In an article appearing in the May 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), addiction researchers at the National Institutes of Health compared marijuana use in the U.S. adult population in 1991-92 and 2001-02. They found that the number of people reporting use of the drug remained substantially the same in both time periods, but the prevalence of marijuana abuse or dependence increased markedly. This new study showed that increases in the prevalence of abuse or dependence were most notable among young African-American men and women and young Hispanic men. This is the first study to assess long-term trends in marijuana abuse and dependence in the United States using the most up-to-date classification system-the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV). The researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) compared trends in marijuana use, abuse, and dependence using the DSM-IV categories. The DSM defines marijuana abuse as repeated instances of use under hazardous conditions; repeated, clinically meaningful impairment in social/occupational/educational functioning; or legal problems related to marijuana use. Marijuana dependence is defined as increased tolerance, compulsive use, impaired control, and continued use despite physical and psychological problems caused or exacerbated by use.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5409 - Posted: 05.05.2004

A team at the University of Rochester has found that the human brain makes much more extensive use of highly complex statistics when learning a language than scientists ever realized. The research, appearing in a recent issue of Cognitive Psychology, shows that the human brain is wired to quickly grasp certain relationships between spoken sounds even though those relationships may be so complicated they're beyond our ability to consciously comprehend. "We're starting to learn just how intuitively our minds are able to analyze amazingly complex information without our even being aware of it," says Elissa Newport, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University and lead author of the study. "There is a powerful correlation between what our brains are able to do and what language demands of us." Newport and Richard Aslin, professor of brain and cognitive sciences, began by looking at how people are able to recognize the division between spoken words when spoken language is really a stream of unbroken syllables. They wanted to know how it is that we perceive breaks between spoken words, when in fact there are no pauses. This is why it often seems as if speakers of foreign languages are talking very quickly; we don't perceive pauses.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 5408 - Posted: 05.05.2004

Scientists believe they may have found the reason why humans suffer from jet lag. They believe we have two timekeeping centres in our brains - one sticks to the clock, the other is influenced by cues such as sunrise and nightfall. Researchers, writing in Current Biology, believe jet lag results when these centres don't marry up. The University of Washington team believe it may be possible to develop a drug to tackle the problem. Researcher Dr Horacio de la Iglesia said: "If we can discover how the two parts of the brain are synchronised we might be able to find mechanisms to treat jet lag." A tiny area of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is thought to control sleep, hormone and temperature rhythms in the body. It is this area, it is thought, which responds to external factors such as sunrise. However, other characteristics stick more closely to regimented 24-hour cycles - suggesting the presence of another timekeeping centre - possibly within the same tissue - that is unaffected by external cues. (C)BBC

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 5407 - Posted: 05.04.2004

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR For most people taking antidepressants, the risk of a diminished sex drive may seem like a worthwhile sacrifice for the benefits from the drugs. Up to 70 percent of patients on antidepressants report sexual side effects, yet the number of Americans who take the drugs has ballooned since Prozac was introduced in the late 1980's. Last year, studies show, doctors in the United States wrote 213 million prescriptions for antidepressants. But what if the sexual side effects of the drugs, often considered little more than a nuisance, had more serious consequences, impairing not only sexual desire in some people, but also the ability to experience romance? The question, which experts are beginning to ask, was at the center of a talk this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New York. Dr. Helen E. Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers, presented findings that suggest, she says, that common antidepressants that tinker with serotonin levels in the brain can also disrupt neural circuits involved in romance and attachment. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 5406 - Posted: 05.04.2004

By DENISE GRADY By the time Linda Culpepper found her way to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, she was in an alarming state. Her hair was falling out, her skin was flaking, and her muscles had wasted so much that it was hard for her to walk. She had frequent attacks of diarrhea, and could rarely eat without vomiting. "She was a shadow of a human being," said her daughter, Susan Gritton. Dr. Gordon L. Jensen, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Human Nutrition in Nashville, diagnosed her condition as life-threatening malnutrition, admitted her to the hospital and ordered intravenous feeding immediately. The cause of the malnutrition was complications from weight-loss surgery performed at another hospital, specifically a gastric bypass, a procedure that closes most of the stomach and shortens the small intestine, often leading to weight losses of 100 pounds. That is the operation that has strikingly transformed celebrities like Al Roker, the television weather forecaster; Carnie Wilson, the singer; and Roseanne Barr, the comedian. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 5405 - Posted: 05.04.2004

Scientists wowed by species' adaptations, survival skills Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer "Now, what's the one thing we have to remember about the ocean?" the father fish asks little Nemo in the film "Finding Nemo." Reply: "It's not safe." "That's my boy." Real-life sea creatures aren't simply passive victims of oceanic threats; rather, they can fight back, so to speak. For every whale that beached itself after being confused by boating noise, or every marine mammal or sea turtle killed by reckless fishermen or boaters, countless others survive, thanks to their natural defenses -- defenses of which scientists were ignorant until recently. The latest issue of the journal Nature reports on a variety of cunning ways that sea creatures evade oceanic dangers. As sailors and divers know, it's easy to get lost in the vast ocean. But according to a study by biologists in North Carolina and Florida, sea turtles find their way to distant points with "pinpoint accuracy" thanks to a built-in brain "map" attuned to variations in the local terrestrial magnetic field. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Hearing; Animal Migration
Link ID: 5404 - Posted: 06.24.2010

(Philadelphia, PA) – The cause of schizophrenia remains a mystery, despite the millions of dollars spent trying to discover which genes play a role in its etiology. In at least 10 populations around the world, a significant association between schizophrenia and the gene for dysbindin has been noted – making dysbindin the most highly replicated schizophrenia-associated gene described to date. In at least 10 populations around the world, a significant association between schizophrenia and the gene for dysbindin has been noted – making dysbindin the most highly replicated schizophrenia-associated gene described to date. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine are starting to place where dysbindin fits in the pathway that leads from a gene to a psychiatric disorder. Schizophrenia affects between 1 to 2 percent of people worldwide during their lifetime and about 2.2 million American adults have schizophrenia in a given year. Using quantitative immunohistochemistry in postmortem brain tissue, the Penn investigators found that the expression of dysbindin protein was reduced in more than 80 percent of the patients with schizophrenia by an average of 40 percent relative to matched healthy controls. (For a color image illustrating this comparison, go to: (http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/news_photos/2004/may/arnoldDysbindinColor.html) "This is among the most significant findings I've seen yet in schizophrenia postmortem research, and it represents a critical lead for understanding schizophrenia," says senior author Steven Arnold, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology. The research appears in the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5403 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers may be on the trail of a new and more targeted treatment for severe chronic pain. In the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, a team of scientists established in a series of animal studies the therapeutic potential of selectively deleting specific nerve cells from the nervous system that convey severe chronic pain. So effective was the treatment in eight dogs severely affected by osteroarthritis, cancer-related pain, or both, all eventually became more active and later walked with slight or no limps. Just as importantly, none showed any adverse side effects from the treatment, their temperaments were improved, and their need for other pain-controlling medications was eliminated or greatly reduced. The authors also reported selectively deleting the nerve cells, called C-fiber neurons, from among various human neurons cultured together in the laboratory, an indication the strategy might work in people. C-fibers convey to the central nervous system sensations of noxious heat and certain inflammatory signals. "Some have referred to the technique as using a 'molecular scalpel,'" said Dr. Michael J. Iadarola, a scientist at the NIH's National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) and a senior author on the paper. "The technique selectively deletes certain neurons but leaves others untouched. As a result, the nervous system functions normally, it's just a certain spectrum of pain responsiveness that has been deleted."

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Animal Rights
Link ID: 5402 - Posted: 05.04.2004

'Chemical thumbprint' can help determine if tumor is returning or dying MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- Brain tumor survivors live with the constant worry that their cancer might come back. And even if they have a brain scan every few months to check, doctors often can't tell the difference between new cancer growth and tissue changes related to their treatment with radiation or chemotherapy. That leaves patients with a tricky choice. Do they wait and watch? Let doctors take a brain biopsy? Or, in some cases, endure another brutal round of treatment just in case the tumor has returned? But a new University of Michigan study shows that a relatively new kind of brain scan may give these patients the reassurance -- or early warning -- that they can't get from the usual scans. U-M radiologists will present the evidence today at the annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society, a major radiology organization. The approach is called 2D CSI MRS, short for two-dimensional chemical shift imaging magnetic resonance spectroscopy. It allows doctors to non-invasively detect the levels of certain chemicals in brain tissue. Using the relative quantities of these chemicals, doctors can tell what's really going on near a tumor's original location.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 5401 - Posted: 05.04.2004

People can learn to suppress pain when they are shown the activity of a pain-control region of their brain, a small new study suggests. The new biofeedback technique might also turn out to be useful for treating other conditions. Biofeedback techniques based on electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings of brainwave patterns, in which electrodes are placed on the scalp, are used with some success to treat epilepsy and attention problems such as ADHD. But no one has found a way to use this method for controlling pain in people, says Peter Rosenfeld of Northwestern University in Chicago, one of the pioneers of biofeedback. Twenty years ago Rosenfeld found that he could change the pain threshold in mice by training them to alter their brainwave patterns through a process called conditioned learning, where an altered brainwave state was rewarded by direct stimulation of the reward centres in their brains. Since this meant placing an electrode into the brain, however, his team never tried the technique on people. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Brain imaging
Link ID: 5400 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Depression is common among opiate users and may serve as a trigger for high-risk drug injection practices, continued drug use, and relapse. Research has shown that individuals with co-occurring depression and substance use are less likely to complete treatment and have poorer prognoses after traditional treatment. However, scientists at the Brown University School of Medicine demonstrated that multisession, combination antidepressant therapy successfully reduced depression in active injection drug users. Dr. Michael Stein and colleagues recruited 109 out-of-treatment injection drug users diagnosed with depression to participate in the study. Fifty-three participants received combined psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for their depression during a 3-month period. These participants were scheduled to receive eight individual cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) sessions and three pharmacotherapy visits. Fifty-six participants did not receive treatment. At the end of 3 months, adherence to treatment was assessed, and all study members participated in follow-up interviews designed to assess their heroin use and severity of depression. Forty-three percent of participants receiving the combined treatment were considered to be fully adherent to their treatment schedules (receiving more than 75 percent of either psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy). At follow-up, significant reductions in depression were observed. Participants receiving the combined treatment were about 2.5 times more likely than those not receiving treatment to be in depression remission.

Keyword: Depression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5399 - Posted: 05.04.2004

Each year, potentially 980 lives could be saved and $11.1 billion in automobile-accident costs could be avoided if drivers who suffer from a disorder called obstructive sleep apnea were successfully treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. Published in the May 2004 issue of the journal Sleep, the study determined the percentage of accidents related to sleep apnea and applied the success rate of treatment to conclude how many of these accidents could potentially have been prevented. The research team noted that 1,400 fatalities each year are caused by sleep-deprived drivers with obstructive sleep apnea, a breathing disorder caused by intermittent blockage of the airway. The condition is a common problem affecting millions of Americans. During sleep, these individuals stop breathing for 10 to 30 seconds at a time, sometimes up to 400 times a night. As a result of poor quality sleep, persons with sleep apnea experience excessive daytime sleepiness which can lead to motor vehicle crashes.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 5398 - Posted: 05.04.2004

Future may hold tailored treatment for brain injury. MICHAEL HOPKIN Male and female brains respond to damage in different ways, according to studies of dying brain cells in rats. The discovery suggests that life-saving treatments for suffocation or near-drowning could be suited to the sex of the patient. Men and women are known to react differently to injuries such as strokes, says Robert Clark of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who led the research. But this is the first time that researchers have spotted a difference in the way individual nerve cells in the brain die. Clark's team starved rat brain cells of oxygen and monitored the resulting levels of a range of different molecules such as antioxidants, which protect cells from the reactive compounds generated during metabolism. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Stroke
Link ID: 5397 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Conjoined twins are rare - with less than a dozen adult pairs living in the world today. Only a few hundred pairs of conjoined twins are born across the globe each year - appearing about once in every 100,000 births. They face a dilemma - whether to opt for a life-threatening operation to separate them or to stay together. Conjoined twin sisters Lori and Reba Schappell have chosen the latter and against all odds, lead independent and fulfilling lives. The American twins' unusual lifestyle is documented in the BBC Radio 4 programme "Still Joined". The programme makers say that on seeing the twins you are "immediately conscious of their physical difference" and "feel sorry for them". This is not a reaction they appreciate. The twins, aged 42, are joined at the head, but still manage to lead independent lives. They share 30% of their brain tissue and their non functional left eye. (C)BBC

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5396 - Posted: 05.03.2004

By Paul Rincon Molecules that destroy deadly nerve agents could provide the basis of a new type of civilian drug to protect people against a terrorist attack. The US army is testing the enzymes - called paraoxonases - to see if they could be used to protect troops from exposure during battle. But Israeli researchers working in the field say any new drug could also have a role in the civil defence setting. However, the new technology is likely to take some years to develop and test. The paraoxonases might also have applications as sprays to decontaminate areas and groups of people exposed to nerve agents. Paraoxonases are a particularly attractive choice as the basis for developing pre-treatment drugs, or prophylactics, because they completely break down organophosphorus nerve agents like sarin, the agent used in the Tokyo underground attack in March 1995. (C)BBC

Keyword: Neurotoxins
Link ID: 5395 - Posted: 05.03.2004

In Wake of New Data on Kids and Antidepressants, Treatment Shifts to Talk By Matt McMillen Recent news reports questioning the safety and effectiveness of several antidepressant medications widely prescribed for children -- Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor and Celexa -- raise a key question: What other treatments have been proven safe and effective for kids with depression? The practice guidelines of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists (AACAP) hold that talk therapy (also known as psychosocial therapy) should be the first line of treatment for children with depression. Medication is called for as a first treatment only in the most severe cases of depression -- when a child is incapacitated, suicidal or otherwise endangered by the illness, said Susan Swedo, associate director of child and adolescent research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Symptoms of depression in children include listlessness, lack of concentration, chronic sadness, withdrawal from activities, eating problems and suicidal thoughts. In untreated adolescents, those symptoms linger, on average, for eight months. It's estimated that at any given time, 5 percent of U.S. kids under 18 are depressed. © 2004 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5394 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have successfully used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify the destructive brain legions that cause Alzheimer’s disease in mice. If the results can be replicated in people, they could point to a diagnostic test for an ailment that currently afflicts nearly 4.5 million Americans. The amyloid plaques that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease can currently only be identified during an autopsy, although patients are diagnosed with the disease on the basis of behavioral observations. Joseph Poduslo of the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine and his colleagues manufactured a novel molecular probe that targets plaques in the brains of laboratory mice and allows them to show up on a standard MRI scan. "A simple MRI evaluation for Alzheimer’s disease would ease the suffering of so many families, and hopefully, vastly improve patient-care options," Poduslo remarks. The probe--a molecule that is derived from the protein that causes the plaques in humans--was able to cross the blood-brain barrier and attach to the amyloid plaques in the brains of mice. Most importantly, it also provided enough visual contrast to produce high-resolution MRI images while the animals were alive. The findings were published online on Friday by the journal Biochemistry. © 1996-2004 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Brain imaging
Link ID: 5393 - Posted: 06.24.2010

SAN FRANCISCO -- Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have conducted the first study to detect the presence of a protein in human milk that may explain the association between breastfeeding and reduced risk of obesity later in life. The protein is adiponectin, which is secreted by fat cells and affects how the body processes sugars and lipids -- fatty substances in the blood. It's been suggested that adiponectin is involved in the metabolic syndrome, which includes insulin resistance, obesity, type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease and occurs in 20-25 percent of adults. Higher levels of adiponectin have been associated with less disease. If adiponectin is present in human milk, the Cincinnati Children's researchers theorized, the protein could have an influence over the metabolic "programming" of infants. That is, it could affect adiposity, or "fatness," later in life. The Cincinnati Children's researchers analyzed samples of human milk collected from anonymous donor mothers as part of the Research Human Milk Bank at Cincinnati Children's and found levels of adiponectin that were "quite high – higher than many proteins found in human milk," says Lisa Martin, PhD, the study's lead author.

Keyword: Obesity; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5392 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LAURA MILLER It's sad to see an interesting writer go off the rails, but last month that is what seemed to have happened to Lauren Slater. After publishing some genre-twisting memoirs, Slater, a psychologist, wanted to celebrate landmark psychological studies as ''stories -- absorbed, reconfigured, rewritten.'' The result, in her new book, ''Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century,'' is a wayward and powerful blend of science, autobiography and imagination. Writing, for example, about Stanley Milgram's famous investigation at Yale, which revealed students' willingness, under orders, to administer what they believed were painful electric shocks to other people, Slater uses the second person to convey the point of view of one of the obedient torturers, a literary choice that nails her point: we all think we wouldn't turn up the voltage, but Milgram's results showed that 65 percent of us will. Slater's maverick approach elicits unexpected emotions and invigorating transits of thought. It has also called forth the wrath of a battalion of psychiatrists and psychologists, and one irate daughter. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 5391 - Posted: 05.02.2004

By PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ FOR years it was the same routine: wake up, light a cigarette, inhale deeply and start the day. "I wouldn't even get out of bed without a cigarette," said John Palagonia, 53, of Massapequa, N.Y., who was a two-pack-a-day smoker for more than 20 years. In 1989, Mr. Palagonia, who entertains at children's parties dressed as characters like Barney and Elmo, decided to quit. He turned to Nicorette gum to curb the cravings for a cigarette. The smoke savored between sips of his morning coffee was replaced with a peppery square. On breaks at work, driving his car, after dinner - all the times he had luxuriated in smoke - he would pop another piece. "I got to the point that I was having problems with my teeth, and my jaw was killing me," Mr. Palagonia said. He eventually returned to smoking for a short time "to get off the gum." What ended up working for him was counseling, not a hit of nicotine. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5390 - Posted: 05.02.2004