An elite squad of real but remote-controlled rats could soon be scouring enemy bases and sniffing out explosives for the US military. The rodents are directed using a series of brain implants, which can be operated wirelessly from a distance of several hundred metres. Now, for the first time, the researchers behind the project have demonstrated the ability to control the rodents' movements before activating their “sniffer dog” instincts. John Chapin and colleagues at the State University of New York, US, say the rats could eventually sniff out hidden weapons or act as remote video sensors for military and police forces. With colleagues from the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, they have previously shown that brain implants can be used to steer the rats over an assault course, or home in on a particular odour. But combining the two tricks is a significant step towards turning them into useful “robo-rodents”. "It's important to have them switch between behaviours," Chapin told New Scientist. "Obviously, there are a lot of very important potential applications.” The rats are remotely controlled using electrodes inserted into the medial forebrain bundle (MFB), a part of their brain associated with reward, and the somatosensory cortical area, which is linked to the right and left whiskers. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Robotics; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 7242 - Posted: 06.24.2010

THE way patterns of shift work are organised could be causing major health problems, according to a pair of reports commissioned by the UK government body that regulates workplace safety. The reports, prepared for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), show that offshore oil workers adopting the most popular shift pattern have a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes. This pattern also makes workers more tired and inattentive, increasing the chance of accidents and mistakes. Chronobiologist Josephine Arendt and her team at the University of Surrey in Guildford and psychologist Andrew Smith and colleagues at Cardiff University in Wales separately studied the physiological and psychological health of a group of 45 men working on offshore oil rigs. Both teams compared the two main shift schedules operated on a two-week tour of duty. One was a simple 12-hour shift, with workers staying on night shifts or day shifts for the full two weeks. The other was a split rota of seven night shifts followed by seven day shifts. This was more popular with the workers because they were already adapted to night sleeping when they returned home. But it proved worst for their health. Urine tests from workers on the split shift revealed that levels of melatonin, the sleep-regulating hormone normally secreted at night, did not become synchronised to the new sleep times after shift changes. As well as being more tired and less attentive on the job, these unadapted workers showed signs of being at risk of long-term health effects. The men had abnormally high levels of fatty acids circulating in their blood after meals, compared with the day shift or adapted workers. This increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other metabolic disorders. "The swing shift is the killer," says Arendt. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 7241 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter Mice have been placed in a state of near suspended animation, raising the possibility that hibernation could one day be induced in humans. If so, it might be possible to put astronauts into hibernation-like states for long-haul space flights - as often depicted in science fiction films. A US team from Seattle reports its findings in Science magazine. In this case, suspended animation means the reversible cessation of all visible life processes in an organism. The researchers from the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle put the mice in a chamber filled with air laced with 80 parts per million (ppm) of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) - the malodorous gas that gives rotten eggs their stink. Hydrogen sulphide can be deadly in high concentrations. But it is also produced normally in humans and animals, and is believed to help regulate body temperature and metabolic activity. In addition to its possible use in space travel, the ability to induce a hibernation-like state could have widespread uses in medicine. Lead investigator Dr Mark Roth said this might ultimately lead to new ways of treating cancer, and preventing injury and death from insufficient blood supply to organs and tissues. During hibernation, activity in the body's cells slows to a near standstill, dramatically cutting the animal's need for oxygen. If humans could be freed from their dependence on oxygen, it could buy time for critically ill patients on organ-transplant lists and in operating rooms, said Dr Roth. "Manipulating this molecular mechanism for clinical benefit potentially could revolutionise treatment for a host of human ills related to ischaemia (deficiency of the blood supply), or damage to living tissue from lack of oxygen," he explained. But he added that any procedure in a clinical setting would likely be administered via injection rather than by getting patients to inhale a gas. (C)BBC

Keyword: Sleep; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 7240 - Posted: 04.23.2005

Workers distracted by email and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers, new research has claimed. The study for computing firm Hewlett Packard warned of a rise in "infomania", with people becoming addicted to email and text messages. Researchers found 62% of people checked work messages at home or on holiday. The firm said new technology can help productivity, but users must learn to switch computers and phones off. The study, carried out at the Institute of Psychiatry, found excessive use of technology reduced workers' intelligence. Those distracted by incoming email and phone calls saw a 10-point fall in their IQ - more than twice that found in studies of the impact of smoking marijuana, said researchers. More than half of the 1,100 respondents said they always responded to an email "immediately" or as soon as possible, with 21% admitting they would interrupt a meeting to do so. (C)BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Intelligence
Link ID: 7239 - Posted: 04.23.2005

Bernadette Tansey, Chronicle Staff Writer The Food and Drug Administration has asked the makers of all epilepsy drugs to re-examine their clinical trial data in response to claims that one of the medicines, Pfizer's Neurontin, boosts the risk of suicide. Word of the FDA action came in response to a petition filed last May by personal injury attorney Andrew Finkelstein, who has been urging the agency to warn doctors that the commonly prescribed drug Neurontin can lead to severe depression and suicide. Neurontin, with $2.7 billion in sales last year, has been prescribed to more than 10 million people since it was put on the market in 1994. Although it was formally approved for patients suffering from epilepsy and later for pain related to a skin disorder, it has since been prescribed for illnesses ranging from psychiatric disorders to back pain. Finkelstein bases his claims on the FDA's own records as well as 318 suicides and about 2,000 suicide attempts among families he represents. The FDA's inquiry comes as it tries to repair its image as the guardian of drug safety after a series of controversies over its response to warnings about serious side effects linked to several other blockbuster medicines. ©2005 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Epilepsy; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7238 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have found a brain mechanism that may calm you down in life or death situations and may give you a better chance at survival. The study was done in rats, but as this ScienCentral New video explains it may have important implications for people. In life or death situations, survival sometimes hangs on the threads of willpower. When British mountaineer and author of Touching the Void Joe Simpson crawled through the Peruvian Andees twenty years ago with broken bones and no food or water, death seemed certain. But he didn’t give up hope and he made it back to base camp. He told Climber Magazine he couldn’t "Just sit there." Now neuroscientists say a person’s belief in their ability to survive a life or death situation may be a function of brain circuitry. "It’s belief in control that really matters, not that you really can [survive] or not," says Steven Maier, director of the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Colorado at Boulder. By "control" Maier means having the presence of mind to handle life or death situations as opposed to just freezing or feeling helpless. (C) ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 7237 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bruce Bower A new scientific era may have dawned for light therapy, a potential depression fighter that has languished in the shadows of antidepressant medication and psychotherapy for the past 20 years. A research review commissioned by the American Psychiatric Association in Washington, D.C., concludes that in trials, daily exposure to bright light is about as effective as antidepressant drugs in quelling seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or winter depression, and other forms of depression. "I now tell my patients that light therapy is a reasonable depression treatment, even if the data base for this approach is relatively small," says psychiatrist Robert N. Golden of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Golden directed the new statistical review, which appears in the April American Journal of Psychiatry. Like many mainstream psychiatrists, Golden had been skeptical of studies reporting that depression diminishes in response to daily bright-light exposure, usually administered early in the morning for 30 minutes to 1 hour. These investigations often contain serious flaws, he says, such as few participants and no groups treated with dim lights or other placebos. Copyright ©2005 Science Service

Keyword: Depression; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 7236 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Clues about how a suspect version of a gene may slightly increase risk for schizophrenia* are emerging from a brain imaging study by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The gene variant produced a telltale pattern of activity linked to production of a key brain messenger chemical. The study found that increased activity in the front of the brain predicted increases in the neurotransmitter dopamine in the middle of the brain in subjects with the suspected schizophrenia-related version of the gene. Yet, the opposite relationship held for subjects with the other of two common versions of the gene. "A tiny variation in the gene that makes the enzyme that breaks down dopamine causes a complete flipflop – not a mere difference in degree – in dopamine activity in these two brain areas," explained NIMH's Dr. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, who, along with Dr. Karen Berman and colleagues, reported their findings in the April 10, 2005 online edition of Nature Neuroscience. The NIMH study also for the first time confirms in living humans that activity of the front brain area, the prefrontal cortex, is regulated by dopamine production in the midbrain, which, in turn, is regulated by these two common gene variants.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 7235 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new mouse study suggests that a brain system that controls the sleep/wake cycle might also play a role in regulating appetite and metabolism. Mice with a mutation in a gene called "Clock," which helps drive circadian rhythm, ate significantly more and gained more weight. The finding could help explain why disrupted sleep patterns-particularly when combined with a high-fat diet--are associated with excessive weight gain and the onset of metabolic syndrome in some people, according to investigators supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study, by Fred W. Turek, Ph.D., and Joseph Bass, M.D., Ph.D., of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and others will be available at the Science Express website, http://www.sciencemag.org/sciencexpress/recent.shtml, on April 21, 2005. At least 40 million Americans have chronic sleep problems, and an additional 20 million experience occasional sleeping problems. As many as 47 million Americans have metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions shown to increase a person's risk of heart disease and stroke. The National Cholesterol Education Program defines metabolic syndrome as having at least 3 of the following risk factors: high blood pressure, high glucose (sugar) levels which can indicate risk for diabetes, high triglyceride levels, low levels of good cholesterol, and a large waist. Scientists have found that circadian rhythms (which control the sleep/wake cycle and other biological processes), hunger, and satiety are all regulated by centers within a brain structure called the hypothalamus. And previous studies in humans have suggested that disrupted sleep patterns may contribute to the development of obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

Keyword: Sleep; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 7234 - Posted: 04.23.2005

Jessica Ebert It seems that mice can be coaxed into a hibernation-like state by a whiff of hydrogen sulphide, the gas found in rotten eggs. The discovery could improve the preservation of organs or tissues for transplants, and could lead to more effective treatments for illnesses as diverse as cancer and stroke. Hydrogen sulphide can be deadly in high concentrations, causing burns and interfering with respiration. But it is also produced in small quantities by animals, in which it is thought to play a vital role in controlling body temperature and metabolism. Mark Roth, a biochemist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, and his colleagues tried exposing mice to air laced with relatively low concentrations of the gas: within minutes, the mice seemed to fall unconscious. Their core body temperature dropped by some 20ºC, and their breathing slowed from about 120 breaths a minute to fewer than 10, the team reports in Science1. When re-exposed to clean air after six hours, the mice bounced back without any evident side-effects, says Roth. "This indicates that it's possible to decrease metabolic rate on demand," says Roth. By shutting down metabolism, the body's need for oxygen diminishes, which could "revolutionize treatment for a host of human ills", says Roth. ©2005 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sleep; Stroke
Link ID: 7233 - Posted: 06.24.2010

An article in the journal Epilepsia reviewed recent data on the risks associated with continuation of medical treatment of women with epilepsy during their pregnancies. While the general consensus is that use of antiepileptic drugs is associated with increased risk for birth defects, physicians weigh this risk against that of uncontrolled epileptic seizures, which can be more harmful to the fetus than the actual drugs. Most women with active epilepsy choose to continue with drug therapy during pregnancy and have more than 90% chance to give birth to a perfectly healthy child. It remains unsolved whether risks for birth defects vary with different drugs. One drug, valproate, has been associated with a higher risk of birth defects than some others although the reasons for this have not been completely clarified. However, for some patients, valproate is the most effective medication for controlling the seizures, which must be balanced against the risk. An additional concern could be possible postnatal effects of anti-epileptic drugs to the child which do not become apparent until school age.

Keyword: Epilepsy; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7232 - Posted: 04.23.2005

Nervous system development requires billions of neurons to migrate to the appropriate locations in the brain and grow nerve fibers (axons) that connect to other nerve cells in an intricate network. Growth cones, structures in the tips of growing axons, are responsible for steering axons in the right direction, guided by a complex set of signals from cells they encounter along the way. Some signals lure the axons to extend and grow in a particular direction; others are inhibitory, making the axon turn away or stop growing. In two papers in the April 21 Neuron, researchers from Children's Hospital Boston reveal important insights into how inhibitory cues affect the growth cone, and identify possible targets within axons that could be blocked to overcome this inhibition. Such intervention could possibly enable damaged axons to regenerate (normally impossible in a mature nervous system) and ultimately restore nerve function. It's been known that cells synthesize an inhibitory protein called ephrin, which binds to a receptor called Eph on the axon's growth cone. But how this triggers the axon to change course or stop growing has been a mystery.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7231 - Posted: 04.21.2005

DALLAS – – Why people get drowsy and fall asleep, and how caffeine blocks that process, are the subjects of a new study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center. When cells in a certain part of the brain become overworked, a compound in the brain kicks in, telling them to shut down. This causes people to become drowsy and fall asleep. Alter that natural process by adding coffee or tea, and the brain compound – called adenosine – is blocked, and people stay awake. These findings, available online and in the April 21 issue of the journal Neuron, offer new clues regarding the function of the brain in the body's natural sleep process, as well as potential targets for future treatments for insomnia and other sleep problems. Prolonged increased neural activity in the brain's arousal centers triggers the release of adenosine, which in turn slows down neural activity in the arousal center areas. Because the arousal centers control activity throughout the entire brain, the process expands outward and causes neural activity to slow down everywhere in the brain. "Insomnia and chronic sleep loss are very common problems," said Dr. Robert W. Greene, professor of psychiatry and senior author of the study. "In addition, all the major psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder have sleep disruption as a prominent symptom.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 7230 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Much research has been done on how "fear-conditioning" affects brain circuitry, but what about the flip side: "safety conditioning?" Now, researchers led by Michael T. Rogan and Eric R. Kandel of Columbia University Medical Center have discovered in mice how the brain responds to external stimuli that signal safety. Their findings, say the researchers, could aid in treating psychiatric disorders involving a feeling of loss of safety, as well as understanding why some people respond more resiliently to trauma than others. In their experiments, the scientists first safety-conditioned mice by teaching them to associate a series of beeps with the absence of a mildly uncomfortable foot shock. They found that the beeps reduced the classic "freeze" defensive response in the trained mice. They also found that when the safety-conditioned mice, compared to control mice, heard the beeps, they would increase adventurous exploration of an open space--abandoning their normal, protective, wall-hugging behavior. The mice showed the same adventurous behavior when exposed to an instinctive safety signal--dimmed light--indicating that the same neural response mechanisms were at work, said the researchers. When the safety-conditioned mice were given the choice of two rooms--one in which their entry triggered the safety signal--they overwhelmingly chose the "safety" room. Electrophysiological studies of the animals' brains revealed that the safety tones depressed activity in a region of the amygdala--the brain structure that processes emotions and that is activated in fear responses.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 7229 - Posted: 04.21.2005

Boston, MA – Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) recently discovered that cigarette smoking may contribute to the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS), suggesting that quitting smoking could limit or delay central nervous system deterioration. This is the first time that a modifiable risk factor for MS progression has been identified, providing a new strategy for patients hoping to control neurological damage from the disease. Study results appear in the March 9, 2005 issue of Brain. Miguel Hernán, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of epidemiology at HSPH, noted that "the findings are interesting because no modifiable risk factors for the progression of MS are known. This was the first prospective study that identified a potential intervention (quitting smoking) for reducing the risk of progression of MS." Analyzing over 2,000 medical records in the General Practice Research Database (GPRD), researchers identified 179 British patients who were originally diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS, a form of the disease in which symptoms fade and recur in unpredictable patterns. Patients who were current or past smokers were 3.6 times as likely as patients who had never smoked to develop secondary progressive MS, a later stage of the disease marked by steady deterioration of the central nervous system. This disease progression also occurred more quickly in patients who were identified as current or past smokers. The study also supported earlier research showing that smoking may increase the risk of initial MS diagnosis. Current and past smokers were 30% more likely to be diagnosed with MS than those who had never smoked.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7228 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA--People with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM)—the most common and aggressive form of primary brain tumor—nearly double their survival time after surgery and radiation treatment if they carry a version of a gene involved in cell immortalization, according to a new study. The findings could pave the way toward individualizing treatment for the cancer, say the researchers. Cancer cells achieve immortality in part by turning on production of the enzyme telomerase, which lengthens structures called telomeres that protect the ends of chromosomes. Telomerase is encoded by the hTERT gene, which is not active in most normal mature cells. Previous research has shown that a genetic variation in hTERT, known as MNS16A-S, increases the gene's activity, leading molecular biologist Luo Wang of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston to ask whether such variations affect survival rate in patients with GBM. To test the hypothesis, Wang and his team analyzed the available DNA samples of 301 GBM patients, ages 20 to 73, who had undergone surgery and radiation treatment at the same hospital between 1994 and 2003. Only 11 percent carried the MNS16A-S variation, while the rest carried longer versions of the gene known as MNS16A-L or MNS16A-LL. After analyzing the medical records, the researchers found that the S carriers survived for an average of 25 months after therapy, but the L and LL-allele carriers only lived an average of 14 months. The findings, presented here on April 18 at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, still held true when the researchers controlled for severity of surgery and the fact that some patients had also received chemotherapy. Copyright © 2005 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 7227 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jeff Wheelwright Pecos Road runs due west along the southern boundary of Phoenix. On the city side of the road, new subdivisions of retirement homes are pushing up their tile roofs like mushrooms that sprout with no rain. On the other side of the road lies the flat scrub of the Gila River Indian Community, some 600 square miles, most of it empty. The reservation shimmers out of the reach of the builders like a desert mirage. This land was no good to anyone in 1859, when it was allocated to the Pima Indians. Today it has 13,000 Native American residents, living in squat cinder-block houses in scattered, dusty hamlets; three casinos that have boosted the tribal income to $100 million annually from $4 million; irrigated cotton, alfalfa, and citrus, for Pimas were always farmers; and a hospital and two kidney-dialysis clinics, with another medical clinic in the planning stage. Kidney failure is a deadly complication of diabetes, and Pimas, so far as scientists can tell, have the world’s highest rate of type 2 diabetes. The Pimas have grown to hate this superlative perhaps more than the disease itself. Mary Thomas, the 60-year-old ex-governor of the tribe and presently its lieutenant governor, drove me around the community. A few miles south of Pecos Road, we came to the St. Johns Mission, a quiet, whitewashed church. There was once a Catholic boarding school for Indian children on the grounds. Thomas said that when she was 17 and in school here, she went for an eye test and was told she had diabetes. © 2004 The Walt Disney Company. All rights reserved

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Obesity
Link ID: 7226 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new study published online April 21, 2005 in the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A examines whether the recent decline in neural tube defects in Chile was due to the addition of folic acid to wheat flour in that country or to pre-existing decreasing trends. The journal is available online via Wiley InterScience at http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/ajmg. Recent data in Chile have suggested that the incidence of the neural tube defects spina bifida and anencephaly (a fatal condition that results in malformation of the brain) have significantly declined since January 2000, when wheat flour began to be fortified with folic acid. In that time, Chile has been fortifying its foods at double the rate of the U.S. In order to determine if the decrease was directly attributable to the addition of folic acid as opposed to an independent trend, the study examined historical data from before the fortification and compared it to data from a two-year period after fortification began. Led by Eduardo E. Castilla, of the genetics department at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, researchers performed a survey of maternity hospitals in the ECLAMC (Latin American Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations) network in Chile between the years 1982 and 2002. The data were divided between the pre-fortification years 1982-1989 and 1990-2000 to provide a baseline, and 2001-2002, the period during which flour was fortified. While the prevalence rates of neural tube defects did not significantly change between the two pre-fortified periods, the rate of spina bifida decreased by 51 percent and the rate of anencephaly decreased by 46 percent in the 2001-2002 period. Because different hospitals might experience different rates in neural tube defects at different times, the study examined only those hospitals with data for two consecutive periods.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7225 - Posted: 04.21.2005

Amazonian ants rig up gruesome traps to snare prey before stinging them to death and carving them up to eat, a new study reveals. Allomerus decemarticulatus is a tiny tree-dwelling ant which lives in the forests of the northern Amazon. Researchers examining the relationship between different ant species and their host plants noticed that this particular ant lived on only one plant - Hirtella physophora - and that they built galleries hanging under its stems. Many ant species build these galleries as hideouts to act as sanctuaries between their nests and foraging areas. But the team, led by Jérôme Orivel at the University of Toulouse, France, spotted that A. decemarticulatus were using these galleries as traps for prey. The traps are woven together using hairs stripped from the ants’ host plant and reinforced with fungus, producing a platform with pitted holes. “The ants are always hiding just under the holes, waiting with their mandibles open. When an insect arrives they immediately grab the legs and antennae,” says Orivel. This pulling immobilises the victim, stretching it out as though being tortured on a mediaeval rack. Worker ants then clamber over their helpless prey, biting and stinging until the victim is paralysed or dead. The carcass is then chopped into small pieces while still on the rack or, more likely, carried back to the leaf pouch where the ants nest to be devoured. The surprise-attack traps are “like something out of Edgar Allan Poe”, says Mike Kaspari, an ant expert at the University of Oklahoma, US. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Intelligence
Link ID: 7224 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Shares in GW Pharmaceuticals rose nearly 9.5% after the UK biotech firm's prescription cannabis drug was approved for use in Canada. Sativex is used to treat the central nervous system and alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS). The Salisbury-based company said this was the world's first approval of a medicine derived from cannabis. Delays in development of the product - its first to come to the market - has hit GW's stock price in the past. Shares in GW shares closed up 11.5 pence at 132.5p on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Sativex, administered by a mouth spray, will be marketed in Canada by German company Bayer. GW said it hoped to launch Sativex in Canada in late spring. "The approval of Sativex reflects the urgent need for additional treatment options in the field of neuropathic pain in MS," said Dr Allan Gordon of Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, in a statement issued by regulators Health Canada. Some MS patients already smoke cannabis to relieve their symptoms. Satifex consists of a cannabis extract containing tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol. GW had originally hoped to win UK approval for Sativex in 2003. (C)BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7223 - Posted: 04.20.2005