Women who smoke in pregnancy may raise the risk of their child displaying anti-social behaviour, researchers say. There was a "small but significant" link between maternal smoking and both unruly behaviour and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, they said. The average symptom scores for both increased with the number of cigarettes the mother had smoked while pregnant, the study of 1,896 twins found. The Institute of Psychiatry work is in the British Journal of Psychiatry. The researchers said the findings did not mean unruly behaviour and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were linked, although ADHD is known to increase the risk of anti-social behaviour. Previous work has linked both ADHD and anti-social behaviour with maternal smoking. However, it was not clear whether the increased risk of anti-social behaviour was linked to the ADHD rather than maternal smoking per se. ADHD is a serious behavioural disorder which experts estimate may affect up to 6% of children. People with the condition have a poor attention span and tend to be impulsive and restless. ADHD is known to increase the likelihood of anti-social behaviour. But although ADHD is thought to have a strong medical element, social factors are often blamed for unruly behaviour. The new work suggests a biological cause for anti-social behaviour. A team at the Institute of Psychiatry, in London, sent questionnaires to the parents of 723 identical twins and 1,173 non-identical twins. (C)BBC

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7720 - Posted: 08.01.2005

By POLLY MORRICE SOME time ago, while trolling the Web, I came across a 30-year-old paper by William P. Sullivan, originally published in The Bulletin of the West Virginia Association of College English Teachers, that describes Melville's Bartleby as ''a high-functioning autistic adult.'' The notion struck me as far-fetched, but it certainly has had legs. A recent search using the words ''Bartleby'' and ''autism'' turned up, among other results, a 2004 Modern Language Association essay on the pale scrivener's ''autistic presence'' and a University of Iowa study guide that asks if Melville might have ''observed some of these attributes in himself.'' Bartleby even appears on a site listing literary figures with autistic traits -- along with Pippi Longstocking, Sherlock Holmes and several characters from ''Pride and Prejudice.'' What's behind the impulse to unearth autism in the classics? In part, it may reflect our growing awareness of the disorder and its milder cousin, Asperger Syndrome. Critics seeking to diagnose literary icons may also be taking the current vogue for finding autism in dead geniuses -- Michelangelo, Wittgenstein -- to its logical conclusion. Given these trends, it's not surprising that the wave of fascination with neurological quirks has also touched contemporary literature. Over the past decade or so, novelists and short-story writers in various markets -- from genre authors to writers of young adult fiction to avant-garde experimentalists -- have all created characters who could be labeled autistic. It's easy to see autism's appeal to storytellers. Even mildly autistic people have problems communicating and understanding social behavior; what's more, these difficulties remain tantalizingly unexplained in an era when medical advances have demystified so many other ailments.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 7719 - Posted: 08.01.2005

Jerry Fodor On my bad days, I sometimes wonder what philosophers are for. Philosophers used to believe they had a proprietary method that reveals proprietary truths, but that is increasingly hard to credit. Nobody has been able to say what the method is, while the proprietary truths have been thin on the ground. There are, to be sure, a fair number of traditionally philosophical problems: scepticism, freedom of the will, the nature of the mental, the objectivity of the moral, the a priori, the modal, justification, induction and so on. But millennia of arguing these topics have now flowed under the bridge, and all the plausible positions seem already to be occupied; to say something new you have to say something outrageous. (I gather that much the same is true in Shakespeare criticism: Prospero was senile, Rosalind was queer, Goneril was a feminist – that sort of thing.) I’m happy to report, however, that books like David J. Buller’s Adapting Minds go some way towards dispelling the gloom. Philosophers are trained to criticize arguments. Very well, there are plenty of arguments out there aching to be criticized; let’s have a look at them. Buller, perfectly sensibly, has decided to keep busy by minding other people’s business and not worrying much about whether he is “really doing philosophy”. Good on him. Adapting Minds is an extended critical discussion of the Evolutionary Psychology movement. Evolutionary Psychology (when spelled with capitals) is the name of a galaxy of empirical theses including the idea that our minds are “massively modular” (they consist of a bundle of functionally autonomous, special-purpose, or “domain specific” information processors); that quite a lot of our psychological organization is innate (“Nativism”); and, crucially, that much of it is an adaptation to selection pressures that operated in the ancestral conditions in which our minds evolved. The affinities are with Sociobiology, of which Evolutionary Psychology (EP) is a more respectable descendant. Accordingly, Buller’s book comes in two parts. The first is an exposition and criticism of the various theses that compose EP; the second is a detailed examination of the data that have been offered in support of it.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 7718 - Posted: 06.24.2010

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Brown University biologists have solved the structure of a critical piece of synapse-associated protein 97 (SAP97) found in abundance in the heart and head, where it is believed to play a role in everything from cardiac contractions to memory creation. Results are published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry. Dale Mierke, associate professor of medical science at Brown, said that knowing how a piece of SAP97 is built is an important step. Now that part of the protein’s structure is solved, scientists can create a molecule to disable it. That, in turn, will allow them to fully understand SAP97’s role in the body. And that will point drug makers to targets for developing new ways to treat cardiac or neurological diseases. “To arrive at a solution, you need to understand the problem,” Mierke said. “Solving protein structures opens doors for effective treatments.” SAP97 is found mainly in the central nervous system and is known as a “scaffolding” protein. In this role, it serves as a sort of tether, grabbing proteins inside the cell critical to nerve signaling and keeping them close to N-methyl-D-asparate (NMDA) receptors at the cell surface. NMDA receptors help usher in a neurotransmitter called glutamate that is essential for learning and memory and also plays a role in drug addiction. A similar scaffolding mechanism is at work in the heart, where it affects basic functions, including the heartbeat.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 7717 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., AUG. 1 -- There is strong evidence that babies born at night have a greater risk of dying in their first month of life than babies born earlier in the day, according to a new study published this month in Obstetrics & Gynecology. "We're not surprised at this finding because it is supported by previous studies in the medical literature that were carried out in Europe," said Diane M. Ashton, M.D., M.P.H., associate medical director of the March of Dimes. "More research needs to be done to identify the causal factors that underlie this greater risk. This would be an important next step in developing effective strategies to prevent these excess neonatal deaths from occurring. If even one or two of the key elements could be identified, that could make a big difference in saving babies' lives." "Time of Birth and the Risk of Neonatal Death," by Jeffrey B. Gould, M.D., M..P.H., of the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, and colleagues, appears in the August issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7716 - Posted: 08.01.2005

Cannabis-based drugs could offer treatment hope to sufferers of inflammatory bowel disease, UK researchers report. Cannabis smokers with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have often claimed that smoking a joint seems to lessen their symptoms. So a group of researchers from Bath University and Bristol University, both in the UK, decided to explore the clinical basis for the claims. “There is quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that using cannabis seems to reduce the pain and frequency of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, so we decided to see if we could find out what was going on there,” says Karen Wright, a pharmacologist at Bath University. “Historically, it was smoked in India and China centuries ago for its gastrointestinal properties.” The chronic conditions, known collectively as IBD, are caused by an over-active immune system which produces severe inflammation in areas of the gastrointestinal tract. Up to 180,000 people in the UK are thought to have colitis or Crohn’s disease and suffer symptoms of pain, urgent diarrhoea, severe tiredness and loss of weight. Repeated attacks can lead to scarring of the colon and fibrosis to the extent that the bowel narrows to form a stricture, for which a colonectomy – the surgical removal of the bowel – is the only cure. Reports that cannabis eased IBD symptoms indicated the possible existence of cannabinoid receptors in the intestinal lining, which respond to molecules in the plant-derived chemicals. Wright and colleagues grew sections of human colon and examined them in vitro. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Stress
Link ID: 7715 - Posted: 06.24.2010

People with strokes affecting the right side of the brain may be going undiagnosed and untreated, experts say. German research in The Lancet found left-sided stroke patients were more likely to be admitted to hospital and treated promptly than counterparts. Signs of a right-sided stroke may be harder to spot because they do not typically affect speech, unlike left-sided strokes. Both types of stroke have similar impacts on day-to-day living, however. Prompt treatment is key to improving outcomes and survival, making early detection of paramount importance. The right half of the brain is responsible for perceptual skills - making sense of what you see, hear and touch - and spatial skills - judging depth, size, distance or position in space. This means the signs and symptoms of a stroke in this area of the brain may be more subtle, such as the individual having a problem with awareness. Stroke is one of the biggest killers and the largest single cause of serious adult disability in the UK. One person every five minutes will suffer a first stroke. Dr Christian Foerch and colleagues at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt looked at stroke data for over 20,000 patients between 1997 and 2002. (C)BBC

Keyword: Stroke; Laterality
Link ID: 7714 - Posted: 07.30.2005

A common blood pressure drug could help people who have witnessed traumatic events, such as the London bombings, to block out their distressing memories. Cornell University psychiatrists are carrying out tests using beta-blockers, the journal Nature reports. The drug has been shown to interfere with the way the brain stores memories. Post-traumatic stress disorder affects around one in three of people caught up in such events, and memories can be triggered just by a sound or smell. People with PTSD are given counselling, but because it is not always effective, researchers have been looking for alternative therapies. However there are concerns that a drug which can alter memories could be misused, perhaps by the military who may want soldiers to become desensitised to violence. The beta-blocker propranolol has been found to block the neurotransmitters involved in laying down memories. Studies have shown that rats who have learned to fear a tone followed by an electric shock lose that fear if propranolol is administered after the tone starts. The Cornell University team are reported to be seeing similar results in early studies in humans, Nature reports. Margaret Altemus, who is one of the psychiatrists working on the study, told the journal: "The memory of the event is associated with the fear, and they always occur together." (C)BBC

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Stress
Link ID: 7713 - Posted: 07.30.2005

Toddlers and toys go hand in hand. In fact, in most children's wakes rest favorite fuzzy animals, electric wonders that blink and blare and maybe even good, old-fashioned blocks. Tuning into these sights and sounds during play might not be solely for fun. Kids who are exposed to sensory and visual stimulation could be forming the brain connections they'll likely have as adults, or so suggests evidence from a new brain study. "In early development you have a lot of [brain] connections, more than necessary," says Wen-Biao Gan, a neuroscientist at New York University Medical Center. "You really need, you know, proper environment, stimulation, sensory inputs or learning to get rid of these redundant connections." How the brain develops these connections is paradoxical and may be best envisioned by imagining the brain pathways we're born with as part of an overgrown shrub whose branches jut out in unplanned directions. From birth to about age 12 the brain trims 50 percent of these unnecessary connections while at the same time building new ones through learning and sensory stimulation, in essence shaping itself to our needs. Ultimately, if the brain doesn't shed enough extra circuitry, new pathways might not form properly. So, the brain needs to lose to win. "It's sort of counterintuitive," says Gan, who, along with his colleagues, completed a study on sensory deprivation and brain development in mice that was published in the journal Nature. Gan's team divided into two groups mice genetically bred to create a protein that allows their brain connections to glow. Researchers deprived one group of sensory stimulation by trimming the ultra sensitive whiskers that help mice see and navigate at night, but they left the other groups' whiskers alone. Using a special microscope, Gan took images of each group's synapses — the brain connections that transmit electrical signals — over weeks to months. Specifically, he looked at the animals' dendritic spines, the part of the synapse that receives electrical activity. © ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7712 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New Haven, Conn.--A medication used to ease symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, also is helpful in treating people with treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to a pilot study at Yale School of Medicine. Although the study included only 13 patients, the preliminary results are promising for persons who have found no relief using other medications and cognitive behavioral therapy, said the first author, Vladimir Coric, M.D., assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and director of the Yale OCD clinic. "Riluzole appears to have significant antiobsessional, antidepressant, and antianxiety properties," said Coric, who will be presenting the data Friday at the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation annual conference in San Diego. OCD currently is treated with serotonin reuptake inhibitors, cognitive behavioral therapy and dopamine antagonists, which reduce symptoms in 40-60 percent of patients. "However, a number of patients remain dramatically symptomatic even with the combination of pharmacotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy," Coric said. OCD symptoms include obsessive checking, cleaning, washing, counting, hoarding, touching, tapping, ordering, arranging, rubbing, and other repetitive behaviors. Coric said treatment-resistant OCD is one of the few psychiatric indications for neurosurgical intervention. "Novel therapeutic strategies are urgently needed," he said.

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 7711 - Posted: 07.30.2005

Ben Harder When John D. Abramson was practicing family medicine in Hamilton, Mass., he prided himself on how conscientiously he selected the drugs that he prescribed. He closely followed pharmaceutical research. He kept track of the latest medical guidelines. And he maintained his distance when company salespeople, with promotional pitches at the ready, appeared at the practice that Abramson shared with several colleagues during the 1980s and 1990s. He typically didn't speak to pharmaceutical sales agents, although he did let them leave behind free samples of drugs that their companies sold. Abramson knew that the companies wanted him and his colleagues to prescribe new and often expensive drugs rather than their older, less costly alternatives. But he saw no harm in stockpiling the freebies and handing them out to patients who were without health insurance and unable to buy drugs on their own. "I thought I was being Robin Hood," Abramson says. Before long, however, he grew so familiar with administering the free drugs that he found himself writing prescriptions for the same substances for insured patients, whose coverage would then pay for the medications. For pharmaceutical companies, Abramson's behavior meant new customers. "That's what they wanted," he says. "They were playing me like a violin." Abramson left medical practice nearly 4 years ago to write Overdo$ed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (2004, New York: Harper Collins), which trains a critical eye on pharmaceutical companies' influence on medical research and practice. Copyright ©2005 Science Service.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 7710 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Most animals, including many humans, investigate only a handful of potential mates before selecting a partner, but scientists have just determined that certain California crabs may check out 106 males or more before mating. The finding, published in the current Animal Behavior, means that these female fiddler crabs, Uca crenulata, are the choosiest known animals on Earth. "As far as I know, no other species has been observed sampling nearly as many candidates as the California fiddler crab," said Catherine deRivera, lead author of the study. DeRivera, who is a research biologist at the University of California, San Diego, told Discovery News, "Most invertebrates, some mammals, amphibians and reptiles mate with neighbors or the first candidate that comes along, or at least the first that correctly performs the courtship ritual." DeRivera and her team observed a population located at an open tidal area of the Sweetwater River estuary in Chula Vista, Calif. Male crabs have bachelor pad burrows. The males stand in groups near their burrows and wave to females with their large claw in a motion that deRivera said looks just like a human beckoning "come here." Copyright © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 7709 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Cory Hatch People who suffer from brain or spinal cord trauma often have few options beyond physical therapy and hope; injuries to the central nervous system rarely heal and often worsen over time. But recently, researchers from Helsinki, Finland, found a tiny chunk of protein that not only keeps these cells alive but also encourages new cells to grow. The protein—called KDI tri-peptide (KDI)—could someday lead to new treatment options for people suffering from a wide range of neurological problems from spinal cord injury to Alzheimer's disease, says researcher Päivi Liesi. In earlier studies, Liesi and her colleagues found that rats with damaged spinal cords could walk again after three months when they injected KDI near the injury. The protein also shows promise for human cells, at least in the petri dish. How does KDI work? Liesi's most recent research, which appeared July 25 on the Journal of Neuroscience Research website, found that the KDI protein prevents cell death by blocking a substance called glutamate. Normally, glutamate helps cells communicate with one another for learning and memory. However, glutamate is toxic to injured neural cells, causing the cells to take in too much calcium and die. This cell death by glutamate occurs in many different types of nervous system injuries and diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, and spinal cord injuries. Copyright © 2005 U.S.News & World Report

Keyword: Regeneration; Alzheimers
Link ID: 7708 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New research shows that we have a hard time letting go of fears associated with members of a different race. This apparent predisposition was reduced in those who had been involved in interracial dating. The basic experiment paired mild electric shocks with pictures of male faces, as well as various animals. When the shocks were removed, the subjects continued to react fearfully to the faces of a different race. “What was most surprising for me was that the responses were equal for black and white participants,” said Elizabeth Phelps from New York University. “In our culture, we have certain stereotypes, which might make you expect a white person to hold onto negative associations with black males. But black persons had a similar reaction toward white males.” Phelps and her colleagues measured a fear response by increased sweating in their adult subjects. As previous experiments have shown, images of snakes and spiders elicited a response even after the shocks stopped, while the negative emotional reaction to birds and butterflies quickly subsided. This bias toward different animals is thought to be inherent as opposed to learned. Humans who were born wary of snakes and spiders had a better chance to survive. An evolutionary basis is supported by other research with primates. Lab monkeys, who had never seen a real snake in their life, showed persistent fear of a toy snake, but not a toy bunny. © 2005 MSNBC.com © 2005 Microsoft

Keyword: Emotions; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 7707 - Posted: 06.24.2010

With many of us constantly fighting the bulge we often turn to low-calorie foods and artificial sweeteners in hopes of satisfying those sweet cravings without the added calories. But it's pretty clear that most of those sweeteners don't taste exactly like sugar. Now, life might get a whole lot sweeter, and healthier, based on discoveries by a researcher, whose name happens to mean "sugar" in German. "My last name is Zuker, which means sugar. So I guess that indeed it was just meant to be," jokes Charles Zuker, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Diego. Zuker, a professor of biology and neurosciences, has been working to try to understand how our brains encode and decode information from our five senses — in this case how it perceives tastes. "How does the brain know what you just tasted? How does it know whether it's good or bad? Well before we can know what the brain knows, we need to know what the tongue knows," Zuker explains. Zucker and his colleagues discovered, four years ago, that all sweet things, no matter their structure or chemical composition, are identified as tasting sweet when they bind to only a couple of sweet receptors — the molecule in the taste cells of the tongue. Unlike any other receptor in the body, they have more than one region that can be activated by different molecule — different kinds of sweet stuff. © ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 7706 - Posted: 06.24.2010

BOSTON-- Researchers from Harvard Medical School have found a molecule that is unexpectedly involved in dopamine signaling, and in a manner that supports the potential of dopamine as an alternative target for treating depression. The results provide evidence that there is a molecular link between impaired dopamine signaling and depression, which affects 16 percent of the adult population in the United States. The research appears in the July 29 issue of Cell. Li-Huei Tsai, Harvard Medical School (HMS) professor of pathology, HMS research fellow Sang Ki Park, and colleagues worked with mice and found a novel function for the molecule Par-4 (prostate apoptosis response 4)--as a binding partner for dopamine receptor D2. When mice deficient in Par-4 were subjected to stress, they showed depression-like behaviors, proposing Par-4–as a molecular link between dopamine signaling and depression. Par-4 was previously implicated as a proapoptotic factor in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. These new findings reveal an unexpected role for Par-4 in the dopamine system and present a rare glimpse of molecular mechanisms behind clinical depression. "Current antidepression therapies are mostly based on the deficiency or imbalance of the serotonin and noradrenaline systems. Our study highlights the importance of the dopamine system, a less appreciated target in the current antidepression therapies," said Tsai, also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 7705 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Andreas von Bubnoff A bird that lives in the Ecuadorian rain forest attracts mates by striking its wing feathers together behind its back, researchers say. Birds and other vertebrates usually court partners by expelling air to produce sound. But the male club-winged manakin (Machaeropterus deliciosus) is the first found to use purely mechanical means to produce its 'songs'. "This is completely unprecedented in the vertebrate world," says Kimberly Bostwick of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the lead author of the study, which appears in this week's Science1. The technique is more common in insects such as crickets. Only the male manakins have been spotted making noise this way. Their songs sound like two sharp clicks followed by a sustained, violin-like note. That much has been known for a long time: Charles Darwin wrote about the strange manakin sounds2 in 1871. He also noted that the male birds had some feather shafts with thickened ends. ©2005 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 7704 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Durham, N.C. – Duke University Medical Center researchers have discovered a new mechanism by which chronically high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine exert their effects on the brain. Normally associated with triggering feelings of pleasure, excess concentrations of dopamine underlie schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other psychiatric conditions. The findings therefore provide new research avenues to understand and potentially manage such dopamine-related human disorders, the researchers said. "We've thought that neurotransmitters relay messages to the brain in two speeds: fast and slow," said lead author of the study Jean-Martin Beaulieu, Ph.D. of Duke. "However, our new findings reveal that brain receptors that respond to dopamine actually have two slow modes: one that takes place over a period of minutes and a second -- newly discovered -- that lasts for hours. In fact, it may be that this effect continues for as long as dopamine remains in the system." This sustained action of dopamine may be particularly important for understanding psychiatric conditions, which are characterized by persistently high levels of the brain messenger, Beaulieu said. The researchers report their findings in the July 29, 2005, issue of Cell. "This mechanism appears to be more important than those earlier described for prolonged stimulation by dopamine, as would be the case in those with psychiatric conditions," said senior author Marc Caron, Ph.D., of Duke. "The new pathway can now be evaluated for potential new inhibitors that might be better at controlling particular psychotic behaviors." Caron is a professor of cell biology at Duke and faculty member at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy. © 2001-2005 Duke University Medical Center

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 7703 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have discovered a regulatory molecule that links faulty dopamine signaling in the brain to the neural machinery that breaks down in people who suffer from depression. The findings may explain why commonly prescribed antidepressants can take weeks to work and why the drugs are ineffective for some people. The researchers said their findings could open the way for the development of antidepressant drugs with improved efficacy. The researchers, led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Li-Huei Tsai at Harvard Medical School, published their findings in the July 29, 2005, issue of the journal Cell. According to Tsai, one of the longstanding puzzles in the treatment of depression has been the long lag time that it takes before antidepressants begin to work. These drugs ameliorate depression by increasing levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin and/or noradrenaline in the brain. Since the clinical effects of these drugs are usually significantly delayed, it is now believed that their efficacy depends on changes to later events in the signaling pathway resulting from adaptation to chronic treatment, said Tsai. Neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine are molecular “messengers” that neurons fire at protein receptors on the surface of neighboring neurons. Drugs that influence the levels of these neurotransmitters are central to treating a wide range of neurological disorders. © 2005 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 7702 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Overview Combining partially differentiated stem cells with gene therapy can promote the growth of new "insulation" around nerve fibers in the damaged spinal cords of rats, a new study shows. The treatment, which mimics the activity of two nerve growth factors, also improves the animals' motor function and electrical conduction from the brain to the leg muscles. The finding may eventually lead to new ways of treating spinal cord injury in humans. Combining partially differentiated stem cells with gene therapy can promote the growth of new "insulation" around nerve fibers in the damaged spinal cords of rats, a new study shows. The treatment, which mimics the activity of two nerve growth factors, also improves the animals' motor function and electrical conduction from the brain to the leg muscles. The finding may eventually lead to new ways of treating spinal cord injury in humans. The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The new study provides the best demonstration to date that producing a nerve-insulating substance called myelin can lead to functional improvements in animals with spinal cord injury. Previous studies have shown that the loss of myelin around nerve fibers contributes to the impaired function after a spinal cord injury. However, until now it has not been clear whether promoting new myelin growth in the spinal cord can reverse this damage, says Scott R. Whittemore, Ph.D., of the University of Louisville in Kentucky, who led the new study. "Many other investigators have suggested that remyelination is a possible approach to repair the spinal cord, but this is the first study to show unequivocally that it works," says Dr. Whittemore. "It is a proof of principle." Although the finding is promising, much work remains before such a technique could be used in humans. The study appears in the July 27, 2005, issue of the Journal of Neuroscience .*

Keyword: Regeneration; Glia
Link ID: 7701 - Posted: 07.29.2005