Marlboros, but could not identify the brand of his favourite cereal as Lucky Charms,” says paediatrician Madeline Dalton, who led the study. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7847 - Posted: 06.24.2010

KILLER whales and chimpanzees both pass on "traditions" to other members of their group, according to two separate studies of feeding behaviour. The findings add to evidence that cultural learning is widespread among animals. One study involved killer whales at Marineland in Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada. An inventive male devised a brand new way to catch birds, and passed the strategy on to his tank-mates. The 4-year-old orca lures gulls into his tank by spitting regurgitated fish onto the water's surface. He waits below for a gull to grab the fish, then lunges at it with open jaws. "They are in a way setting a trap," says animal behaviourist Michael Noonan of Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, who made the discovery, "They catch three or four gulls this way some days." “The orca lures gulls into his tank by spitting regurgitated fish into the water. He waits for a bird to grab the fish and then lunges”Noonan had never seen the behaviour before, despite three years of observations for separate experiments. But a few months after the enterprising male started doing it, Noonan spied the whale's younger half-brother doing the same thing. Soon the brothers' mothers were enjoying feathered snacks, as were a 6-month-old calf and an older male. Noonan presented the research this month at the US Animal Behavior Society meeting in Snowbird, Utah. Wild dolphins off the west coast of Australia were the first marine mammals in which cultural learning was observed. They apparently learn from group-mates how to use sponges to protect their snouts while scavenging (New Scientist, 11 June, p 12). But the evidence from killer whales is much more conclusive because the process was observed from start to finish. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Evolution; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 7846 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New classes of blood pressure-lowering drugs could save lives by preventing strokes and heart attacks even more effectively, a major trial says. Experts believe prescribing practices should change immediately based on the Ascot study's conclusions. New drugs not only lower blood pressure to a greater extent than older ones, but also attack cholesterol, halving the stroke and heart attack risk. The trial was stopped early because the results were so staggering. The outstanding cholesterol-lowering findings were discovered back in 2002 - five years after the planned 10-year trial began in 1997. The researchers continued to compare the blood pressure effects, but terminated this part of the study early as well last December after it became clear that the newer antihypertensive drugs were also better at lowering blood pressure. The latest report in the Lancet is the first time that the researchers have pulled together all of their results. Patients with high blood pressure taking a relatively new type of cholesterol-lowering medication called a statin benefited from a 36% reduction in heart attacks and a 27% reduction in strokes compared to those not prescribed that specific medication. (C)BBC

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 7845 - Posted: 09.05.2005

EVIDENCE continues to pile up that hormone-disrupting chemicals can gender-bend human babies. Earlier this year it was reported that the sons of women exposed to phthalates during pregnancy tend to have smaller penises (New Scientist, 4 June, p 11). This was the first direct evidence that such chemicals can feminise fetuses in the womb. Now nearly twice as many girls as boys are being born in the Aamjiwnaang community, who live next door to the Sarnia-Lambton Chemical Valley complex in Ontario, Canada. And though no chemical has yet been shown to be to blame, high levels of hexachlorobenzene (HCB), which also has hormone-disrupting properties, have been found in the local soil, and phthalates are being emitted from part of the complex. The proportion of male births began falling around 1993, says Constanze Mackenzie of the University of Ottawa. And the ratio has become more skewed since then. Between 1999 and 2003, the community saw just 46 boys born compared to 86 girls (Environmental Health Perspectives, DOI: 10.1289/ehp.8479). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 7844 - Posted: 06.24.2010

An education professor has cast doubt on the scientific validity of the term 'dyslexia', saying experts cannot agree on what it is or how to treat it. Writing in the Times Educational Supplement, Julian Elliott said it was largely an "emotional construct". The Durham University professor questions the scientific validity of the term 'dyslexia', saying diagnosis does not lead to particular treatment. The British Dyslexia Association says the claims are inflammatory. Professor Elliott, a psychologist, said his argument was based on "an exhaustive review of the research literature". After 30 years in the field, he said, he had little confidence in his ability to diagnose dyslexia. Professor Elliott told the BBC News website: "There is no consensus as to what it is and how to diagnose it. People describe all sorts of symptoms as dyslexia. And if you do diagnose it, it does not point to any intervention in particular. "It's one of those terms that is like the Cheshire Cat - if it does exist, we don't know what to do about it." He said, contrary to talk of 'miracle cures', there was no sound, widely-accepted body of scientific work that had shown that any particular teaching approach was more appropriate for 'dyslexic' children than for other poor readers". Dyslexia is defined by BBC health expert Dr Rob Hicks as "a congenital and developmental condition that causes neurological anomalies in the brain. (C)BBC

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 7843 - Posted: 09.03.2005

Bruce Bower Despite sharing much of their genetic identity with people, chimpanzees exhibit previously unappreciated DNA distinctions, according to the first rigorous comparisons of the two species' complete genetic sequences. The new research "dramatically narrows the search for the key biological differences between the species," says geneticist Robert Waterston of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. Waterston led an international consortium that analyzed the genetic sequence of a male common chimp and compared it with DNA data from people (SN: 4/19/03, p. 245: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030419/fob6.asp). Initial results from their study, and from four related studies, appear in an upcoming Science and the Sept. 1 Nature. Waterston's group found that the roughly 3 billion base pairs in the genomes of the two species have the same sequence 96 percent of the time. Even so, as many as 3 million base pairs, or DNA building blocks, residing within protein-encoding and other functional areas of the genome differ between chimps and humans. The new cross-species comparison identified six DNA segments in people that appear to have been strongly shaped by natural selection over just the past 250,000 years. Gene functions in these regions are largely unknown. Copyright ©2005 Science Service

Keyword: Evolution; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 7842 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Christen Brownlee It was 1990, and Neal, a 55-year-old salesman from Silver Spring, Md., was hitting rock bottom. For years, he had soothed the stress of his chaotic life with an evening bowl of vanilla ice cream. But in time, that just wasn't enough. Neal started adding a second bowl, then a third. Even after he'd moved on to wolfing down an entire gallon in a single sitting, he soon needed yet a bigger fix. He added doughnuts—one, two, then an entire box. Neal's not-so-sweet nightly habit eventually blew his weight up to 350 pounds. What he gained in size, he lost in other parts of his life: His marriage fell apart, he lost his job, and he spent his nights wondering whether his persistent chest pain meant that he'd die before morning. As his life spiraled downward, he spoke to a friend who was a recovering alcoholic. "When he was telling me the story about what he was doing with alcohol, I could see that's what I was doing with food, how I was using it," Neal says. At the time, he says, food seemed like an innocuous fix—it was hard for him to imagine overdosing on ice cream and doughnuts. "But if it wasn't food," he adds, "then it would have been cocaine, heroin, alcohol, or something else for me." Copyright ©2005 Science Service.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Obesity
Link ID: 7841 - Posted: 06.24.2010

AFP — New evidence has emerged that Neanderthals coexisted with anatomically modern humans for at least a thousand years in central France, a finding that suggests these enigmatic hominids came to a tragic and lingering end. Few chapters in the rise of Homo sapiens sapiens, as modern humans are known, have triggered as much debate as the fate of the Neanderthals. Smaller and squatter than H. sapiens but with larger brains, Neanderthals lived in Europe, parts of central Asia and the Middle East for around 170,000 years. But vestiges of the Neanderthals stop between 28,000 and 30,000 years ago. At that point, H. sapiens, a smart, ascendant sub-species of humans originating in East Africa, became the undisputed master of the planet. One intriguing school of thought is that the Neanderthals did not suddenly disappear off the map, but in fact gradually melded in with H. sapiens culturally, and possibly sexually. Interbreeding resulted, meaning that what we, today, supposedly carry some of the genetic legacy of the Neanderthals. Copyright © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 7840 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Charles Clover, Environment Editor Cases of the human race being helped by rats are few - and to date have been confined to laboratories, or sieges when everything else has been eaten. All that may be about to change, however, because scientists now believe the rodent could answer the needs of people in countries blighted by landmines. Half a century of dirty wars has left more than 100 million landmines planted in the developing world. They continue to kill, maim and blight the land long after the end of the wars during which they were laid. Until now, removing mines has been the job of technicians with bomb-proof lorries and metal detectors. But metal detectors cannot trace mines made of wood or plastic or distinguish unexploded mines from shrapnel. Now scientists have shown that rats can be trained to be a safe, fast, reliable and cheap method of locating mines of all kinds, according to this month's issue of BBC Wildlife, published today. "People thought I was mad in the beginning," Bart Weetjens, of the Belgian research organisation Apopo, told the magazine. He has been experimenting with 300 giant pouched rats, cricetomys gambianus, in the mountains of Morogoro, Tanzania. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 7839 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A UCSF study has found that a specific signaling link between neurons and muscles in the fruit fly is essential for keeping the insect's nervous system stable. The findings are relevant for ongoing research in identifying causes and developing treatments for neuromuscular neurodegenerative diseases in humans, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, says study co-author Graeme Davis, PhD, associate professor and vice chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. "If we want to make new drugs to treat neurodegenerative disease, then we have to identify new drug targets, and our study findings present that potential," he says. "This study is a significant step forward because we have shown that a signaling system composed of several genes is important for keeping the nervous system stable." The findings are reported in the September issue of the journal Neuron. The nervous system is a complex pattern of connections that exists for the entire life of the organism, and understanding how the myriad patterns and pathways of these connections are maintained for long periods of time presents an ongoing challenge to scientists, says Davis.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 7838 - Posted: 09.02.2005

No matter how much you might hate hearing it, you know you do have you mother's eyes, or her hair, or her smile. How much you resemble your mother depends on which of her genes you inherit. But looking like her is not the only hold your mom's genes have on your life. There's mounting evidence that mom's genes may indirectly affect your weight and your health all the way into adulthood. "Not only are your genes important, and your environment — that is, how much you eat, how much dietary fat you eat — but also mom's genes are important," says geneticist Joseph Jarvis, perhaps influencing how your body is affected by what you eat. Jarvis, a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, says that's because our mother's genes somehow affect how our bodies react to our prenatal and early environment (while nursing), switching certain of our genes on or off. This could have consequences throughout our lives, affecting our weight that could lead to health issues such as diabetes and high cholesterol. According to Jarvis, much of the earlier research into this effect had looked at weight gain of very young mice. This is because for "a two-week-old mouse, the only source of food they have is mother's milk. And we know that in mice, milk production has a genetic basis," he explains. "So it makes sense for the two-week weight to depend on who your mother was." © ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 7837 - Posted: 06.24.2010

(Newark)-Life is full of choices. But how do individuals know what their preferences are and how do they act on them? And what leads mothers to make choices that benefit or lead to neglect of her offspring? Based on research performed using laboratory rats, a team of neuroscience researchers at Rutgers University-Newark suggest that an intricate system exists within the brain for establishing individual preferences, which ultimately impacts choices. In the article, "Preference for cocaine-versus pup-associated cues differentially activates neurons expressing either Fos or CART in lactating, maternal rodents," which is in press for the September 2005 volume of the journal Neuroscience (the article currently appears online at www.sciencedirect.com) Rutgers-Newark neuroscience professor Joan Morrell and her colleague Brandi Mattson reveal that individual preferences can be linked to the activation of specific sets of neurons within the brain. The researchers used postpartum rats in order to establish preferences and analyze how the mother rats' brains functioned when they selected an environment associated with their pups or another environment associated with the drug cocaine. In the experiment, rats learned over four days in which distinct environments they had access to their pups versus where they had access to cocaine. Following a 24-hour wait, the rats were given the opportunity to choose either the environment where they anticipated they would find either their pups or where they would find cocaine.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7836 - Posted: 09.02.2005

By Tracy Staedter, Discovery News The ability to express feelings is difficult enough for humans, but now a humanoid robot named Kansei is able to frown or smile according to a flow of artificial consciousness. Kansei's ability to communicate feelings makes it one step closer to recognizing when humans are happy or sad, an important characteristic for machines expected to one day help care for the elderly, clean house, or greet people at a reception desk. Kansei, which means "sensibility" and "emotion" in Japanese, also contains speech recognition software, a speaker to vocalize, and motors that contort artificial skin on its face into expressions. The robot could even one day learn to distinguish and articulate whether foods taste good or bad. "If we establish the mechanism, the robot could find nice food in a market and even research new delicious foods for humankind," said the Kansei project leader Junichi Takeno, a professor at the Robot and Science Institute of Meiji University in Japan. Copyright © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 7835 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi Human remains in cattle feed could have caused the first case of mad cow disease, two UK researchers propose. The hypothesis seeks to answer lingering questions about the fatal infection, which has affected 180,000 cows in Britain alone since the mid-1980s, and has gone on to cause more than 100 deaths in humans. Alan Colchester of the University of Kent and his daughter Nancy Colchester, of the University of Edinburgh, point out that during the 1960s and 1970s Britain imported hundreds of thousands of tonnes of whole and crushed bones and animal carcasses. These were used for fertilizer and to feed livestock. Nearly 50% of these imports came from Bangladesh, where peasants gathering animal materials may have also picked up human remains, the researchers say. Other experts in the field view the idea with scepticism, saying that proof remains circumstantial. "The argument isn't very compelling because there's no smoking gun evidence," says Surachai Supattapone, an expert in infectious diseases at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire. ©2005 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 7834 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Use of a type of anti-depressant medication during pregnancy may increase the risk of birth defects such as cleft palate, research suggests. Danish and US scientists found use of SSRIs in the first three months of pregnancy was linked to a 40% increased risk - but the results are preliminary. Cardiac defects appeared to be 60% more likely when the women used SSRIs. But the researchers stress the results, featured in Pulse magazine, do not mean women should stop taking the drugs. The findings were presented an International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology conference. SSRIs, or Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors, include commonly prescribed drugs such as Prozac and Seroxat. They work by boosting levels of the mood chemical serotonin in the brain. Their use during pregnancy was linked to withdrawal symptoms in newborn babies in a study published in The Lancet earlier this year. And doctors have been told not to prescribe them to children because of an increased risk of suicide. In the latest study, focusing on 1,054 women who took SSRIs during pregnancy, scientists also found that use of the drugs late in pregnacy was associated with a 40% increased risk of premature birth. And a second study of 377 cases of persistent pulmonary hypertension in babies found SSRI use late in pregnancy was linked a 5.5-fold increased risk. (C)BBC

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7833 - Posted: 09.01.2005

By Marc Kaufman Washington Post Staff Writer The top Food and Drug Administration official in charge of women's health issues resigned yesterday in protest against the agency's decision to further delay a final ruling on whether the "morning-after pill" should be made more easily accessible. Susan F. Wood, assistant FDA commissioner for women's health and director of the Office of Women's Health, said she was leaving her position after five years because Commissioner Lester M. Crawford's announcement Friday amounted to unwarranted interference in agency decision-making. "I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled," she wrote in an e-mail to her staff and FDA colleagues. Crawford said last week that unresolved regulatory issues made it impossible to approve expanded use of the emergency contraceptive. Wood said the decision was widely seen in the FDA as political. "Many colleagues have made it known that they are deeply concerned about the direction of the agency," she said in an interview. Wood also said other FDA officials who are typically involved in important matters were kept in the dark about the contraceptive, called Plan B, until Crawford announced his decision, which she believed was made at higher levels in the administration. Wood said that when she asked a colleague in the commissioner's office when the decision would be made, the answer was, "We're still awaiting a decision from above; it hasn't come down yet." © 2005 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 7832 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists at New York University School of Medicine report in a new study that they have identified the molecular switch that turns on the production of myelin, the fatty insulation around nerve cells that ensures swift and efficient communication in the nervous system. The study, published in the September 1, 2005, issue of the journal Neuron, may provide a new avenue for treating nervous system diseases such as multiple sclerosis, which are associated with damage to myelin. A team led by James L. Salzer, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Cell Biology and Neurology at NYU School of Medicine, identified the long-sought factor that determines whether or not nerve cells will be wrapped in thick layers of myelin, producing the biological equivalent of a jelly roll. Using a sophisticated system for growing nerve cells in laboratory dishes, the team identified a gene called neuregulin as the myelin signal. This signal directs Schwann cells, the nervous system's cellular architects, to build elaborate sheaths of myelin around the axons of nerve cells. Axons are the long cable-like arms of nerve cells that send messages to other cells. The construction of myelin sheath has been called one of the most beautiful examples of cell specialization in nature. Myelin forms the so-called white matter in the nervous system and constitutes 50 percent of the weight of the brain. It is also an important component of the spinal cord, and of nerves in other parts of the body. It has been known for almost 170 years that there are two kinds of axons --one is wrapped in myelin and appears white and the other is not and appears gray.

Keyword: Glia
Link ID: 7831 - Posted: 09.01.2005