ST. PAUL, MN - The supplement dehydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA, which has been touted by some as an anti-aging hormone and a treatment for diseases such as cancer, AIDS, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, showed no effect for Alzheimer’s disease patients who took the supplement for six months, according to a study published in the April 8 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. DHEA is a hormone produced naturally in the adrenal glands. The body then converts it into the hormones estrogen and testosterone. DHEA as a supplement is made from plant chemicals. In the first randomized, double-blind trial of DHEA for Alzheimer’s disease, researchers gave 58 Alzheimer’s patients either 100 mg per day of DHEA or a placebo. Before the study began and at three and six months, the patients were tested for cognitive functioning and rated by physicians and caregivers on any changes in the severity of the disease.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 3660 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ST. PAUL, MN - Most people with difficult-to-treat headaches have a biologically determined problem and can be helped by accurate diagnosis or effective treatment, according to an article published in the April 8 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The article, published in the “Views & Reviews” section of the journal, is based on the experiences of the authors, a group of national and international headache experts. The authors outline an approach to treatment failure and identify five categories of reasons for treatment failure that leads to referral to the subspecialty headache centers where they practice. The most common reason for poor response to treatment is that the diagnosis is incomplete or incorrect, the authors state. This can occur when a primary headache disorder is misdiagnosed (for example, migraine is mistaken for sinus or stress headache), a secondary headache disorder is missed (for example, a brain tumor), or two or more headache disorders are present and at least one goes unrecognized.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 3659 - Posted: 06.24.2010

For the first time, researchers are characterizing the molecular processes that turn brain cancer deadly, and their work may result in a diagnostic test that can predict patient survival. The research, by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center demonstrates that degree of loss of a crucial tumor suppressor gene, the AP-2( transcription factor, correlates with progression of different human gliomas. For example, researchers found that normal brain tissue, as well as grade II gliomas, maintained expression of AP-2(, whereas 96 percent of grade III glioma, and almost 99 percent of grade IV glioma had lost AP-2(. "Although previous molecular markers have been identified in malignant gliomas, none have exhibited such a strong correlation with progression, indicating the pivotal role of this gene," says Amy Heimberger, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery.

Keyword: Glia
Link ID: 3658 - Posted: 04.06.2003

Scientists have found strong evidence that botox injections can help children with cerebral palsy. Botox is more commonly used by cosmetic surgeons to smooth out wrinkles. The botulinum toxin can be deadly, paralysing muscles needed for breathing, but only very small doses are given in medical or cosmetic treatments. US researchers have shown children who received the treatment demonstrated a significant improvement in their symptoms. In the UK, experts have long called for the treatment using the botulinum toxin to be universally available. They welcomed the new findings, and said they provided even more support for their call. It is estimated one in 400 people in the UK have cerebral palsy, where a part of the brain, usually the part that controls the muscles and movement, is affected. (C) BBC

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Muscles
Link ID: 3657 - Posted: 04.05.2003

By PATRICIA COHEN Parents have never lacked for expert advice. "Kissing the baby after it has been fed is very likely to cause it to vomit." "Never let them sit on your lap." "Shake hands with them in the morning." "It's your problem, not your child's." Ever since the science of child development was invented in the beginning of the 20th century, experts have offered parents a goulash of advice on how to raise the little marvel (or monster), creating as much anxiety and confusion as they are supposed to assuage. "I try to do just what you say," one 1920's mother complained, "but I am a nervous wreck just trying to be calm." Given the proliferation of books about how Americans should raise the baby, it was inevitable that scholars would eventually turn to the question of why Americans are so obsessed with raising the baby. In a string of new books, social and cultural historians are trying to figure out just what it is about American parents that makes them so anxious — and so eager to turn to the experts. Their theories differ, but what they do agree on is that there's a lot more to child care advice than simply child care. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3656 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Captured protein couple may help treat brain disease. HELEN PEARSON Researchers in Switzerland claim to have proved a long-standing theory about prions: that the proteins couple up to breed mad cow disease. Their experiments should fuel the search for a cure. In both the animal disorder and its human equivalent, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) warped prions clump in the brain, eventually destroying it. Misshapen prions were thought to latch onto and warp normal ones. But scientists had not captured this liaison taking place in sick animals. Now Adriano Aguzzi of University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland and his colleagues have caught prions in the act1. They genetically engineered mice to carry a new, artificial version of prions with a tag. Unlike the real thing, this makes them easy to isolate from cells. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 3655 - Posted: 06.24.2010

DURHAM, N.C. -- Inherited variations in proteins that produce energy for the body may provide protection from developing Parkinson's disease, according to a new study by scientists at Duke University Medical Center. Furthermore, the inherited gene variations seem particularly to protect white women, which may help explain why Parkinson's disease is seen more often in men. The study, published in the April 2003 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics , is the first to assign specific genetic risk factors to the most common form of Parkinson's disease, which affects more than 1 million people in the United States. © 2001-2002 Duke University Medical Center

Keyword: Parkinsons; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3654 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Improvement seen in patients with either mild cognitive impairment or Parkinson's-related dementia Honolulu, Hawaii - New data provide the first evidence that ARICEPT (donepezil HCl tablets) may have potential in treating two dementia-related illnesses beyond Alzheimer's disease (AD). Findings from two separate studies showed that treatment improved cognition in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and behavioral symptoms in patients with Parkinson's-related dementia. The data were presented for the first time at the American Academy of Neurology 55th Annual Meeting (AAN). ARICEPTŪ is approved for the treatment of symptoms of mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. "As the first placebo-controlled trial with an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor to improve cognitive symptoms in MCI, this study provides encouraging news for the millions of Americans with MCI," said Stephen Salloway, M.D., director of Neurology and The Memory Disorders Program, associate professor of Clinical Neurosciences at Brown Medical School, Providence, Rhode Island. "The findings underscore the importance of early intervention to promote healthy aging and preserve independence in the elderly."

Keyword: Alzheimers; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 3653 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition A high school student has helped solve a long-standing mystery about head injuries. During falls or traffic accidents, the brain is usually injured in two places - one where the skull strikes the external surface (coup), and another diametrically opposite to it (contrecoup). The most popular theory to explain this is that the brain first collides against the skull near the point of impact, and then rebounds, hitting the skull at the back. But this does not explain why the contrecoup injury is often more pronounced than the coup. Now Laura Drew, a student at Oakwood High School in Dayton, Ohio, has shown why, with help from her father William Drew, chief of neurology at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. "It was my idea, but it was my daughter who got around to it," says Drew. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 3652 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The answer to may be found in the simple male crickets, which sing for hours at loud sound pressure levels in order to attract females – How do we hear when some of us chatter all day? When we sing in the shower, why doesn’t the active voice smother the rest of our body’s sensory systems? The answer to these questions may be found in the simple male cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus), which sing for hours at over 100 decibels sound pressure levels (dB SPL) in order to attract females. The “songs” of crickets (except the one from Disney’s famous character, “Jiminy Cricket, are generated by rhythmically rubbing the fore wings together resulting in a form of sound production called stridulation. As crickets’ ears are located on the forelegs, they are fully exposed to the self-generated sounds. Many animals reduce the responsiveness of their peripheral auditory system during sound production, but crickets do not. Despite this, behavioral experiments have shown that singing crickets can respond to external sounds. Copyright © 2003, The American Physiological Society

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 3651 - Posted: 06.24.2010

While flashy colors come and go in the fashion world, bright beaks are always in style for male birds seeking to woo a mate. New research suggests that the red and orange-hued beaks of certain male birds are signs of a healthy immune system--a "must have" in any mating season. A pair of studies appearing in the 04 April issue of the journal, Science , published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, provide the first direct evidence that the colorful beaks on the males of two bird species gives honest information about individual immune systems. When females choose bright beaks, they select healthy males. A U.K. research group focused on beak color in male zebra finches, and a French team studied beak color in male blackbirds. In the animal kingdom, males often sport the species' more flamboyant features, from peacock's tails to rooster's combs. While scientists have long guessed that these traits advertised the males' fitness two new studies confirm this hypothesis with direct measurements and connect male-bird's bright beak colors with a strong immune system.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 3650 - Posted: 04.04.2003

Worst Stages Helped, New Studies Suggest By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer A new Alzheimer's disease medicine called memantine has become the first to slow the progression of the disease among severely ill patients, and it may even reverse some mental losses, researchers announced. The medicine, which is still being evaluated for safety and effectiveness by the Food and Drug Administration, works differently from the handful of medicines approved previously to treat Alzheimer's disease. It is not known whether memantine helps patients with milder forms of Alzheimer's. In a large controlled clinical study, memantine extended the time that severely ill patients could function on their own, according to a report published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Simultaneously, a preliminary report by scientists to be presented at a neurology conference today suggests that memantine may be even more effective when used in combination with one of the medicines already on the market. © 2003 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 3649 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Paul Rincon New DNA evidence suggests "African Eve", the 150,000-year-old female ancestor of every person on Earth, may have lived in Tanzania or Ethiopia. A genetic study has shown that the oldest known human DNA lineages are those of East Africans. The most ancient populations include the Sandawe, Burunge, Gorowaa and Datog people who live in Tanzania. Researchers found a very high amount of genetic variation, or diversity, between the mitochondrial DNA of different individuals in these populations. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down exclusively through the maternal line. The longer a population has existed, the more variation accumulates in its DNA lineages. "They are showing really deep, old lineages with lots of diversity. They appear to be the oldest lineages identified in Africa to date," said Dr Sarah Tishkoff, of the University of Maryland, US, who led the research. (C) BBC

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 3648 - Posted: 04.03.2003

NewScientist.com news service The first large trial of a promising Alzheimer's drug provides convincing evidence that it slows the impact of the devastating disease. Memantine is the first Alzheimer's drug designed to tackle the late stages of the neurodegenerative illness and works on a different system in the brain to other existing drugs. Barry Reisberg, a psychiatrist at the New York School of Medicine, and colleagues saw marked improvements during the six months for which patients were given memantine. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 3647 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ANNA FELS, M.D. Often, my psychiatric patients bring carefully recorded dreams to their sessions. They are sophisticated people who have been taught that dream interpretation is part of the therapy drill. After all, Freud singled out dreams as the royal road to the unconscious. A hundred years later, scientists are still unsure what dreams are about, but their very inscrutability suggests that they guard deep truths, that they are the magic keys to the psychic kingdom. When I first started practice, I dreaded listening to patients' dreams. Typically, a patient would stare down at scribbled notes and begin: "I was in this place that was sort of like my bedroom, but it was also a cave I saw in a TV program yesterday, and there was a guy swinging from a perch who I thought was going to hit me, but then I was in this swimming pool . . . " Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 3646 - Posted: 04.03.2003

Jumbos' bouncy legs help them pack a pace. HELEN R. PILCHER Its official: elephants can run. Biomechanics researchers have done their sums and decided that the springy steps of an angry elephant at full charge count as running - not ambling or trotting. As their speed rises past 16 kilometres per hour, elephants adopt "more of a bouncing motion", explains John Hutchinson of Stanford University in California. Technically, this makes them runners. Hutchinson and his colleagues organized a 30-metre track event with 42 healthy, adult Asian elephants1. The elephants, from tourist parks and conservation camps in Lampang, Thailand, ran one at a time along the track, five to ten times a day, with rests, over several days. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Biomechanics
Link ID: 3645 - Posted: 06.24.2010

HONOLULU, HI – Researchers have recently discovered a progressive neurodegenerative condition -- resulting in tremor, balance problems, and dementia -- which may affect as many as one in 3,000 men. This condition has now been associated with the same gene that causes fragile X syndrome, the most common heritable form of mental retardation. Findings of this study are being presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in Honolulu, March 29-April 5, 2003. Remarkably, the same gene has been found to cause these two different and independent syndromes, affecting different groups of individuals. Fragile X syndrome is a developmental disorder beginning in childhood, while the newly identified neurological syndrome (Fragile X Associated Tremor/Ataxia Syndrome, or FXTAS) affects mainly male carriers who were not affected by fragile X syndrome retardation, and who displayed no symptoms prior to age 50. "We discovered that FXTAS-affected individuals have numerous inclusions, or spherical particles, in their brain cells," noted study author Paul Hagerman, MD, PhD, professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. Through this study, the researchers are determining what is in the inclusions and why they form. "We believe this finding is an important clue as to the cause of the disorder, one that may ultimately help with development of therapies for both the tremor disorder and fragile X syndrome."

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Intelligence
Link ID: 3644 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Study shows surprisingly sophisticated nesting behavior in common marsh birds SANTA CRUZ, CA -- Coots, the Rodney Dangerfields of the bird world, just might start to get some respect as a result of a new study showing that these common marsh birds are able to recognize and count their own eggs, even in the presence of eggs laid by other birds. The counting ability of female coots is part of a sophisticated set of defense mechanisms used to thwart other coots who lay eggs in their neighbors' nests, according to Bruce Lyon, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Lyon studied hundreds of coot nests in British Columbia during a four-year investigation. His latest findings appear in the April 3 issue of the scientific journal Nature. "The ability of females to count only their own eggs in a mixture of eggs is a remarkable feat that provides a convincing, rare example of counting in a wild animal," Lyon wrote in the published pape

Keyword: Evolution; Intelligence
Link ID: 3643 - Posted: 04.03.2003

(Bethesda, MD) -- Motor imagery has been extensively studied with positron emissions tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques. Converging evidence indicates that motor imagery shares neural substrates (substances changed by enzymes) with those underlying motor execution. However, less certain are how and to what extent neural substrates are shared between the two modes of motor-related behavior. The scientific community differs regarding involvement of the primary motor cortex (M1), the region of the cerebral cortex most nearly immediately influencing movements of the face, neck and trunk, and arm and leg, during motor imagery. Some region-of-interest analyses from fMRI experiments often reveal mild activity increases in M1 during motor imagery, while group averaged analyses from fMRI and PET do not. Unfortunately, many of the fMRI studies showing M1 activity do not employ electrophysiological monitoring to exclude muscle contractions during actual scanning. In addition to the methodological differences, there has been some diversity among the behavioral tasks studied as motor imagery. Motor imagery is defined as the mental simulation of a motor act. This definition can include various concepts such as preparation for movement, passive observations of action, and mental operations of sensorimotor representations, either implicitly or explicitly.

Keyword: Biomechanics; Brain imaging
Link ID: 3642 - Posted: 04.03.2003

Women who suffer the misery of migraines at the time of their period could be helped by a new treatment, according to a study. The disabling headaches can be prevented by taking a new drug before menstruation, a US trial suggests. Around four million women in the UK alone suffer from migraines, many triggered by hormonal changes at the 'time of the month'. The therapy, frovatriptan succinate, is already available in the US and is about to be licensed in the UK. Frovatriptan is a member of a class of drugs called triptans, which reduce inflammation of certain blood vessels in the brain thought to cause pain. It is currently prescribed for acute migraine attacks but its use could be extended as a prevention for menstrually associated migraines (MAM). (C) BBC

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 3641 - Posted: 04.02.2003