Infants born prematurely and with hypoxia--inadequate oxygen to the blood--are able to recover some cells, volume and weight in the brain after oxygen supply is restored, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in Experimental Neurology. Working with mice reared in a low-oxygen environment from three to 11 days after birth, the researchers found that about 30 percent of the cortical neurons were lost from the injury. But this damage was transient. The lost cortical neuron number, volume and brain weight were all reversed during the recovery period. The findings suggest that newly generated neurons and glial cells migrate in the cerebral cortex of the infant mouse brain. This may play a significant role in repairing neuronal losses after neonatal injury, according to lead author Flora Vaccarino, M.D., associate professor in the Yale Child Study Center and in neurobiology at Yale. Chronic perinatal hypoxia represents a major risk factor for cognitive handicap and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Yet clinical data suggests that the incidence of disability decreases over childhood and adolescence. Vaccarino and her team tested for a probable mechanism of recovery. "Remarkably, even without injury, the juvenile mouse cortex is able to generate new neurons," said Vaccarino. "This suggests that the mammalian brain is far more plastic than previously thought and thus may be able to recover from serious brain injuries."

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Neurogenesis
Link ID: 7559 - Posted: 06.28.2005

Roxanne Khamsi Therapists who swear that hypnosis can help their patients now have more evidence to back their claim. A study of brain-scan images shows that hypnosis can indeed alter cognitive activity after subjects have come out of the trance state, and that this can help them concentrate on certain tasks. In a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science1, hypnotized subjects outperformed their peers at a classic test of mental focus. And scans pinpointed the area of the brain responsible for this lasting effect. Hypnotists can strongly influence the behaviour of their subjects, sometimes helping them to give up addictive substances or, in tricks performed during stage performances, bark like a dog on hearing Elvis Presley. The findings indicate a biological basis for these types of behaviour, says Amir Raz at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, the lead author of the study. "Words can form suggestions, and suggestions can have very, very strong effects on neurological activity," he says. To study this effect, Raz used 16 volunteers, eight of whom were easily hypnotizable. These people would later be asked to tackle a mental challenge called the Stroop test, in which readers must name the colour in which a word is written. This is particularly tricky when the word is itself the name of a different colour. Participants should say 'blue', for example, when the word 'red' appears in blue ink. In the hypnosis sessions, which lasted on average 25 minutes, Raz and his colleagues told the volunteers that when they later heard a cue, such as a coughing sound, they would see the printed words as gibberish and only be able to focus on the ink. Researchers then brought them out of their trance state, and 10 minutes later asked them to take the Stroop test while in a brain scanner. ©2005 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Attention; Brain imaging
Link ID: 7558 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Child abuse may be more of a learnt behaviour than a genetic trait, new research on monkeys suggests. If true, the understanding may provide the opportunity to break the cycle of abuse that runs in some families. As many as 70% of parents who abuse their children were themselves abused while growing up. Maternal abuse of offspring in macaque monkeys shares some similarities with child maltreatment in humans, including its transmission across generations. This pattern of abuse has led to speculation that it may have a genetic basis. Darius Maestipieri, a primate expert at the University of Chicago, US, tested the theory by observing a population of macaques across two generations. He took some of the newborn female infants from the group and cross-fostered them among the mothers, about half of which were abusers. In the next generation, he found that 9 of the 16 females who were abused in infancy by their biological or foster mothers turned out to be abusive towards their own offspring. But none of the 15 females raised by their non-abusive biological or foster mothers maltreated their offspring, including those whose biological mothers were abusers. This indicates that intergenerational transmission of abuse is not genetically caused. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Aggression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 7557 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer Psychiatrist Naren Wig crossed an open sewer, skirted a pond and, in the dusty haze of afternoon, saw something miraculous. Krishna Devi, a woman he had treated years ago for schizophrenia, sat in a courtyard surrounded by religious pictures, exposed brick walls and drying laundry. Devi had stopped taking medication long ago, but her articulate speech and easy smile were eloquent testimony that she had recovered from the debilitating disease. Few schizophrenia patients in the United States are so lucky, even after years of treatment. But Devi had hidden assets: a doting family and an embracing village that never excluded her from social events, family obligations and work. Devi is a living reminder of a remarkable three-decade-long study by the World Health Organization -- one that many Western doctors initially refused to believe: People with schizophrenia, a deadly illness characterized by hallucinations, disorganized thinking and social withdrawal, typically do far better in poorer nations such as India, Nigeria and Colombia than in Denmark, England and the United States. The astounding result calls into question one of the central tenets of modern psychiatry: that a "brain disease" such as schizophrenia is best treated by hospitals, drugs and biomedical interventions. European and U.S. psychiatrists were so shocked by the initial findings in the 1970s that they assumed something was wrong with the study. They repeated it. The second trial produced the same result. The best explanation, researchers concluded, is that the stronger family ties in poorer countries have a profound impact on recovery. © 2005 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Depression
Link ID: 7556 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer When UCLA researchers reviewed the best available studies of psychiatric drugs for depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder, they found that the trials had involved 9,327 patients over the years. When the team looked to see how many patients were Native Americans, the answer was . . . Zero. "I don't know of a single trial in the last 10 to 15 years that has been published regarding the efficacy of a pharmacological agent in treating a serious mental disorder in American Indians," said Spero Manson, a psychiatrist who heads the American Indian and Alaska Native Programs at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Aurora. "It is stunning." Native Americans are not the only group for whom psychiatrists write prescriptions with fingers crossed, the researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles found as they reviewed the data for a U.S. surgeon general's report: Of 3,980 patients in antidepressant studies, only two were Hispanic. Of 2,865 schizophrenia patients, three were Asian. Among 825 patients in bipolar disorder or manic depression studies, there were no Hispanics or Asians. Blacks were better represented, but even their numbers in any one study were too small to tell doctors anything meaningful. In all, just 8 percent of the patients studied were minorities. © 2005 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 7555 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jeff Miller MADISON, Wis. — Seven years ago, when James Thomson became the first scientist to isolate and culture human embryonic stem cells, he knew he was stepping into a whirlwind of controversy. He just didn't expect the whirlwind to last this long. In fact, the moral, ethical and political controversy is still revving up — in Washington, where federal lawmakers are considering a bill to provide more federal support for embryonic stem cell research; and in Madison, Thomson's base of operations, where Wisconsin legislators are considering new limits on stem cell research. Thomson, a developmental biologist and veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, made history in 1998 when he and fellow researchers derived the first embryonic stem cell lines from frozen human embryos. The breakthrough came after the news that a sheep named Dolly was born as the first cloned mammal — and together, the two announcements hinted at a brave new world of medical possibilities and moral debates. Since then, five of the university's cell lines have been approved for federal funding under the terms of the Bush administration's stem cell compromise of August 2001. Other cell lines have been derived from frozen embryos with private funding, and the bill approved by the House last month would open the way for more. © 2005 MSNBC.com

Keyword: Stem Cells; Regeneration
Link ID: 7554 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Clive Cookson The late 1990s was the most productive period in the history of biological research. The birth of Dolly, the first cloned mammal, was quickly followed by the first successful derivation of human embryonic stem cells and then, as the new millennium dawned, the completion of the Human Genome Project. Since then the media have amplified these achievements, with the enthusiastic encouragement of many of the researchers involved, to create intense public excitement about a new era of regenerative medicine. Some people imagine that within a few years it will be possible, through some still obscure combination of stem cells, cloning and genetic engineering, to create new cells and eventually whole organs to replace those that fail through disease, accident or old age. That promise is counterbalanced by ethical and religious objections to stem cell research--particularly to the idea that embryos could be created especially for research and then destroyed--and fears that therapeutic cloning could open the door to reproductive cloning. For many people the very phrase "stem cells" sums up all the excitement and fears. But there is widespread ignorance about stem cells and wishful thinking about how quickly their potential will be achieved. This report is intended to shed scientific light on the future of stem cell research--and the associated policy issues that are driving national and state governments to commit billions of dollars of public funds to the field. © 1996-2005 Scientific American, Inc

Keyword: Stem Cells; Regeneration
Link ID: 7553 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Andres M. Lozano and Suneil K. Kalia Parkinson's disease, first described in the early 1800s by British physician James Parkinson as "shaking palsy," is among the most prevalent neurological disorders. According to the United Nations, at least four million people worldwide have it; in North America, estimates run from 500,000 to one million, with about 50,000 diagnosed every year. These figures are expected to double by 2040 as the world's elderly population grows; indeed, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative illnesses common in the elderly (such as Alzheimer's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) are on their way to overtaking cancer as a leading cause of death. But the disease is not entirely one of the aged: 50 percent of patients acquire it after age 60; the other half are affected before then. Furthermore, better diagnosis has made experts increasingly aware that the disorder can attack those younger than 40. So far researchers and clinicians have found no way to slow, stop or prevent Parkinson's. Although treatments do exist--including drugs and deep-brain stimulation--these therapies alleviate symptoms, not causes. In recent years, however, several promising developments have occurred. In particular, investigators who study the role proteins play have linked miscreant proteins to genetic underpinnings of the disease. Such findings are feeding optimism that fresh angles of attack can be identified. As its 19th-century name suggests--and as many people know from the educational efforts of prominent Parkinson's sufferers such as Janet Reno, Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox--the disease is characterized by movement disorders. Tremor in the hands, arms and elsewhere, limb rigidity, slowness of movement, and impaired balance and coordination are among the disease's hallmarks. In addition, some patients have trouble walking, talking, sleeping, urinating and performing sexually. © 1996-2005 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 7552 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Marc Kaufman, Washington Post Staff Writer New tests have confirmed that a Texas animal that federal officials earlier declared to be free of mad cow disease did have the brain-wasting ailment, the U.S. Agriculture Department announced yesterday. The definitive testing, done in England over the past two weeks, showed that the ailing animal, first flagged as suspicious in November, was infected with mad cow disease. The animal was retested after the USDA's inspector general requested the additional check because of continuing concerns about the sample dismissed by the agency. USDA Secretary Mike Johanns said that officials are just now trying to learn more about the origins of the animal, but that there is no indication that it was imported, as was the only other animal to test positive for the disease in the United States. That would make the newly identified animal the first born in this country found to have mad cow disease. Johanns sought yesterday to assure consumers that U.S. beef is safe, and that any suspect beef would have been kept off supermarket shelves. © 2005 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 7551 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GARDINER HARRIS and ANAHAD O'CONNOR Kristen Ehresmann, a Minnesota Department of Health official, had just told a State Senate hearing that vaccines with microscopic amounts of mercury were safe. Libby Rupp, a mother of a 3-year-old girl with autism, was incredulous. Libby Rupp of St. Paul, whose 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, has autism, says she is not convinced by studies that say there is no link between autism and childhood vaccines that include mercury. "How did my daughter get so much mercury in her?" Ms. Rupp asked Ms. Ehresmann after her testimony. "Fish?" Ms. Ehresmann suggested. "She never eats it," Ms. Rupp answered. "Do you drink tap water?" "It's all filtered." "Well, do you breathe the air?" Ms. Ehresmann asked, with a resigned smile. Several parents looked angrily at Ms. Ehresmann, who left. Ms. Rupp remained, shaking with anger. That anyone could defend mercury in vaccines, she said, "makes my blood boil." Public health officials like Ms. Ehresmann, who herself has a son with autism, have been trying for years to convince parents like Ms. Rupp that there is no link between thimerosal - a mercury-containing preservative once used routinely in vaccines - and autism. They have failed. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 7550 - Posted: 06.25.2005

PORTLAND, Ore. – Oregon Health & Science University researchers have measured genetic changes reflecting a drop in the body's ability to suppress inflammatory cells that attack nerve fibers and promote progression of multiple sclerosis. In a study published in the July issue of the Journal of Neuroscience Research, OHSU scientists, in collaboration with The Immune Response Corp. of Carlsbad, Calif., found that MS patients have lower expression of the FOXP3 gene found in a subset of T-cells that may regulate defense against MS and other autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes and arthritis. They say that when FOXP3 is reduced due to abnormalities in its expression, the suppressive activity of regulatory T-cells, or T-regs, also plummets. "This is an important marker," said Arthur Vandenbark, Ph.D., professor of neurology and molecular microbiology and immunology, OHSU School of Medicine, and senior research career scientist at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "This is the first publication that links FOXP3 with reduced suppression in MS." But there may be a solution to the FOXP3 loss. NeuroVax, a T-cell receptor peptide vaccine co-discovered by Vandenbark and colleagues at The Immune Response Corp., was shown in a separate study to increase FOXP3 expression levels among MS patients receiving injections of the drug for a year.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 7549 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Sid Perkins Recently excavated fossils of a mammal species originally described decades ago suggest that the mouse-size creature had a venomous bite, a trait previously unreported in ancient mammals. Paleontologists first unearthed remains of Bisonalveus browni in Wyoming more than 50 years ago. However, those fossils included only a few rear teeth and fragments of skulls and lower jaws, says Richard C. Fox, a paleontologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. The newer fossils that Fox and his university colleague Craig S. Scott discovered in 60-million-year-old rocks at two sites in central Alberta include several creatures' snouts. Most notably, these fragments feature a long, pointed canine tooth that has the shape of known venom-delivery structures. The tooth has a distinctive groove that's wide and semicircular near the base of the tooth and that narrows into a V shape near the tip. Because the channel is lined with enamel, it doesn't seem to be an imperfection caused by cracking during the animal's life or by poor preservation after its death. Also, the groove didn't result from tooth wear because none of the animal's lower teeth would have fit in that space when the creature shut its mouth. Fox and Scott speculate in the June 23 Nature that the tooth groove delivered venom. Copyright ©2005 Science Service.

Keyword: Evolution; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 7548 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Postnatal depression in fathers can have long-term consequences for the behavioural and emotional development of their child, research suggests. Bristol and Oxford University doctors found postnatal depression affects a significant number of fathers. The Lancet study found baby boys whose fathers were depressed had twice as many behavioural and emotional problems in the pre-school years. The researchers suggest health workers look for signs of paternal depression. The researchers, working with colleagues from the University of Rochester in the US, analysed records on 8,430 fathers. They found that eight weeks after the birth, 3.6% (303) appeared to be suffering from depression, with symptoms including anxiety, mood swings, irritability and feelings of hopelessness. Oxford psychiatrist Dr Paul Ramchandani said: "We already know that postnatal depression in mothers can affect the quality of maternal care, and is associated with disturbances in children's later social, behavioural, psychological and physical development. "While a significant number of men do report depression following the birth of a child, until now the influence of depression in fathers during the early years of a child's life has received scant attention." Dr Ramchandani said there was research showing adolescent children of depressed fathers have higher rates of psychiatric disorder. But he said until now very little was known about the effect of paternal depression on early child development. The researchers assessed children at the age of three-and-a-half for signs of emotion problems, such as worry and sadness, and behavioural problems, such as hyperactivity. (BBC)

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7547 - Posted: 06.24.2005

Dan Lloyd Brain Fiction: Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation. William Hirstein. "Know thyself," urged the inscription over the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, setting a goal for Western philosophy and many of the sciences it would ultimately spawn. Although nobody claims that self-knowledge is easy, certain basic facts about oneself seem direct and immediate: For example, I know whether I am now seeing properly, whether I am moving my arm, which of my thoughts are memories and which fantasies, and whether I am recognizing a familiar face. We are so intimate with these basic perceptual and cognitive capacities that it is difficult to imagine being wrong about such matters. Nonetheless, following brain injury even these simple insights can miscarry. A patient with Korsakoff's syndrome, for example, reports that he spent the weekend at the beach, when in fact he was in the hospital. His memory is impaired, but he has replaced his lost history with a confabulation. However, he neither notices his amnesia nor questions his own story; concerning his own past, he doesn't know that he doesn't know. For another example, take the stroke patient who is paralyzed on her left side yet claims that she is not impaired, asserting that she is moving her immobile arm despite obvious evidence to the contrary. Even stranger, a patient with Anton's syndrome denies his own blindness, attributing his complete visual disability to "dim lighting" or poor glasses. A sufferer from Capgras's syndrome claims that her immediate family members have been replaced by impostors. And someone with Cotard's syndrome reports that he is dead and that everyone around him is dead too. These sincere claims are almost impervious to correction, even when the people making them are baldly confronted with the facts. Having someone point out the contradictions just generates more confabulations or, at best, temporary concessions. © Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 7546 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News — A little extra DNA makes for faithful males, at least when they are male prairie voles, new genetic research found. In a study published in the current issue of Science, Larry Young and Elizabeth Hammock of Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., show that fidelity in male voles depends on the length of a particular genetic sequence in a stretch of DNA between their genes. Voles, mouselike rodents, look pretty much the same, yet they feature dramatic species differences in social behaviors. Prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) form lifelong attachments with a mate, are biparental and highly social, whereas the closely related montane voles (M. montanus) are solitary and promiscuous. Hammock and Young focused their study on "microsatellites," repetitive DNA sequences that have been long considered junk DNA as they do not produce proteins. "Most people have considered these microsatellites as not having any function in the genome ... On the contrary, these highly repetitive, unstable DNA sequences are a mechanism generating diversity in behavior: I really think that they have a very important evolutionary function," Young told Discovery News. Copyright © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 7545 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Hardly bird brained, the diminutive black-capped chickadee sings one of the animal kingdom’s most intricate alarm calls, a new study reveals. These palm-sized puff balls increase the number of syllables in their battle cry depending on the deadliness of a sitting predator, says a team of US researchers. “We really were surprised at just how sophisticated the alarm call system is and how sophisticated the judgment of predation risk was,” says lead author Christopher Templeton at the University of Washington in Seattle, US. Templeton and his colleagues tested the alarm call responses of a flock of six chickadees against the presence of 13 birds of prey predators, which ranged in size from the 40-centimetre wingspan pygmy owl to the 140-centimetre wingspan rough-tail hawk. They also tested responses against two mammals, a cat and a weasel. Each predator was inserted into the chickadees aviary and tethered to a perch. After analysing 5000 recorded alarm calls, the team found that the number of “dees” in the bird’s trademark “chickadee-dee-dee-dee” call corresponded to the size of the poised predator. Smaller hunters – which pose the greatest risk - received the most vociferous response. The alert causes the flock to mob their sitting foe in an attempt to drive it away. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 7544 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The best place to sell magazines could be in the gym locker room, according to a study which found that pheromones in male sweat makes men opt for a manly read. Men under the influence of androstenol – a pheromone found in men’s underarm sweat – find men’s lifestyle magazines to be more attractive and are more likely to purchase them than those not exposed to the pheromone, suggests the research. Michael Kirk-Smith, from the University of Ulster, UK, and Claus Ebster, from the University of Vienna, Austria showed 120 student volunteers three magazines: the female lifestyle magazine Allure, the neutrally pitched National Geographic, and the male lifestyle magazine Men’s Health. The students were split into two groups with equal numbers of men and women. The first group wore a mask sprayed with androstenol and the second wore a mask permeated with a control solvent. The concentrations of the solvents in the masks were low enough as to have imperceptible odour to the wearers. The two groups were asked to rate the magazines according to how masculine they found each, how appealing and how likely they were to purchase them. The male participants exposed to androstenol rated Men’s Health as significantly more masculine and more appealing compared with the control group. They also had a higher tendency to report that they might buy the magazine. Women appeared to be completely unaffected by the pheromone. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 7543 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Everyone probably remembers where he or she was when the twin towers fell on September 11th, 2001. Among thousands of New Yorkers who watched the World Trade Center fall and who smelled that morning's smoke and ash for weeks after, there were, of course, some pregnant women. Concerned for how September 11th may have affected their unborn children, some of them anonymously volunteered to take part in a study to investigate the affects of maternal post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, on unborn children. Thirty-eight mothers, half of whom developed PTSD, collected saliva samples from themselves and their children approximately one year after September 11th. In the morning and before bedtime, they placed a minty-tasting wad of cotton in their mouths and their children's. Then they spit the soggy wads out and sealed them in plastic tubes before handing them over for analysis for the stress hormone cortisol. The study's results published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, suggest that the traumatic events a pregnant mother faces — events like September 11th — may have a detrimental effect on the long-term mental health of her baby. The researchers, based at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, think that if a pregnant woman develops PTSD, her child may be at an increased risk for developing the disorder after a traumatic event in their own lifetime. © ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 7542 - Posted: 06.24.2010

With a male and a female fruit fly in a container it's pretty clear which is the guy — the one doing the elaborate courtship dance, trying to get the girl. When trying to impress the ladies, a male fruit fly takes up an act of chasing the females, tapping their abdomens with his front leg and performing wing-beating serenades. "This is an innate behavior, male flies know how to do all this as soon as they're adults," explains Stanford University geneticist Bruce Baker. Baker's research team has been working to try and understand why animals behave as they do, particularly the kinds of innate behaviors that animals just seem to know how to do. "Things like the kind of nest a bird will build; the kind of courtship display that a male peacock might make," he says. "We'd like to understand what happens during development to give an organism the potential to do these often amazing and wonderful sorts of behaviors that they carry out.” As they reported in the journal Nature, by giving female flies just one male-specific gene, known as "fruitless" — one out of approximately 14,000 genes in the DNA of the common fruit fly — Baker and co-author Dev Manoli, in collaboration with Brandeis and Oregon State universities, succeeded in getting the females to court other females. They had previously shown that the gene, which is normally active in the nervous system of male flies, is important for all aspects of male courtship. © ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 7541 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new study shows, for the first time, that the release of the body's own marijuana-like compounds is crucial to stress-induced analgesia – the body's way of initially shielding pain after a serious injury. The work, led by scientists at the University of Georgia and the University of California, Irvine, may yield a target for new drug therapies that will completely bypass the current arguments over the use of medical marijuana. In theory, the new research makes it possible to design a pill that will have the same pain relieving effects as smoked marijuana, but through an indirect mechanism that could also reduce unwanted psychoactive side effects and not have the same political baggage. "There is no prescription or over the counter drug that allows us to manipulate the level of the brain's marijuana-like compounds," said Andrea Hohmann, a neuroscientist in the department of psychology at the University of Georgia and co-author of the paper. "This is the first time anyone has shown that one of the body's naturally occurring cannabinoids, a compound known as 2-AG, has anything to do with pain regulation under natural conditions." The study was published today in the journal Nature. Hohmann's co-author, Daniele Piomelli at the University of California-Irvine, is the discoverer of a compound that blocks the breakdown of this marijuana-like compound called 2-AG, and it is that blocking compound, patented by UC-Irvine, that could become the new drug of choice for those suffering from pain or stress conditions. Importantly, it would not require people to smoke marijuana to obtain relief or wrestle with the legal issues surrounding the drug.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7540 - Posted: 06.24.2010