PHILADELPHIA – Cognitive therapy to treat moderate to severe depression works just as well as antidepressants, according to an authoritative report appearing today in the Archives of General Psychiatry. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University, challenges the American Psychiatric Association's guidelines that antidepressant medications are the only effective treatment for moderately to severely depressed patients. Either form of treatment worked significantly better than a placebo, but the researchers demonstrated that cognitive therapy was more effective than medication at preventing relapses after the end of treatment. "We believe that cognitive therapy might have more lasting effects because it equips patients with the tools they need to learn how to manage their problems and emotions," said Robert DeRubeis, professor and chair of Penn's Department of Psychology. "Pharmaceuticals, while effective, offer no long term cure for the symptoms of depression. For many people, cognitive therapy might prove to be the preferred form of treatment." The study, which follows years of debate on the relative merits of cognitive therapy versus medication for more severe forms of depression, is the largest trial yet undertaken on the topic; it involved 240 depressed patients. The patients were randomly placed into groups that received cognitive therapy, antidepressant medication or a placebo. Patients in the antidepressant group, which was twice as large as the other two, were treated with paroxetine (Paxil). Lithium or desipramine was also given, as necessary.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 7143 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Despite the efforts of advocates such as the late Christopher Reeve pushing for more research to find a cure for spinal cord injuries, international research efforts have been slow to progress out of the lab and into the clinic. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, neither the scientific community nor thousands of Americans who have been paralyzed by spinal cord injuries are happy with the limited treatment options currently available. The report points out "an obvious and urgent need to identify and test new interventions and to accelerate the pace of research." "We're talking about a burden here of about 11 thousand new cases a year in this country," says Jeremiah Barondess, President of the New York Academy of Medicine, who served on the IOM committee that produced the report. "It?s a tremendous tragedy, a quarter of a million people are living in the U.S. with chronic spinal injury." The last few decades of research have led to significant progress in the field, improving patient survival and rehabilitation options, as well as emergency medical treatment. Additionally, recent advances in neuroscience research are opening up new opportunities for the development of therapeutic approaches. "I think the field is poised now for really striking advances because of what's been learned in neurobiology in the last ten or a dozen years," Barondess says. (C) ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 7142 - Posted: 04.05.2005

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Learning disabilities such as dyslexia are believed to affect nearly one in 10 children. To better study them, a Northwestern University research team has developed a data-driven conceptual framework that links two well-established scientific concepts. In doing so, they also have developed a non-invasive diagnostic tool called BioMAP that can quickly identify children with learning disabilities. Scientists have long recognized that children who can best process various aspects of the sounds of language are more likely to read earlier and develop into better readers and writers than those who cannot. After a decade of research, Northwestern Professor Nina Kraus and her colleagues have discovered a subset of learning disabilities that results from a dysfunction in the way the brainstem encodes certain basic sounds of speech. In an article in the April "Trends in Neurosciences," Kraus, who is Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology, and senior research analyst Trent Nicol for the first time ever have linked the source-filter model of acoustics with the cerebral cortex's "what" and "where" pathways via the auditory brainstem.

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 7141 - Posted: 04.05.2005

CHAPEL HILL -- A study commissioned by the American Psychiatric Association and led by a psychiatrist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine has found that light therapy effectively treats mood disorders, including seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and other depressive disorders. A report of the study, which appeared April 1 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, also finds that the effects of light therapy, also known as phototherapy, are comparable to those found in many clinical studies of antidepressant drug therapy for these disorders. The findings were based on a meta-analysis, a systematic statistical review of 20 randomized, controlled studies previously reported in the scientific literature. These represented only 12 percent of 173 published studies that the authors had originally considered for review. "We found that many reports on the efficacy of light therapy are not based on rigorous study designs. This has fueled the controversy in the field as to whether or not light therapy is effective for SAD or for non-seasonal forms of mood disorders," said lead author Dr. Robert Golden, professor and chairman of psychiatry at UNC and vice dean of the medical school.

Keyword: Depression; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 7140 - Posted: 04.05.2005

New York, NY, --- A new brain imaging study of recently diagnosed schizophrenia patients has found, for the first time, that the loss of gray matter typically experienced by patients can be prevented by one of the new atypical antipsychotic drugs, olanzapine, but not by haloperidol, an older, conventional drug. The study, published in today's Archives of General Psychiatry, also confirmed previous studies that show patients who experience less brain loss do better clinically. "This is a really big breakthrough," says the study's leader, Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D., director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and chairman of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. "The drugs we have for schizophrenia can't cure people who've been sick for years, but this study shows that the newer atypical drugs, if started early, can prevent the illness from progressing. If our findings are confirmed, one could argue that we should treat new patients with atypical drugs like olanzapine rather than older conventional medications such as haloperidol and chlorpromazine." Gray matter contains the bulk of the brains cell's and the billions of connections among the cells. Loss of gray matter in patients with schizophrenia has been linked to social withdrawal and progressive deterioration in cognition and emotion--which are among the least responsive symptoms to medications.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 7139 - Posted: 04.05.2005

Young children who watch a lot of television are more likely to become bullies, a new study reveals. The authors suggest the increasingly violent nature of children’s cartoons may be to blame. Previous studies have linked television to aggressive behaviour in older children and adolescents. But a team led by Frederick Zimmerman, an economist at the University of Washington in Seattle, US, has now traced the phenomenon to four-year-olds. The researchers used existing data from a national US survey to study the amount of television watched by 1266 four-year-olds. Then they compared that amount with follow-up reports - by the children's mothers - on whether the children bullied or were "cruel or mean to others" when they were between six and 11 years old. The study showed that four-year-olds who watched the average amount of television - 3.5 hours per day - were 25% more likely to become bullies than those who watched none. And children who watched eight hours of television a day were 200% more likely to become bullies. The study did not probe what types of programmes the children were watching, but Zimmerman suggests they were mainly animated videos and cartoons. He says such shows may follow a trend seen in movies and cites a recent study showing the average G-rated kids' movie contains (U-rated in the UK) about 9.5 minutes of violence - up from 6 minutes in 1940. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Aggression
Link ID: 7138 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have shed more light on why smokers find it so hard to give up. A team at Goldsmiths College, London has concluded that being deprived of nicotine makes normally pleasurable things less enjoyable. The research, revealed at the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference, concludes that this may be the reason so many smokers relapse. But anti-smoking groups point out smokers can still give up successfully using nicotine replacement therapy. The research team recruited 200 smokers, all of whom smoked more than 10 cigarettes a day. The volunteers were tested twice, each time after they had refrained from smoking for 12 hours. On each occasion they received a lozenge that either contained nicotine or was a placebo. They were all given a questionnaire assessing how pleasurable they expected certain activities to be, like eating their favourite food, or going out for the evening. The researchers found that the smokers deprived of nicotine expected these things to be less pleasurable than those who were given it. The volunteers were also asked to sort cards, and offered money for doing it. The nicotine-deprived volunteers did not respond to the incentive as well as the others. Dr Lynne Dawkins, who the led the research, said: "These results led us to conclude that giving up smoking must make many other things in life much less fun." The researchers also found that smokers who had not been given nicotine found it harder to resist an impulsive urge - not looking at something that they were specifically told to ignore. (C)BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7137 - Posted: 04.04.2005

By Jennifer Lenhart Night falls on the Coleman household in Alexandria, and it's noisy. Startled cries come from a grandfather prone to World War II flashbacks, loud bouts of snoring bedevil the grandmother, shouts of "Quiet!" erupt from the bed-hugging teenage grandson. The family didn't exactly feel like springing forward today. "I hate daylight saving time," said grandmother Ellen Coleman, a State Department employee who recently tested in an overnight sleep lab at Virginia Hospital Center. "I hate it for the morning after. . . . We have to turn the clocks ahead and we're plunged back into darkness." Daylight saving time makes Coleman feel tired. She doesn't get enough sleep, and the sleep she does get is poor. The same is true for most of her family and an estimated 40 million other Americans who have sleep disorders. The nonprofit National Sleep Foundation, in its efforts to raise awareness of the hazards of bad sleep habits, released a poll last week reporting that Americans sleep almost two fewer hours a night than 40 years ago. The consequences of that can be dangerous: Studies show accidents rise in the days after the spring time change and drowsy drivers can be as impaired as drunken drivers. © Copyright 1996-2005 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 7136 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Pope John Paul II was one of the most vigorous, well-traveled popes in history. But in his last years, Parkinson's disease made him frail and weak. People with Parkinson's often experience muscle rigidity, trembling, difficulty walking, and problems with balance and coordination. There is no cure for this progressive neurological disorder. Parkinson's disease is caused by a loss of the brain cells called neurons that produce a chemical called dopamine. Without enough of this important neurotransmitter, parts of the brain become overactive and sufferers lose control of their muscle activity. "We really don’t understand what dopamine does in the normal situation," says Mark West, a psychology professor at Rutgers University. "We know what happens when dopamine's been lost—movement becomes very difficult. In some way then, dopamine helps the brain’s motor system function smoothly. "The typical drug given is L-Dopa, which the brain converts into dopamine, and thus, some of the dopamine that's been lost is replaced," says West. The drug, developed more than 30 years ago, remains the most effective treatment. But doctors admit L-Dopa is only a bandaid for the symptoms and for some patients, it works only temporarily. "It was pretty clear over time," explains Michael Kaplitt, a professor of neurological surgery at New York Presbyterian-Weill-Cornell Medical Center. "Parkinson’s disease patients will suffer with this disorder for a long period of time—for 15, 20, 30 years or more. And after they've taken these drugs for a long period of time, a lot of things can happen. For some patients, they can become increasingly resistant to the medication after years of taking it, so they will require increasing doses of the medication, or they'll require more numerous doses throughout the day. But even with that they continue to worsen." (C) ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 7135 - Posted: 06.24.2010

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study in mice suggests that, in certain cases, stress may enhance the body's ability to fight the flu. Short bouts of intense social stress improved the ability in the mice to recover from the flu. The stress apparently did so by substantially boosting the production of specialized immune cells that fought the virus. "Stressed mice had a stronger immune response and were able to fight off the infection faster," said Jacqueline Wiesehan, a study co-author and a graduate fellow in oral biology at Ohio State University. These special immune cells are called T cells and are part of the immune system's memory response. T cells "remember" specific infectious agents and can launch future attacks against these intruders. The researchers hope to learn more about the mechanisms behind the memory response, and to use this information to develop more effective flu vaccines in the future, said David Padgett, a study co-author and an associate professor of oral biology at Ohio State. Wiesehan, Padgett and John Sheridan, the study's lead author and a professor of oral biology at Ohio State, presented their findings on April 3 at the Experimental Biology 2005 conference in San Diego. The three also worked on this study with Michael Bailey, a postdoctoral fellow in oral biology at Ohio State.

Keyword: Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 7134 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Modern humans may have driven Neanderthals to extinction 30,000 years ago because Homo sapiens unlocked the secrets of free trade, say a group of US and Dutch economists. The theory could shed new light on the mysterious and sudden demise of the Neanderthals after over 260,000 years of healthy survival. Anthropologists have considered a wide range of factors which may explain Neanderthal extinction, including biological, environmental and cultural causes. For example, one major study concluded that Neanderthals were less able to deal with plunging temperatures during the last glacial period. Another possibility is that they were less able hunters as a result of poorer mental abilities, says Eric Delson, an anthropologist at Lehman College, City University of New York, US. But he adds that most theories are reliant on guesswork. Exactly how humans ousted Neanderthals remains a puzzle. “They were successful for such a long time,” he points out. Jason Shogren, an economist at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, US, says part of the answer may lie in humans’ superior trading habits. Trading would have allowed the division of labour, freeing up skilled individuals, such as hunters, to focus on the tasks they are best at. Others, perhaps making tools or clothes or gathering food, would give the hunters resources in return for meat. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 7133 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Adam Summers Paleoanthropologists, the paleontologists of the human lineage, have a tough task. Hominid fossils are scarce, and they’re usually incomplete. Worse, the missing bits are often the ones investigators would most like to find—making it difficult to assemble an evolutionary tree of fossil hominids. But if that’s a tough job, imagine what life is like for anyone seeking to describe how bones and muscles functioned in ancient hominids. The scarcity and incompleteness of hominid fossils has often prolonged biomechanical debates concerning hominids. “Lucy” (Australopithecus afarensis) is a case in point. She was discovered more than thirty years ago, but a disagreement about whether those of her species walked more like a person or more like a chimpanzee was only recently decided in favor of the former. Differences in human and chimpanzee anatomy highlight the human adaptations for long-distance running. There are fewer muscle connections between the head and the shoulders in the human than in the chimpanzee. The weaker connection enables the head to move independently of the shoulder, which rotates while running. In contrast, humans have more connections between the gluteus maximus muscle in the butt and the hip than chimpanzees do, which keeps the trunk and leg moving together. Both the Achilles tendon of the heel and the tendon of the arch of the foot are much smaller in chimpanzees than they are in humans; in a running person they act like springs, absorbing and releasing energy. Copyright © Natural History Magazine, Inc., 2004

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 7132 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Many animals may have their own forms of laughter, says a US researcher writing in the magazine Science. Professor Jaak Panksepp says that animals other than humans exhibit play sounds that resemble human laughs. These include the panting sounds made by chimps and dogs when they play and chirping sounds observed in rats. This suggests that the capacity for laughter may be a very ancient emotional response that predates the evolution of humankind, says Panksepp. Research suggests the capacity for human laughter preceded the capacity for speech. Professor Panksepp, of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, US, explains that neural circuits for laughter exist in "ancient" parts of our brain, whose general structure is shared amongst many animals. Young chimps "play pant" as they mischievously chase and tickle each other. And when rats play, they make chirps which some scientists associate with positive emotional feelings. When rats are tickled in a playful way, they become socially bonded to humans and are rapidly conditioned to seek tickles, the US neuroscientist explains in Science. The chirping sounds could be provoked by nerve circuitry in the brain which releases the neurotransmitter dopamine. These dopamine circuits also light up in the human brain during human amusement. "Such knowledge may help to reveal how joking and horsing around emerged in our expansive higher brain regions," Professor Panksepp writes. (C)BBC

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 7131 - Posted: 04.02.2005

Posted by Carl Zimmer Spring is finally slinking into the northeast, and the backyard wildlife here is shaking off the winter torpor. Our oldest daughter, Charlotte, is now old enough to be curious about this biological exuberence. She likes to tell stories about little subterranean families of earthworm mommies and grub daddies, cram grapes in her cheeks in imitation of the chipmunks, and ask again and again about where the birds spend Christmas. This is, of course, hog heaven for a geeky science-writer father like myself, but there is one subject that I hope she doesn't ask me about: how the garden snails have babies. Because then I would have to explain about the love darts. Garden snails, and many other related species of snails, are hermaphrodites, equipped both with a penis that can deliver sperm to other males and with eggs that can be fertilized by the sperm of others. Two hermaphroditic snails can fertilize each other, or just play the role of male or female. Snail mating is a slow, languorous process, but it also involves some heavy weaponry. Before delivering their sperm, many species (including garden snails) fire nasty-looking darts made of calcium carbonate into the flesh of their mate. In the 1970s, scientists sugested that this was a gift to help the recipient raise its fertilized eggs. But it turns out that snails don't incorporate the calcium in the dart into their bodies. Instead, love darts turn out to deliver hormones that manipulate a snail's reproductive organs. Copyright © 2004 Corante.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 7130 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Christen Brownlee In many ways, 9-year-old Jacob Sontag is much like his fourth grade classmates. He loves reading, watching movies, and listening to music, and he's well liked by a large circle of friends. However, Jacob is not a typical boy. He has Canavan disease, a rare neurodegenerative disorder that has gradually depleted the myelin, or electrical insulation, in his brain and confined him to a wheelchair. Jacob and his family are looking to a controversial experimental approach to cure him someday. "We hear a lot of talk about the hope and the promise of stem cells," says Jacob's mother, Jordana Holovach. Jacob's doctor, neuroscientist Paola Leone of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Camden, N.J., says that if today's early research pans out, stem cells transplanted into the boy's brain eventually might replace the myelin-producing cells that he lacks. Researchers seeking cures for many other medical conditions—including type-1 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, osteoporosis, and heart disease—are also looking to stem cell transplants for cures. Copyright ©2005 Science Service.

Keyword: Stem Cells; Regeneration
Link ID: 7129 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Janet Raloff Too busy to cook, you drop by the neighborhood café and treat yourself to fried chicken with a side of macaroni and cheese. You wash it all down with a bottle of apple juice—to balance the high-fat entrees with something healthy. Although you've put away far more calories than usual, you still don't feel really full, so you select a slice of chocolate torte from the dessert case. Recent studies have begun pointing to a wide variety of factors, including body weight, food choices, and lack of sleep, by which we can unwittingly alter not only when we experience hunger but also what items appear appetizing and how much food it takes to trigger a feeling that we've had enough. Our bodies rely on a host of involuntary cues to regulate food consumption. In 1999, researchers discovered a hormone that contributes to strong feelings of hunger. Throughout the day, its concentration in our bodies rises and falls. Although we're not aware of these ups and downs, they drive our behavior, either moving us toward the table or letting us get on with the rest of our lives. Cycles of this powerful hormone-dubbed ghrelin, after a Hindu word for "growth"—reflect a complex interplay of chemical signals that scientists are now beginning to untangle. In the last 2 years, research has also begun pointing to an array of diet and lifestyle factors that modify the body's production of ghrelin and other eating-related signals. Copyright ©2005 Science Service.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 7128 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new study suggests there may be a better way to sharpen the eyes of radiologists, military pilots and other professionals for whom identifying objects or patterns in a monitor or visual display – often quickly and with pinpoint accuracy – is a critical part of the job. According to the study, the new approach involves rethinking how the eyes are trained to filter out clutter and focus in on a target. Previously, scientists believed these two perceptual skills intermixed and worked simultaneously. This study, however, demonstrates that they are in fact independent and best practiced in a specific order. The study, by UCI cognitive scientist Barbara Anne Dosher and USC colleague Zhong-Lin Lu, is published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “This research demonstrates, for the first time, the independence of these two learning mechanisms, and suggests new methods of training for people who must pinpoint targets in busy images,” Dosher said. The researchers tested six volunteers with normal vision. Half of the volunteers trained first on clear, or low-clutter, displays, identifying targets or patterns ranging from dim to strong using the “amplification” or focusing in process. Then they trained on “noisy,” or high-clutter, displays, exercising their filtering mechanism. The other three volunteers started with the noisy displays and then switched to clear. Over five days, the volunteers made nearly 4,000 practice judgments in each condition, with accuracy measured every 180 trials. © Copyright 2002-2005 UC Regents

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 7127 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Anti-impotence drug Viagra increases the risk of blindness, doctors believe. Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School in the US identified seven men who developed vision problems after taking Viagra. The team, writing in the Journal of Neuro-ophthalmology,said it brought the total number of reported cases to 14. But Pfizer, the makers of the drug which has been used by more than 20m men since its launch in 1998, said the cases were a coincidence. The seven men, aged between 50 and 69 years old, had all suffered from a swelling of the optic nerve within 36 hours of taking Viagra for erectile dysfunction. Pfizer takes these reports very seriously, as we do anything concerning the safety of patients Six experienced vision loss within 24 hours, although only one had problems with both eyes. The condition, known as nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), causes a rapid reduction of vision and can, in the most serious cases, lead to blindness. Report co-author Dr Howard Pomeranz said the drug had long been linked to sight problems. "For years, we have known some men who take Viagra will experience temporary colour changes in their vision and see things as blue or green. NAION is a much more serious condition because it can lead to permanent vision loss." (C)BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Vision
Link ID: 7126 - Posted: 04.02.2005

By Peter Gorner Tickling rats to make them chirp with joy may seem frivolous as a scientific pursuit, yet understanding laughter in animals may lead to revolutionary treatments for emotional illness, researchers suggest. Joy and laughter, they say, are proving not to be uniquely human traits. Roughhousing chimpanzees emit characteristic pants of excitement, their version of "ha-ha-ha" limited only by their anatomy and lack of breath control, researchers contend. Dogs have their own sound to spur other dogs to play, and recordings of the sound can dramatically reduce stress levels in shelters and kennels, according to the scientist who discovered it. Even laboratory rats have been shown to chirp delightedly above the range of human hearing when wrestling with each other or being tickled by a keeper--the same vocalizations they make before receiving morphine or having sex. Studying sounds of joy may help us understand the evolution of human emotions and the brain chemistry underlying such emotional problems as autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders, said Jaak Panksepp, a pioneering neuroscientist who discovered rat laughter. Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 7125 - Posted: 06.24.2010

US scientists say they can tell whether one person trusts another, by using a brain scan. The results suggest that a brain region called the caudate nucleus lights up when it receives or computes data to make decisions based on trust. The Baylor College of Medicine team based their findings on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans of volunteers playing a money game. The research is published in the latest edition of Science magazine. During the money game, one player, designated the "investor", received $20. They then had the option of sending some, all, or none of the $20 to the other player, the "trustee". According to the rules of the game, which were known by both players, whatever money the trustee was given would triple. The trustee then had the option of returning a portion of the new sum to the investor. The study authors looked at what happened in the brains of both players during 10 rounds of the game. They found the extent to which the players trusted each other with their money depended on the recent history of the exchange. (C)BBC

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 7124 - Posted: 04.01.2005