Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer Dr. Richard Olney first got interested in the neuromuscular disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, when the daughter of his favorite teacher in junior high school died of it. He soon came to regard ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, as one of the most compelling -- and justly feared -- disorders of the nervous system. And so, during 25 years as a neurologist, Olney devoted his career to the care of ALS patients, founding a specialized clinic at UCSF. He resigned as clinic director this summer and has stopped treating all his patients with ALS. But he has even more reason these days to be interested in their disease. Now, it is his disease. In June, Olney, 56, regarded as one of the top ALS clinicians in the country, was diagnosed with ALS. ALS is not contagious. He didn't catch it from close contact with a patient. It's just a matter of unhappy fortune -- just one more case in one of the biggest ongoing mysteries of brain research. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 6497 - Posted: 06.24.2010

AUSTIN, Texas--A protein found on the surface of nerve cells makes fruit flies tolerant to a drug after just a single, brief exposure, which may reveal ways to address this early step toward addiction in humans. Neuroscientist Nigel Atkinson at The University of Texas at Austin and his laboratory determined this by studying the response of fruit flies (Drosophila) to a 15-minute exposure to benzyl alcohol coated on the inner walls of test tubes. Flies that had had one previous exposure to the organic solvent recovered more quickly from being knocked out by the drug than flies that were first-timers. The flies that developed tolerance also had increased activity of the slo gene. The gene produces the surface protein, which helps stimulate signaling between nerve cells in the brain. Genetically modified flies that lacked the slo gene failed to develop tolerance, while flies modified to have increased slo activity were more drug resistant than normal, providing added proof of the gene's importance for tolerance. Because the human slo gene is almost identical to the one in fruit flies, Atkinson said, "If we could describe the series of steps involved in changing slo gene expression, then all the components involved in producing that change could become potential targets for anti-addiction drugs." The findings will be published online the week of Monday, Nov. 29, by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6496 - Posted: 11.30.2004

ALS is an incurable, paralyzing neurodegenerative disorder that strikes 5 persons in every 100,000. The disease commonly affects healthy people in the most active period of their lives - without warning or previous family history. Researchers from VIB (the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology), under the direction of Prof. Peter Carmeliet (Catholic University of Leuven), have previously shown the importance of the VEGF protein in this disease. Now, new research from this group shows that rats with a severe form of ALS live longer following the administration of the VEGF protein as a remedy. These results open up new possibilities for the use of VEGF in the treatment of ALS. An incurable disease of the muscles Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) can strike anyone. The Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung, Russian composer Dimitri Sjostakowitz, the legendary New York Yankee baseball player Lou Gehrig, and astro-physicist Stephen Hawkins have all been afflicted with ALS. In addition, an unusually large number of Italian professional soccer players, airline pilots, and soldiers from the Golf War have been stricken by this fatal disease. About half of them have died within three years - some even in the first year - and usually as a consequence of asphyxiation, while still 'in full possession of their faculties'. In ALS, the patient's nerve bundles that extend to the muscles deteriorate. This causes the patient to lose control over his/her muscles, growing progressively paralyzed - but remaining (disconcertingly) fully alert mentally. The originating mechanism of this deadly disease of deterioration - which has an enormous medico-social impact - remains obscure. At present, the disease is totally untreatable - causing many ALS patients to choose euthanasia, a very controversial solution. However, previous genetic research by Peter Carmeliet and his team at the Catholic University of Leuven has led to the surprising discovery that the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays a major role in this disease.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease ; Trophic Factors
Link ID: 6495 - Posted: 11.30.2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A drug withdrawn from pharmacy shelves over 20 years ago may point the way to a new treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, or SMA, a muscle-wasting and often life-threatening childhood disease. A new study suggests that the drug, called indoprofen, increases the production of a protein that is key to the survival of the nerve cells affected by the disease. Indoprofen was taken off the market in the early 1980s due to reports of serious gastrointestinal reactions as well as reports that the drug caused cancer in laboratory rats. Researchers are now looking into ways to modify the drug to make it less toxic to humans, said Arthur Burghes, a study co-author and a professor of molecular and cellular biochemistry at Ohio State University. While SMA strikes only about one in 6,000 newborn Americans each year, it is the leading genetic cause of infant and toddler death in the United States as well as Western Europe. There is no cure or standard treatment, and children with the most severe form of the disease usually die before their second birthday. Motor neurons – nerve cells that send signals from the spinal cord to muscles throughout the body – rapidly deteriorate in SMA due to reduced levels of survival motor neuron (SMN) protein. Patients with the disease lack SMN1, a gene that produces SMN protein. For reasons that aren't clear, this protein deficiency affects only motor neurons of the spinal cord – all other cells in the body function normally.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 6494 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHICAGO – People suffering from paralysis due to stroke or traumatic brain injury may be able to reprogram their brains to improve motor skills and to control artificial limbs, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a "cyberglove" to record brain changes during motor activities, researchers demonstrated that people can learn to remap, or redirect, motor commands. This is an important step in stroke recovery and in training strategies for brain-machine interfaces--conduits between the brain and artificial limbs. "For stroke patients and others who have a brain deficit, coordinating what they see with body movement is very difficult," said the study's lead author Kristine Mosier, D.M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of radiology at Indiana University in Indianapolis. "The brain must remap or relearn the process of matching visual input with sensory input. Our study demonstrated that individuals can learn to remap motor commands." When neurons--the primary cells of the nervous system that make all thought, feeling and movement possible--are damaged by a stroke or brain injury, other neurons take over for them. But until now, scientists weren't sure which neurons compensated for damaged neurons, or how the brain cells learned their new jobs.

Keyword: Stroke; Regeneration
Link ID: 6493 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius Of all the vertebrates, a gecko has just become the first to ace behavioral tests for seeing color in very low illumination. People, for example, go color-blind in light equivalent to dim moonlight, but helmet geckos, Tarentola chazaliae, don't. They can still tell a blue from a gray of the same intensity, report Lina S.V. Roth and Almut Kelber, both of the University of Lund in Sweden, in an upcoming Biology Letters. Earlier physiology had shown that most vertebrates deploy two systems of light-sensitive cells in their eyes. Two or more types of cone cells work together to sense color in abundant light, and a single type of rod cell detects light more sensitively, but only in black and white. Thus, when the seeing gets tough, people forgo color vision and rely on their rods. Lizards, however, lack rods, presumably because they evolved for a long period as strictly daytime creatures. Copyright ©2004 Science Service

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 6492 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Mark Peplow Lying activates tell-tale areas of the brain that can be tracked using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), according to scientists who believe the technique could replace traditional lie detectors. Conventional detectors, or polygraphs, are extremely controversial. Proponents of the polygraph argue that it measures the body's physiological responses to stress induced by lying. Trained operators can supposedly match spikes in respiration, blood pressure and sweating with false answers. But although some US government agencies still use the tests, the US National Academy of Sciences published a damning report in 2003 concluding that the instrument was very unreliable1. With practice, subjects are able to moderate their physical response and conceal their deceit, the report said. So scientists are looking for more reliable alternatives to the test, which was first conceived in 1915 by psychologist William Marston (see "The truth about lying"). Functional MRI might be the key, says Scott Faro, a radiologist at the brain-imaging centre of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Faro presented the new study on 29 November at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago. "I believe this is a vital approach to understanding this very complex type of cognitive behaviour," he says. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 6491 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Telomeres and telomerase affected in study of women’s immune system cells Increasing scientific evidence suggests that prolonged psychological stress takes its toll on the body, but the exact mechanisms by which stress influences disease processes have remained elusive. Now, scientists report that psychological stress may exact its toll, at least in part, by affecting molecules believed to play a key role in cellular aging and, possibly, disease development. In the study, published in the November 30 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the UCSF-led team determined that chronic stress, and the perception of life stress, each had a significant impact on three biological factors -- the length of telomeres, the activity of telomerase, and levels of oxidative stress -- in immune system cells known as peripheral blood mononucleocytes, in healthy premenopausal women. Telomeres are DNA-protein complexes that cap the ends of chromosomes and promote genetic stability. Each time a cell divides, a portion of telomeric DNA dwindles away, and after many rounds of cell division, so much telomeric DNA has diminished that the aged cell stops dividing. Thus, telomeres play a critical role in determining the number of times a cell divides, its health, and its life span. These factors, in turn, affect the health of the tissues that cells form. Telomerase is an enzyme that replenishes a portion of telomeres with each round of cell division, and protects telomeres. Oxidative stress, which causes DNA damage, has been shown to hasten the shortening of telomeres in cell culture.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 6490 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi When attempting to master a task, sometimes it's best not to try too hard. Researchers have confirmed this folk wisdom, using brain imaging to show that thinking too hard about simple actions interferes with the learning process. Scientists already knew that consciously trying too hard to learn can cause trouble. The earliest demonstration of this came from a study in 1976, in which college students were asked to memorize strings of letters. Those who were told from the start that there was a regular pattern within the letters found it harder to discriminate between strings that did or did not contain the pattern. But until now, no one understood why this happened. Paul Fletcher, a psychiatrist at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues watched the brain activity of people who were learning without consciously trying (implicit learning) and compared it with activity in people who were putting deliberate effort into mastering the challenge. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Attention
Link ID: 6489 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Tom Geoghegan, BBC News Magazine The ethical debate about identity cards has been reignited following the Queen's Speech, but its facial recognition technology is being used in other areas. Police are hailing it as a forensic breakthrough and a new "foolproof" 3D version could eventually become a routine procedure at cash machines or workplaces. Once the preserve of science fiction, biometric facial recognition has now become a reality. Despite its association with the controversy of identity cards, it is predicted to become part of everyday life. A few corporations are already scanning pictures of staff for access control or to tackle swipe card fraud. And six police forces have so far recognised its use in identifying CCTV pictures of suspects - one claims it to be the biggest forensic breakthrough since DNA. As companies become more security conscious, the process of having our faces scanned is set to become more commonplace. And new technology which can produce this in a more accurate 3D form could accelerate this trend. A firm which has developed the 3D software, Aurora, claims it is sophisticated enough to distinguish between identical twins. I underwent the procedure myself and it only took a few seconds. A camera used a near-infrared light to put a virtual mesh on my face 16 times. It merged these into one unique template and calculated all the measurements of my features. These could theoretically then be instantly checked against a database to control access to a building or allow a cash machine withdrawal. Existing biometric face tests, which are two-dimensional, are affected by changes in lighting and facial expressions. And critics say it is susceptible to fraud. The government's biometric trials for passports and identity cards have reportedly experienced a 10% error rate in face recognition. The Home Office denies this and insists the trials were only testing the procedures and the public response, not the technology. (C)BBC

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 6488 - Posted: 11.25.2004

If you can't get a good night's sleep it's likely that your parents are at least partly to blame. Researchers have found genetic factors play a major role in sleep disorders such as severe snoring and involuntary leg jerking. The findings are based on a study of almost 2,000 pairs of female twins by the Twin Research Unit at St Thomas' Hospital, London. Details will be published in the journal Twin Research. Previously it had been thought that problems such as snoring were probably due to factors such as being overweight, or sleeping in the wrong position. Among the conditions examined by the St Thomas' team were obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and restless leg syndrome (RLS). OSA is a severe form of snoring in which the throat narrows to the point where breathing becomes momentarily impossible. The condition, which affects approximately 24% of men and 9% of women aged 30 to 60, can destroy the ability to sleep soundly, and leaves sufferers exhausted. It has been blamed for road traffic accidents where people have fallen asleep behind the wheel. RLS causes an irritating, non-painful sensation in the legs, which compels suferers to keep moving them, and keeps them awake throughout the night. Researcher Dr Adrian Williams said: "Sleep disorders are surprisingly common and it is increasingly recognised that they can have a devastating impact on sufferers' everyday lives - they are no laughing matter." (C)BBC

Keyword: Sleep; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 6487 - Posted: 11.25.2004

By ANDREW POLLACK The Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved a drug for multiple sclerosis that has shown early evidence of being more effective than existing drugs. The drug, Tysabri, was developed by Biogen Idec and Elan and was called Antegren until the F.D.A. requested a name change to avoid confusion with other drugs. Some analysts predict annual sales will eventually surpass $2 billion. Doctors and analysts say the drug represents an advance but is far from a cure. Long-term data on safety and efficacy are still lacking. "The initial data suggests that it's better than the other drugs but it doesn't shut it off completely," said Howard L. Weiner, a professor at Harvard and head of the multiple sclerosis center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. The F.D.A. approved the drug based on only one year's worth of data from clinical trials, rather than the two customarily required, because of positive results. In one trial, Tysabri reduced the rate of relapses - the flaring up of symptoms - by two-thirds, to 25 per 100 patients per year compared with 74 per 100 patients per year for a placebo. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 6486 - Posted: 11.25.2004

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL A Wisconsin teenager is the first human ever to survive rabies without vaccination, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday, after she received a desperate and novel type of therapy. Last month, doctors at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, a suburb of Milwaukee, put the critically ill girl into a drug-induced coma and gave her antiviral drugs, although it is not clear which, if any, of the four medicines contributed to her surprising recovery. Dr. Charles Rupprecht of the disease control agency called the recovery "historic." But even the doctors who took care of the girl said the result would have to be duplicated elsewhere before the therapy could be considered a cure or a treatment. "You have to see this therapy repeated successfully in another patient," said Dr. Rodney Willoughby, the associate professor of pediatrics who prescribed the cocktail of medicines for the sick girl, Jeanna Giese, 15. "Until then, it is a miracle." Jeanna, of Fond du Lac, was bitten by a bat at a church service on Sept. 12. She did not visit a doctor and so was not vaccinated, as is standard medical practice for such an exposure. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 6485 - Posted: 11.25.2004

Numbers count for Cristina Tur. She eyes them going up, scrutinizes them going down. She rages when they don't change, weeps when they move in the wrong direction. Tur's not a stockbroker. Her fixation with figures comes from a lifetime of chronic dieting that's seen her bounce haphazardly from one eating plan to another. "Calorie count, South Beach diet, the one with the liquid diet, the one where you have to drink shakes, no carbs..." Tur lists these as some of the many eating plans she's toyed with. "Every year I try something different. It didn't work. It worked for a little. And then you try something else. It's because you want a magic pill." Gene-Jack Wang, a nuclear physician at Brookhaven National Laboratory, has found new evidence that the mere sight and smell of food can trigger an area in the brain—the orbitofrontal cortex—to light up in much the same way it does when substance abusers talk about their addictions, suggesting that overeating may be a biologically wired impulse in some. "The brain activation [we see with food]…we can consider that conditioned response that we're born with in order for us to survive," Wang says. © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 6484 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bill Clinton has it, so does James Watson. George Bush doesn't have it, nor does Tony Blair. Exuberance is hard to pin down, though we know it when we see it. Now Kay Redfield Jamison has written a book about it. Jamison is the psychiatry professor who made headlines by daring to expose her own mental illness. So why is she now writing about the up side of life? And is exuberance always a good thing? Liz Else talked to her as America went to the polls We all think we know what we mean by exuberance. But what do you mean by it? Basically it comes from the Latin, "ex", out of, and "uberare", to be fruitful, to be abundant. So it's from the natural world, and it meant an overflowing of abundant fertility. Think how a pair of poppies, given the right conditions over seven years, will produce 820,000 million million million descendants. Or how the universe is thought to contain 1021 stars. It has become a word to describe overflowing joy and energy. I believe it is incomparably more important than we acknowledge. After all, if enthusiasm finds the opportunities and energy makes the most of them, then a mood that yokes the two has got to be formidable. Somehow exuberant people take in the world and act on it differently from the less lively and less engaged people. Also, exuberance is a very pleasurable state and in that pleasure is power. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 6483 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin It's official: homing pigeons really can sense Earth's magnetic field. An investigation of their ability to detect different magnetic fields shows that their impressive navigation skills almost certainly relies on tiny magnetic particles in their beaks. The discovery seems to settle the question of how pigeons (Columba livia) have such an impressive 'nose for north'. Some experts had previously suggested that the birds rely on different odour cues in the atmosphere to work out where they are. But the latest findings suggest that they are using magnetic cues. The idea that pigeons' beaks contain tiny particles of an iron oxide called magnetite is not a new one, says Cordula Mora, who led the latest study at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. But the particles themselves are likely to be only a few micrometres across, and no one has ever seen them under the microscope. Mora's behavioural experiments therefore give the best indication yet that pigeons are aware of Earth's magnetic field. She and her colleagues taught the pigeons to discriminate between magnetic fields by placing them in a wooden tunnel with a feeder platform at either end and coils of wire around the outside. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Animal Migration
Link ID: 6482 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi A good brain needs lots of energy in order to function, and human brains are exceptionally good. Now geneticists have found that humans may also be exceptional in terms of the energy output of our cells, and are wondering whether this is linked to our intellectual prowess. Brains use more energy than one might expect. In humans this organ makes up only 2% of a person's body weight, on average. But it is estimated to account for about 20% of the energy used by the body at rest. One solution to providing more energy is simply to have more cells. In the development of the human brain, "the obvious difference that everyone talks about is the huge increase in size," says John Kaas, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. But there are limits to how much more power size can provide. Bigger brains come with additional overhead costs and problems with heat exchange. Something else must have helped to improve our brains. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Evolution; Intelligence
Link ID: 6481 - Posted: 06.24.2010

If you've ever been tempted to drop a friend who tended to freeload, then you have experienced a key to one of the biggest mysteries facing social scientists, suggests a study by UCLA anthropologists. "If the help and support of a community significantly affects the well-being of its members, then the threat of withdrawing that support can keep people in line and maintain social order," said Karthik Panchanathan, a UCLA graduate student whose study appears in Nature. "Our study offers an explanation of why people tend to contribute to the public good, like keeping the streets clean. Those who play by the rules and contribute to the public good will be included and outcompete freeloaders." This finding -- at least in part -- may help explain the evolutionary roots of altruism and human anger in the face of uncooperative behavior, both of which have long puzzled economists and evolutionary biologists, he said. "If you put two dogs together, and one dog does something inappropriate, the other dog doesn't care, so long as it doesn't get hurt," Panchanathan said. "It certainly wouldn't react with moralistic outrage. Likewise, it wouldn't experience elation if it saw one dog help out another dog. But humans are very different; we're the only animals that display these traits."

Keyword: Evolution; Emotions
Link ID: 6480 - Posted: 11.25.2004

Babies exposed to plenty of daylight are more likely to sleep better during the night, a study says. Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University found babies who were exposed to twice as much light between 12pm and 4pm became better sleepers. A group of 55 babies were monitored for three consecutive days at six, nine and 12 weeks old. The team also found that babies who slept well at six weeks were likely to be a good sleepers at 12 weeks. Report co-author Dr Yvonne Harrison said, from the School of Psychology at the university, said: "Sleep deprivation is a big problem for many new parents. "This research puts forward one theory that may help babies and parents get a good night's sleep, which is good news for everyone." She said one possible explanation for the link between light exposure and sleep is that higher light levels encourage the early development of the biological clock, which regulates a number of bodily functions, including the secretion of melatonin, an important factor in well-balanced sleeping patterns. Parents taking part in the study, which is published in the Journal of Sleep Research, were asked to continue their usual routines while a light monitor was attached to their pram or cot. A diary was also kept of their sleep and crying patterns. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sleep; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6479 - Posted: 11.24.2004

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR THE FACTS When ancient Greeks wanted to reassure guests that their wine had not been spiked with poison, they toasted to good health. While that may be less of a worry today, there remain hazards from indulging in too much alcohol - including, of course, hangovers. But one thing people who drink socially probably don't need to worry about is sacrificing brain cells in the process. The research indicates that adults who drink in moderation are not in danger of losing brain cells. The notion that alcohol snuffs out brain cells has been around for years. Many studies have linked drinking with mental deficits, and long-term damage from years of heavy drinking has been well documented. The developing brain is particularly vulnerable, some studies show, putting teenagers and unborn children at greatest risk. But Dr. Roberta J. Pentney, a former researcher at the State University of New York at Buffalo, found that alcohol disrupts brain function in adults by damaging message-carrying dendrites on neurons in the cerebellum, a structure involved in learning and motor coordination. This reduces communication between neurons, alters their structure and causes some of the impairment associated with intoxication. It does not kill off entire cells, however. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6478 - Posted: 11.24.2004