By PETER D. KRAMER PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A depressed patient tells me about her neighbor. He is suffering the crises that arise in the course of diabetes — first foot pain, now vision loss. He has remained upbeat throughout. "He's legally blind," my patient says. "I don't know how he can stand it." Amid the wonder, I sometimes hear a suggestion that the man lacks self-awareness. To this question, how some people cope, scientists have just now proposed a tentative answer. Humans, it seems, are constructed differently: adversity depresses some, but not others. A report in the current issue of Science looks at the effects of stressful events in early adulthood — and the way that responses to them are mediated by a single gene, called 5-HTT. This same gene was in the news in the 1990's, when its variant forms, long and short, were discovered. The gene makes a protein that modifies nerve cells' use of serotonin, a chemical messenger important in the regulation of mood. The short version of the gene was linked (if weakly) to neuroticism, as a personality trait — the news media called 5-HTT the "Woody Allen gene." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4095 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Parents might in future have something a little more technical to discuss with teachers during consultation evenings than their offspring's writing, artwork and test results: brain scans. The prediction comes from two education professors who think neuroscience could transform education. John Geake of Oxford Brookes University and Paul Cooper of the University of Leicester say that recent research into the functioning of the human brain has greatly enhanced the understanding of learning, memory, intelligence and emotion. They are now working on applying this new knowledge specifically to education. In an article in the journal Westminster Studies in Education, they describe a parents' evening where a teacher shows a mother that her son has a weak short-term memory circuit for number solutions - explaining his poor maths work. The teacher recommends mental tasks to improve that aspect of the brain's function. The parent is pleased that teacher knows what is the matter and can so something about it. "This is a future fantasy scenario, let's be clear about that," Prof Geake told BBC News Online. (C) BBC

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 4094 - Posted: 07.26.2003

Bruce Bower The old saying that it's better to give than to receive may be true, at least when it comes to social support. Over a 5-year period, seniors who provided either a lot of practical assistance to friends, relatives, and neighbors or regular emotional support to their spouses displayed a higher survival rate than those who didn't provide such help, a new study finds. New data suggest that older people who provide social support to spouses, friends, and others live longer than other seniors do. In contrast, recipients of plentiful social support showed death rates similar to those of their peers who got little or no such support, say psychologist Stephanie L. Brown of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and her colleagues. Copyright ©2003 Science Service.

Keyword: Neuroimmunology; Stress
Link ID: 4093 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Two deaf mice may clarify a common childhood disorder By Laura Spinney A large-scale mouse-mutagenesis program in Harwell, UK, recently turned up two new models for the most common form of childhood deafness. Otitis media (OM), as the name implies, is an inflammation of the middle ear. Although believed to be triggered by infection, studies of twins indicate a complex genetic predisposition.1 Children who have malformed eustachian tubes--those with cleft palate or Down syndrome, for instance--seem to be particularly vulnerable. When OM is accompanied by the buildup of fluid, it is called OM with effusion, or "glue ear," and most children will experience at least one episode of this in their lives. The condition presents as partial deafness, and affected children cannot hear human speech, which can result in impaired social development. Surgery, which is recommended for the worst cases, involves drilling a tiny hole in the eardrum to allow the fluid to escape. As with all surgeries, however, the procedure carries risks. Researchers are trying to develop a new therapy for the most susceptible children. ©2003, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 4092 - Posted: 06.24.2010

St. Paul, MN – Boys are 28 percent more likely than girls to have a stroke, and black children are more than twice as likely to have a stroke as other ethnic groups, according to a study in the July 22 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers identified 2,278 first admissions for childhood stroke in a 10-year period in California by examining a statewide hospital discharge database. Children were one month through 19 years of age and were classified by their parent or guardian as white, black, Hispanic, Asian or other. Boys made up 51 percent of the population, and girls made up 49 percent. Ischemic stroke (the most common type of stroke, resulting from blocked arteries) accounted for 51 percent of the cases. Hemorrhagic stroke accounted for the rest, and was broken down into intracerebral hemorrhage (vessels bleed into the brain) and subarachnoid hemorrhage (abnormal vessels rupture near the membrane surrounding the brain). The annual stroke incidence rate was found to be 2.3 strokes per 100,000 children.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 4091 - Posted: 06.24.2010

St. Paul, MN –After only three weeks of reading instruction, brain scans in children with dyslexia develop activation patterns that match those of normal readers, according to a new study published in the July 22 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. These findings indicate that children with dyslexia use the same regions of their brains as other readers, and that specialized instruction can rapidly compensate for some types of reading deficits. Dyslexic children in this study had above average intelligence but scored approximately 30 percent lower than average on standard reading tests. The dyslexic children and a group of good readers of the same age underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to map their brain activation patterns during two types of reading tests. The children with dyslexia then received a three-week training program based on principles outlined by the National Reading Panel (www.nationalreadingpanel.org), convened by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Both groups of children then underwent a second brain scan. The experiment was conducted during the summer, to avoid confounding effects from school instruction.

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 4090 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Schools are threatening to expel hyperactive children who do not take the controversial drug Ritalin, the BBC has learnt. Some parents are even being told that their children may be taken into care if they do not put their children on the drug. The claims come as a survey in Scotland suggests some youngsters are selling Ritalin to drug dealers or swapping it for CDs and phone cards. Parents' charity Overload Network International said the situation is so bad, some school secretaries and dinner ladies are having to hand out extra doses to children. The survey also revealed that some teenage girls have started taking the drug as a diet pill. Janice Hill of the charity has urged the government to step up controls of the drug to ensure it is not being abused. (C) BBC

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 4089 - Posted: 07.25.2003

If eyewitness memories are missing, the brain makes them up, and scanning technology has a hard time telling real from fake. by Jessica Snyder Sachs Sitting in her office at Claremont Graduate University in California, cognitive psychologist Kathy Pezdek flips open a case file for an upcoming homicide trial—a drive-by shooting in which the victim's girlfriend will take the stand to identify the accused. The defense has retained Pezdek as an expert on the reliability of eyewitness memory. "For starters," says Pezdek, "I see here that the first time the girlfriend talks to the police, she tells them, 'I didn't actually see the guy's face.' " Copyright © 2003 Popular Science.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4088 - Posted: 06.24.2010

There's a general perception that eating disorders like anorexia primarily affect white girls. "When you read, in the media for example, about eating disorders, invariably they are portrayed as problems of white women," says Ruth Striegel-Moore, a psychology professor at Wesleyan University. As shown on PBS's NOVA, 8 million people in America, mostly young women, suffer from anorexia, or self-starvation. But does it equally affect all races? "There aren’t a lot of large, systematic studies that have looked at that question," says Striegel-Moore, who recently published a study looking at the race and anorexia in the American Journal of Psychiatry. So Striegel-Moore and her team surveyed 2,046 young black and white women with an average age of 21, and found that black women were less likely to get certain eating disorders—especially anorexia. "We found no case of a black young woman with anorexia nervosa in this study," says Striegel-Moore. "We’re not looking at risk factors for anorexia nervosa in this study, but what may be going on is that black women are…under less pressure to be super thin. In fact, there’s quite a bit of research that shows that black women prefer to be moderately thin—they don’t want to be skinny-thin—whereas white women…you can never be thin enough, so to speak, as a body ideal. So as a culture, black culture may have protective factors, so that even if a black woman may have the genetic vulnerability to anorexia nervosa, it may not get expressed because she grows up in a context that may be protective." © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 4087 - Posted: 06.24.2010

This nerve cell structure may figure into defects in the first stages of life Boston, MA--Scientists at Harvard Medical School have cleared up some of the mystery surrounding a key structure in the developing brain that helps form the visual circuits. Their findings, which appear in the July 25 issue of Science, could provide new insight into early brain defects that are linked to conditions like cerebral palsy and learning disabilities. During development, nerve cells in the eye send messages to the thalamus, a region located deep within the brain. The thalamus then passes these messages on to the area of the outer cerebral cortex that deals with vision. The connection between the thalamus and cortex initially passes through a transient and seldom studied structure called the subplate. By removing parts of the subplate in cats, the HMS researchers have shown that this structure is a key component in strengthening the thalamus to cortex connection and in mapping out further cortical wiring patterns important for vision. The subplate neurons are acting "kind of like teachers," says senior author Carla Shatz, the Nathan Marsh Pusey professor of neurobiology and head of the HMS Department of Neurobiology. "They're needed for the thalamic connections to strengthen and grow so that they can become strong enough to talk to the cortical neurons."

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Vision
Link ID: 4086 - Posted: 07.25.2003

CHAPEL HILL -- A new study by gene therapy scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may lead to an effective long-term treatment for preventing seizures associated with a common form of epilepsy. The study appears this week in the Internet edition of the journal Nature Medicine and will appear in the Aug. 1 print edition of the journal. The research provides an important foundation for the development of new gene therapies to treat focal seizure disorders, the authors said. As the name indicates, focal (or partial) seizures involve an electrical storm affecting only a part of the brain. Such seizures may remain localized or spread to other parts of the cerebral cortex. The temporal lobes, one on each side of the head just above the ears, are the brain sites of one of the most common forms of epilepsy involving focal seizures. "Epilepsy afflicts approximately 1 percent of the U.S. population. A large proportion of epileptic adults have temporal lobe epilepsy, which is often very difficult to treat, and for about 30 percent of those individuals the only treatment option is surgery," said study co-author Dr. Thomas J. McCown, associate professor of psychiatry in UNC's School of Medicine and a member of the UNC Gene Therapy Center. That option is surgical resection, or removal of abnormal brain tissue at the site linked to the seizures. However, despite resection, only 50 percent to 60 percent of temporal lobe epilepsy patients improve following the surgery.

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 4085 - Posted: 07.25.2003

By Lori Valigra | Special to The Christian Science Monitor Imagine stepping into a game booth outfitted with sensors that enable you to feel what it's like to walk on the surface of Mars. Or, turning on your computer to see live video of your new grandchild across the country and being able, by wearing gloves with special sensors, to feel you're actually touching the baby. Scientists are in the early stages of research that could lead to applications that will literally take the Internet out of this world and make it more intimate for users through the sense of touch. For example, researchers at the University of Buffalo in New York recently developed an experimental glove that can send the sense of touch over the Internet. While its functions still are limited, its creators hope it could one day be used to let designers, sculptors, or doctors in distant locations collaborate. At the same time, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are expanding network and sensing technologies so that eventually planets and a variety of devices in space can communicate with one another, with astronomers on Earth, and even with consumers in both educational and game settings. Copyright © 2003 The Christian Science Monitor

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Robotics
Link ID: 4084 - Posted: 06.24.2010

BOISE, IDAHO-- Single men have any number of strategies to attract women, including hanging out with children in hopes of looking like a good dad. Some species of fish may have mastered this ploy long ago, according to research presented here on 20 July at the Animal Behavior Society meeting. Time spent looking after offspring is costly for parents because it means less courting and mating, thereby reducing future reproductive success. But some males may have figured a way around this problem, according to behavioral ecologist Colette St. Mary of the University of Florida in Gainesville. St. Mary studied a species of fish called the sand goby that leaves child care entirely to the fathers. Males build a nest and care for the eggs of multiple females. They clean and guard the eggs and fan them to keep them oxygenated. But instead of losing time that could be spent wooing other lady fish, the male gobies have combined courtship with parental care by trying to impress females with their abilities as fathers. When females were looking, the males fanned the eggs longer and harder and spent more time building up and guarding the nest than they did if females weren't present, St. Mary said at the meeting. Copyright © 2003 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4083 - Posted: 06.24.2010

As a male, how does free transport, free food and, as a bonus for your hard work, unlimited sex with your chosen female partner sound? Well, University of Melbourne scientists in collaboration with a Swedish colleague have found a tiny voracious water bug where the female of the species lays all this on for their male partner, the first time such nuptial behaviour, at least the food for sex part, has ever been observed in female animals. Their findings will appear in the next issue of Nature (24 July 2003). Evolution has generally dictated that it is usually the male that lavishes the female with expensive gifts (usually food) and often risks life and limb to secure the opportunity to pass on his genes to the next generation. Females are typically choosy, picking only the best males while also getting enough food to ensure their offspring are well fed and inherit the quality attributes from their father.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 4082 - Posted: 07.24.2003

Montreal, – There is more to losing weight than diet and exercise, according to investigators the Research Institute at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). Their study is the first to identify a new receptor protein present on fat cells that may play a role in fat metabolism. The findings, published recently in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, have implications for the many individuals suffering from obesity. "We have identified a receptor protein on fat cells that when stimulated may increase the amount of lipid stored in fat reservoirs," says MUHC researcher Dr. Katherine Cianflone. "This protein, C5L2, is made by fat tissue, is on the surface of fat cells and binds a specific hormone to increase fat production." Cianflone, an Associate Professor at McGill University, with colleagues from McGill University and the United Kingdom characterized the binding activities of C5L2. They showed that this protein is a cell surface receptor that binds acylation stimulating protein (ASP), a protein known to affect fat production.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 4081 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Billing and cooing in an old and familiar love nest doubles and even triples some birds' chances of producing progeny, researchers at Cornell University have discovered. Their study, which focused on Japanese quail, is the first to document what farmers and researchers have long suspected: that breeding is often more successful when animals mate where they have mated before. In this study, the inseminations were more likely to fertilize eggs when they occurred in cages where the birds had previously encountered birds of the opposite sex. "We now know that fertilization isn't just a matter of plumbing; there's a lot of strategic decision-making going on that is regulated by the brain in response to the social and physical environment," says Elizabeth Adkins-Regan, a professor in the departments of psychology and of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4080 - Posted: 07.24.2003

By Helen Briggs, BBC News Online science reporter Rosy cheeks seem to be crucial in the dating game, for monkeys at least. Females of a common primate, the rhesus macaque, prefer males with red faces, a study has shown. It signals high levels of testosterone which, in many male animals, mean a healthy immune system and good genes. A rosy glow might also act as a similar cue in humans, says lead author Corri Waitt of Stirling University, UK. It could explain why women apply cosmetics to get red cheeks and lips, she speculates. "Non-human primates have the brightest colouration among mammals in the animal kingdom," says Ms Waitt, a researcher in the department of psychology. "Nobody really knows why - but it could play a role in competition with other males or female mate choice. "We have found that the females do seem to be interested in the bright colouration." (C) BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 4079 - Posted: 07.23.2003

Dissecting creativity is 'the last frontier of the last frontier' Brad Evenson, National Post Mira Soularis is drawing a crowd. Her long, elegant fingers sway like tendrils of seaweed above her shoulders, then clap together with sudden violence. To the untrained eye, Soularis appears to be performing an exotic dance or Tai Chi. It is neither. She is reciting a silent poem, performed in American Sign Language (ASL), for a caffeinated throng of Montreal fine arts students who jokingly call themselves the Deaf Poets Society. Beautiful, signs a man in the audience. Again. Do it again, another spectator signs enthusiastically. Soularis' poem is about a tragic love affair she had with a hearing man. Our bodies connected/But our minds never met, she signs. Deaf minds may be strangers to the complexities of spoken rhymes and tones. Yet when it comes to the ancient human art of communication, deaf and hearing brains are remarkably alike. The loss of hearing does not mean being at a loss for words. Surprising new PET and MRI images show deaf people process sign language in the brain regions that for 125 years were regarded as sound centres, such as the superior temporal gyrus. "Regardless of whether we speak American Sign Language or French or English, the human brain processes the information in the identical way," says Laura Ann Pettito, a cognitive neuroscientist - and ASL poet -- at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. © Copyright 2003 National Post

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 4078 - Posted: 06.24.2010

We all have trouble sleeping from time to time. But many Americans suffer from life-disrupting disorders like obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), where they actually stop breathing numerous times during sleep, sometimes for a minute or even more, and a less common disorder called REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), in which patients literally act out the dreams they are having during REM sleep. "Obstructive sleep apnea is associated with high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke as well," says Sid Gilman, chair of the neurology department at the University of Michigan, while "people with [RBD] thrash, talk, sometimes pummel their bed partner. It’s usually the bed partner who complains rather than the person who has this disorder. Some people with this will actually get up out of bed or fall out of bed and injure themselves. It can be a very dramatic disorder." Gilman says REM sleep behavior disorder likely affects half of 1 percent of the general population, whereas OSA affects likely 3 percent of the population. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 4077 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DENISE GRADY Mental health care in America is often inadequate and needs "fundamental transformation," a presidential commission reported yesterday. The commission described the present system as a "patchwork relic" of disjointed state and federal agencies that frequently stepped in the way of people who were seeking care instead of helping them. The panel said each state should draw up plans to treat the mentally ill. The report called for a more streamlined system strongly focused on early diagnosis and treatment in patients' own communities, a high expectation of recovery and methods for helping people with mental illnesses find work and housing. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Depression
Link ID: 4076 - Posted: 07.23.2003