Studies of a gene that affects how efficiently the brain's frontal lobes process information are revealing some untidy consequences of a tiny variation in its molecular structure and how it may increase susceptibility to schizophrenia . People with a common version of the gene associated with more efficient working memory and frontal lobe information processing may pay a penalty in adverse responses to amphetamine, in heightened anxiety and sensitivity to pain. Yet, another common version may slightly bias the brain toward a pattern of neurochemical activity associated with psychosis, report researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Everyone inherits two copies of the catecho-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, one from each parent. It codes for the enzyme that metabolizes neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine and comes in two common versions. One version, met, contains the amino acid methionine at a point in its chemical sequence where the other version, val, contains a valine. Depending on the mix of variants inherited, a person's COMT genes can be typed met/met, val/val, or val/met. "Since both versions of the COMT gene are common in the population – they've been conserved as the human brain evolved -- it makes sense that each would confer some advantages and disadvantages," explained Daniel Weinberger, M.D.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3780 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jane Elliott BBC News Online health staff Angela Slater spent nearly two decades lip reading, because she could not hear what people were saying to her. But she did not realise that she had a problem because her lip reading had become so successful she was fooling herself. Then on a train journey she realised that the announcer's voice was a blur. She could not see his face and so could not make out his words. Her family pressed her to get treatment and 20 years after first noticing the problem Angela went to her doctor. She was told she had lost 40% of her hearing and was given a hearing aid. "It was a great improvement and I felt as if I had got my life back. (C) BBC

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 3779 - Posted: 05.05.2003

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CHICAGO, (AP) — Obese and overweight women face significantly increased risks of having babies with heart abnormalities and other birth defects, according to a study to be published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said their study also confirmed a link between pre-pregnancy obesity and neural tube birth defects, including spina bifida. Compared with women whose weight is considered normal, the study found, those who were obese or overweight before pregnancy faced double the risk of having babies with heart defects and double the risk of multiple birth defects. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3778 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Amphibians hint that number skills evolved early. HANNAH HOAG Salamanders, given a choice between tubes containing two fruitflies or three, lunge at the tube of three1. This hints that the ability to differentiate between small numbers of objects may have evolved much earlier than scientists had thought. Primates can spot the greater of two quantities smaller than four, without any training. Babies choose the bowl with more cookies; monkeys go for the bucket with more slices of apple. The surprise, says Claudia Uller, of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who carried out the study, was that the amphibians "failed in the same way that babies and monkeys do" - more than three objects confuses them. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Evolution; Intelligence
Link ID: 3777 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers want to understand the control center of the activation process | By Josh P. Roberts We can do things that haven't been done before, I think, ever in cell biology," exclaims Mark Davis of Stanford University. His 3-D, fluorescence video-microscopy system allows him to count the number of antigen receptors being stimulated on a given T cell, and to follow that cell through time. Davis asks of the single cell, "What do you need in the way of signals to get synapses? And what is the sensitivity of a T cell to antigen?" The synapse Davis refers to is the immunological synapse, where T cells receive their marching orders; understanding it is vital to appreciating how an immune response is set in motion. "We like to think of the immunological synapse as the brain," says cell biologist Abraham (Avi) Kupfer. "It's like a control center of the activation process." SIMPLICITY ITSELF In its simplest incarnation, the immunological synapse (IS) consists of two pairs of molecules. Michael Dustin and colleagues at Washington University put freely diffusible MHC-peptide (major histocompatability complex class II plus bound peptide) with ICAM-1 (intracellular adhesion molecule-1) into an artificial lipid bilayer. By adding T cells, the researchers induced T-cell antigen receptor (TCR) and lymphocyte function-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1) to form "kind of a bull's-eye-like pattern," he recalls. ©2003, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 3776 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Housing animals in complex environments where they must use By Hal Cohen Researchers are bringing the wild inside their laboratories. Compelled by studies that suggest animals' bodies and minds react to even minor changes in living conditions, scientists are decorating animal cage interiors to mimic the exterior world of nature, thus challenging lab animals to think and move. A large, complex living space outfitted with objects that stimulate animals' mental and physical growth form the ideals of environmental enrichment (EE)--a field of study started by psychologists in the 1960s, which has now moved mainstream, particularly among neuroscientists. Advocates of EE say that providing multifaceted living conditions is essential to the mental and physical well-being of lab animals and could also influence the validity of experimental results. "You can argue whether your previous results are valid or not," says Vera Baumans, professor of laboratory animal science at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. "At KI we're going to find out if that is the case." Not all labs take enrichment as seriously as the Karolinska Institute, but the growing interest in the relationship between environment and experimental results has converged with the influence of animal rights' groups on science policy, so that labs are becoming more aware than ever of animal care. "Effects from differential experiences have been found in species from fly to philosopher," says Mark Rosenzweig, professor emeritus of graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and pioneer of applying environmental enrichment to laboratory testing. "Many investigators have come to realize that animals raised without sufficient stimulation do not develop full growth of brain or full behavioral capacities." ©2003, The Scientist Inc.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 3775 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The gene could bring treatments closer Scientists may have found a genetic mutation which may help unravel why people get the devastating condition motor neurone disease (MND). While experts know that some cases of motor neurone are hereditary, they are hopeful that their finding could offer some explanation to thousands more patients. However, a new treatment or a cure for the condition is still a long way off, they concede. There are approximately 5,000 Motor Neurone Disease patients in the UK. The illness appears often in middle age and the symptoms involve a progressively spreading muscle weakness. While there is a treatment that can slow this process in some patients, there is no cure and the disease is always fatal. (C) BBC

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 3774 - Posted: 05.04.2003

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition Tigers appear to rely on booming low-frequency sounds - much of it inaudible to humans - to drive rivals away from their territory and to attract mates. The discovery may explain how the animals maintain large hunting territories, and may also help conservationists to protect the endangered animals. Tigers produce a wide variety of sounds, from deep roars and growls to the raspberry-like "chuffing" they use to greet each other. A roar followed by a growl is probably designed to intimidate rivals. Tiger watchers have long suspected that the animals' vocal repertoire helps them maintain their hunting grounds. Now Ed Walsh and his colleagues at the Boys Town National Research Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, have found that a common feature of all the tiger calls is the large amount of acoustic energy at low frequencies. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Hearing; Aggression
Link ID: 3773 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Even Humorous Violent Songs Increase Hostile Feelings WASHINGTON - Songs with violent lyrics increase aggression related thoughts and emotions and this effect is directly related to the violence in the lyrics, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association (APA). The findings, appearing in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, contradicts popular notions of positive catharsis or venting effects of listening to angry, violent music on violent thoughts and feelings. In a series of five experiments involving over 500 college students, researchers from Iowa State University and the Texas Department of Human Services examined the effects of seven violent songs by seven artists and eight nonviolent songs by seven artists. The students listened to the songs and were given various psychological tasks to measure aggressive thoughts and feelings. One such task involved participants classifying words that can have both aggressive and nonaggressive meanings, such as rock and stick. © 2003 American Psychological Association

Keyword: Aggression
Link ID: 3772 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BALTIMORE, — Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing who said God called her to her work, suffered from a bipolar disorder, a mental health expert said today. "Florence heard voices and experienced a number of severe depressive episodes in her teens and early 20's, symptoms consistent with the onset of bipolar disorder," said Dr. Kathy Wisner, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Nightingale was the subject of a conference today at the University of Maryland School of Medicine that discussed Dr. Wisner's theory. The annual conference has diagnosed the ills of historic figures since 1995. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 3771 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BRUCE GRIERSON A trip to the diet doc, circa 2013. You prick your finger, draw a little blood and send it, along with a $100 fee, to a consumer genomics lab in California. There, it's passed through a mass spectrometer, where its proteins are analyzed. It is cross-referenced with your DNA profile. A few days later, you get an e-mail message with your recommended diet for the next four weeks. It doesn't look too bad: lots of salmon, spinach, selenium supplements, bread with olive oil. Unsure of just how lucky you ought to feel, you call up a few friends to see what their diets look like. There are plenty of quirks. A Greek co-worker is getting clams, crab, liver and tofu -- a bounty of B vitamins to raise her coenzyme levels. A friend in Chicago, a second-generation Zambian, has been prescribed popcorn, kale, peaches in their own juice and club soda. (This looks a lot like the hypertension-reducing ''Dash'' diet, which doesn't work for everyone but apparently works for him.) He is allowed some chicken, prepared in a saltless marinade, hold the open flame -- and he gets extra vitamin D because there's not enough sunshine for him at his latitude. (His brother's diet, interestingly enough, is a fair bit different.) Your boss, who seems to have won some sort of genetic lottery, gets to eat plenty of peanut butter, red meat and boutique cheeses. Nobody is eating exactly what you are. Your diet is uniquely tailored. It is determined by the specific demands of your genetic signature, and it perfectly balances your micronutrient and macronutrient needs. Sick days have become a foggy memory. (Foggy memory itself is now treated with extracts of ginkgo biloba and a cocktail of omega-3 fatty acids.) ''Ultimately, the feedback you'll get will be continuous,'' says Wasyl Malyj, an ''informatics'' scientist at the University of California at Davis working with the new Center of Excellence for Nutritional Genomics, who is helping me blue-sky here. The appeal of this kind of laser-targeted diet intervention is hard to miss. If you turn out to be among the population whose cholesterol count doesn't react much to diet, you'll be able to go ahead and eat those bacon sandwiches. You'll no longer be spending money on vitamin supplements that aren't doing anything for you; you'll take only the vitamins you need, in precisely the right doses. And there's a real chance of extending your life -- by postponing the onset of diseases to which you're naturally susceptible -- without having to buy even a single book by Deepak Chopra. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3770 - Posted: 05.04.2003

-- Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered that a gene called Prox1 turns on and off at two different times during the embryonic retina development. This discovery offers important evidence of how such a complex tissue can grow from populations of cells that initially have no special function. The finding is important because it demonstrates that this single gene can perform two different functions during the embryonic retina development, according to Michael Dyer, Ph.D., an assistant member of the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology. Dyer is the lead author of a report on this work that appears in the May issue of Nature Genetics. "The critical role we found for Prox1 in the retina supports a growing body of evidence we've been accumulating in the past few years indicating that Prox1 is a key player in orchestrating the proper development of the entire embryo," said Guillermo Oliver, Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Genetics and co-author of the paper. Copyright © 1992-2003 Bio Online, Inc.

Keyword: Vision; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3769 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Real-time monitoring of dopamine activity in the brain shows that in rats the mere anticipation of receiving cocaine may cause significant increases in dopamine levels. This finding may help explain why, in humans recovering from cocaine addiction, cocaine paraphernalia, surroundings, and other factors associated with drug use can elicit an intense craving for the drug, often resulting in relapse to use. Dopamine is a brain chemical associated with feelings of pleasure (reward); increases in dopamine levels in an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens have been associated with drug use. Measuring dopamine level changes in real time enable researchers to carefully and accurately correlate drug-related behaviors in rats with changes in brain chemistry. The researchers trained male rats to self-administer cocaine by pressing a lever and to associate the availability of cocaine with certain cues such as changes in lighting and an auditory tone. During daily sessions, the rats had access to cocaine and their behavior was recorded. Using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, the researchers monitored changes in dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens of the rats every 100 milliseconds while the rats had access to cocaine or were exposed to drug-related cues. Voltammetry allows subsecond measurements of dopamine release by monitoring changes in electrochemical currents that occur when brain cells release dopamine.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 3768 - Posted: 05.04.2003

Lobeline, a drug with a long history of use in smoking cessation programs, may be a potential treatment for methamphetamine abuse. In a previous study using rats, researchers from the University of Kentucky found that lobeline decreased the animals' self-administration of d-methamphetamine (METH). They concluded that lobeline acted by decreasing the animal's perception of METH- induced pleasure (reward). The researchers conducted a series of experiments with male rats that were trained to self-administer METH by pressing a lever. In a group of rats that consistently self-administered METH, the researchers exchanged METH with lobeline to determine whether lobeline would serve as a substitute for METH. When METH was exchanged with lobeline, the number of times the rats pressed the lever decreased daily over the course of the experiment, indicating that lobeline did not serve as substitute for METH. In a different experiment, the researchers investigated whether lobeline would cause rats to resume drug-seeking behavior after a period of abstinence or if it alters METH-induced reinstatement of drug-seeking behavior. They found that lobeline did not restore drug-seeking behavior nor did it alter METH-induced reinstatement. These findings indicate that lobeline appears to alter the mechanisms mediating METH reward, but not the mechanisms mediating the reinstatement of drug-seeking behavior.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 3767 - Posted: 05.04.2003

(Embargoed) CHAPEL HILL-- A significant percentage of children with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder did just as well when harmless placebos, pills without any specific effect, replaced some of their medications, a study led by two N.C researchers shows. The findings raise the possibility that some children with these common problems may be effectively treated on lower doses of medication that are supplemented with a placebo. Further research is necessary, the researchers said, to determine the mechanism of the effect that placebos had in treating the disorder. Dr. Adrian Sandler, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at the Mission Children's Hospital in Asheville, and Dr. James W. Bodfish, a professor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill department of psychiatry, presented their study findings today (May 3) at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Seattle.

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 3766 - Posted: 05.04.2003

By Jason Socrates Bardi "Jack" and "Dianne" are hard working midwesterners, sweethearts since high school, loving parents, and both carriers of a recessive gene defect that they are not aware of. Jack and Diane have four children and their youngest, call him "Jake," has the misfortune to have inherited copies of the bad gene from both parents. Despite the fact that his parents and older siblings are all generally healthy, Jake is born without the ability to hear. Hearing aids prove to be of no help, so Jake, his parents, and siblings all learn sign language. Jake has other problems, too. He has trouble balancing and is a late walker—not taking his first steps until he is almost two years old. Throughout his childhood, he has to hold on to something solid when he sits down. Around age 10, the real trouble starts. Jake starts to have difficulty seeing at night, and by the time Jake is in his late teens, he is completely blind and no longer able to communicate. Copyright © 1992-2003 Bio Online, Inc.

Keyword: Hearing; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3765 - Posted: 06.24.2010

First evidence of animal creating markers to navigate. HANNAH HOAG Wood mice fashion portable signposts from bright leaves and shells when they explore fields for food, a new study suggests1. This is the first time that animals other than humans have been found to use moveable landmarks. "No one thought that mice would be clever enough to use tools for navigation," says biologist Pavel Stopka of Charles University in Prague, the Czech Republic. Wood mice live in large fields that often lack features that they might use to locate nests, food sources or danger zones. So the animals build bundles of leaves and twigs as they explore, report Stopka and his colleague, David Macdonald of the University of Oxford, UK. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Animal Migration
Link ID: 3764 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Seal pups can recognize their mother's distinct vocal call within two days of birth says a University of Alberta researcher--a finding essential to the pups' care and survival. Dr. Isabelle Charrier, from the U of A's Faculty of Science, has extensively studied how mothers and seal pups use vocal recognition to identify each other. Her findings are published in the current issue of the international journal, Animal Behaviour. Charrier spent nine months on Amsterdam Island in the Indian Ocean, studying and recording acoustic recognition between the female and her pups. When these fur seals come ashore to breed in dense colonies, the lactating females must leave their newborn pups on land while they forage for food at sea. As with most social species, the fur pups only feed their own offspring so when the mother returns from sea, it is essential for the mother and pup to find each other among the several hundred other mammals. "We found out that pups can recognize their mother's call within two to five days after birth," said Charrier. "This is surprisingly quick but considering that the mother leaves seven days after giving birth it is important to have that immediate recognition."

Keyword: Animal Communication; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3763 - Posted: 05.02.2003

The death of sensory hair cells when they try to multiply suggests need for caution in attempts to restore many kinds of lost cells through gene therapy (LOS ANGELES--) Researchers may have found a link between progressive hearing loss and a gene called p19Ink4d (Ink4d), according to results of a study that measured loss of hearing in mice lacking that gene. Normally, the Ink4d gene keeps healthy cells "quiet" – from inappropriately dividing. Mice lacking the Ink4d gene become progressively hearing impaired because the absence of Ink4d causes certain cells in their inner ears to attempt to divide. However, this inappropriate attempt to divide causes these cells, called sensory hair cells, to instead commit suicide, according to a team of researchers that includes two St. Jude investigators and scientists from the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles, CA. This finding in mice represents a potentially unrecognized form of progressive hearing loss, a problem that also occurs in humans, according to the investigators. If problems in Ink4d also occur in humans, this finding could explain the slow development of deafness in some people. In the absence of the braking effect of normally functioning Ink4d genes, sensory hair cells in people's ears might attempt to divide, setting off a biological response called apoptosis, or programmed cell death.

Keyword: Hearing; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3762 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists may have discovered why the brain’s higher information-processing center slows down in old age, affecting everything from language, to vision, to motor skills. The findings may also point toward drugs for reversing the process. A brain chemical called GABA helps neurons stay finicky about which signals they respond to – a must for the brain to function at its peak. Certain neurons in very old macaque monkeys lose their pickiness, researchers have found, seemingly because they don’t get enough GABA. These results appear in the journal Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). If a lack of GABA is indeed responsible for the old neurons’ indiscriminate firing, this problem may be simple enough to treat. Existing drugs, such as Xanax, increase GABA production, according to author Audie Leventhal of the University of Utah School of Medicine. These drugs haven’t been carefully tested on the elderly, though.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 3761 - Posted: 06.24.2010