COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study strongly indicates that the primary cause of nearsightedness is heredity. The study also suggests that the amount of time a child spends studying or reading plays a minor role in the development of myopia, or nearsightedness. The researchers found that, per week, myopic children spent more time studying and reading for pleasure and less time playing sports than non-myopic children. Myopic children also scored higher on a test of basic reading and language skills than did children with normal vision. The nearsighted children spent about the same amount of time watching television and playing video games in a week as did children with normal vision, said Donald Mutti, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of optometry at Ohio State University.

Keyword: Vision; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3560 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Blocking or eliminating a specific potassium channel in a small group of brain cells may improve or prevent the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a debilitating and progressive neurodegenerative disease that afflicts over 1 million people in the United States. In Parkinson's disease, neurons that release dopamine die. The loss of dopamine causes an array of debilitating symptoms that include resting tremor, muscle rigidity and slowed movement. Although the cause of the disease remains uncertain, James Surmeier and colleagues at Northwestern University have discovered a way of potentially lessening the symptoms and progression of the disease. The investigators describe their findings in the March issue of Nature Neuroscience.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Stem Cells
Link ID: 3559 - Posted: 03.15.2003

* Alcohol abuse can lead to Korsakoff's syndrome, a severe mental disorder characterized by memory loss and disorientation. * Individuals with Korsakoff's syndrome tend to have olfactory deficits: dysfunctions in odor identification, discrimination, memory, sensitivity, and intensity. * New research has found that alcoholics without amnesia or dementia also have olfactory deficits. Researchers know that alcohol abuse can lead to Korsakoff's syndrome, a severe mental disorder characterized by memory loss and disorientation. Studies dating back to the end of the 1970s have shown that Korsakoff's syndrome, in turn, is associated with olfactory deficits, specifically, dysfunctions in odor identification, discrimination, memory, sensitivity, and intensity. A study in the March issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research has found that "uncomplicated" alcoholics, those without amnesia or dementia, also have impaired olfactory functioning.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 3558 - Posted: 03.15.2003

PHILADELPHIA -- Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia have found that exposure to male perspiration has marked psychological and physiological effects on women: It can brighten women's moods, reducing tension and increasing relaxation, and also has a direct effect on the release of luteinizing hormone, which affects the length and timing of the menstrual cycle. The results will be published in June in the journal Biology of Reproduction and currently appear on the journal's Web site. "It has long been recognized that female pheromones can affect the menstrual cycles of other women," said George Preti, a member of the Monell Center and adjunct professor of dermatology in Penn's School of Medicine. "These findings are the first to document mood and neuroendocrine effects of male pheromones on females."

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Stress
Link ID: 3557 - Posted: 03.15.2003

Scientists at Rockefeller University and Weill Medical College of Cornell University have discovered how estrogen initiates physical changes in rodent brain cells that lead to increased learning and memory -- a finding, the researchers contend, that illustrates the likely value of the hormone to enhance brain functioning in women. Their study, published in the March 15 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, describes for the first time a chain of molecular events that is activated in the brain's primary memory center, called the hippocampus, when estrogen bathes neurons (nerve cells). The study details how these nerve cells "grow in complexity" when exposed to estrogen, increasing connections among nerve cells in an area of the brain needed to store new memories, retrieve older ones and even recall location of an object or event in space.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 3556 - Posted: 03.15.2003

A once-plentiful species of antelope could be wiped out after wholesale poaching triggered a dramatic change in mating behaviour. Researchers from Kazakhstan, Russia and the UK are deeply concerned about the future of the saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica tatarica) after surveys from the air suggested numbers had fallen by 95% since the 1970s. The antelope has now been rushed into the list of critically endangered species held by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). The break-up of the Soviet Union has been blamed for the decline, as the removal of collective farming threw rural economies into chaos, forcing locals to rely on saiga meat to survive. It also opened the border into China, where the horn of the male saiga is prized as an ingredient of Chinese medicine. However, some of the most dramatic falls have happened in the last five years, even though less hunting of the saiga is thought to be taking place. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3555 - Posted: 03.13.2003

In a study on the effects of sleep deprivation, investigators at the University of Pennsylvania found that subjects who slept four to six hours a night for fourteen consecutive nights showed significant deficits in cognitive performance equivalent to going without sleep for up to three days in a row. Yet these subjects reported feeling only slightly sleepy and were unaware of how impaired they were. The research article, "The Cumulative Cost of Additional Wakefulness: Dose-Response Effects on Neurobehavioral Functions and Sleep Physiology From Chronic Sleep Restriction and Total Sleep Deprivation," appears in the March issue of the journal SLEEP. According to Principal Investigator David Dinges, "This is the first systematic study to look at the prolonged cognitive effects of chronic sleep restriction lasting for more than a week. The results provide a clearer picture of possible dangers to people who typically are awake longer on a regular basis," he explained, "including members of the military, medical and surgical residents, and shift workers. Reduced cognitive abilities can occur even with a moderate reduction in sleep." Cognitive performance deficits included reduced ability to pay attention and react to a stimulus, such as when driving, or monitoring at airports. Other deficits involved impairment of the ability to think quickly and not make mistakes, and a reduced ability to multi-task — to hold thoughts in the brain in some order while doing something else.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 3554 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE Christopher Reeve, the actor who has been paralyzed and on a respirator since breaking his neck in a riding accident eight years ago, has had electrodes implanted in his diaphragm in an effort to restore his ability to breathe naturally. The results are extremely promising, said Dr. Raymond Onders, who performed outpatient surgery on Mr. Reeve at University Hospitals of Cleveland on Feb. 28. He can breathe without the respirator for more than two hours at a stretch compared with 10 minutes before the operation, Dr. Onders said. As his diaphragm muscles regain strength over the next couple of months, Mr. Reeve may be able to wean himself permanently from the respirator. While breathing on his own, he is regaining the ability to talk normally. And when he is breathing more normally — not through the ventilator's hole in his throat — he can smell odors for the first time since his accident. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Robotics; Regeneration
Link ID: 3553 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It's common knowledge that things aren't always as they appear, but a new study shows our brains are complicit in our vision errors even at the earliest point in the brain's visual processing system. In an article to be featured in an upcoming issue of Nature Neuroscience, David Ress of Stanford University and David Heeger of NYU report that activity in the brain's visual cortex corresponds to what the subjects perceive, rather than what they actually see. The scientists based their findings on experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure activity in carefully circumscribed regions of the visual cortex of the brain while human subjects performed a challenging visual discrimination task. Subjects attempted to detect the presence of slight contrast increments added to a background pattern. Behavioral responses were recorded so that the corresponding cortical activity could be grouped into four categories: "hits", when subjects correctly identified the image shown as the higher contrast image; "false alarms", when subjects misidentified the lower-contrast image as the higher contrast image; "misses", when subjects presented with the higher contrast image misidentified it as the lower contrast image; and "correct rejects", when subjects correctly identified the lower contrast image. Hits and false alarms produced significantly more cortical activity than misses, indicating that activity in the visual cortex corresponded to the subjects' precepts, rather than to the physically presented stimulus.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 3552 - Posted: 06.24.2010

-- Hormones and neurotransmitters secreted from cells via bubble-like vesicles are released using age-related criteria, with the youngest vesicles getting first shot at releasing their contents, according to research led by a University of Southern California (USC) physiologist. This is a "complete reverse" from what had previously been presumed to be the process behind hormone secretion, notes Robert Chow, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of physiology and biophysics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the study's principal investigator. In addition, he says, it now seems likely that upsetting this process may play a role in the development or progression of diseases of secretory cells, such as diabetes. The research will be published as the cover story in the March 13 issue of the journal Nature, which will feature an image from the research paper representing the movement of a single vesicle over time, from docking at the cell membrane to release of its neurotransmitter. The typical secretory cell-endocrine cells like those found in the adrenal gland or in the pancreas, as well as nerve cells that secrete neurotransmitters-is filled with tens of thousands of bubble-like vesicles. The vesicles form by budding off from the cell's golgi apparatus, an organelle found deep in the cell's cytoplasm.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 3551 - Posted: 03.13.2003

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition The world's first brain prosthesis - an artificial hippocampus - is about to be tested in California. Unlike devices like cochlear implants, which merely stimulate brain activity, this silicon chip implant will perform the same processes as the damaged part of the brain it is replacing. The prosthesis will first be tested on tissue from rats' brains, and then on live animals. If all goes well, it will then be tested as a way to help people who have suffered brain damage due to stroke, epilepsy or Alzheimer's disease. Any device that mimics the brain clearly raises ethical issues. The brain not only affects memory, but your mood, awareness and consciousness - parts of your fundamental identity, says ethicist Joel Anderson at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Robotics; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 3550 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition Using gene therapy to switch off genes instead of adding new ones could slow down or prevent the fatal brain disorder Huntington's disease. The method, which exploits a mechanism called RNA interference, might also help treat a wide range of other inherited diseases. "When I first heard of this work, it just took my breath away," says Nancy Wexler of Columbia University Medical School, who is president of the Hereditary Disease Foundation in New York. Though the gene-silencing technique has yet to be tried in people, she says it is the most promising potential treatment so far for Huntington's. It involves a natural defence mechanism against viruses, in which short pieces of double-stranded RNA (short interfering RNAs, or siRNAs) trigger the degradation of any other RNA in the cell with a matching sequence. If an siRNA is chosen to match the RNA copied from a particular gene, it will stop production of the protein the gene codes for (see graphic). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 3549 - Posted: 06.24.2010

- A University of Alberta professor of psychology has learned men tend to overestimate the number of sexual partners they've had, and he's come up with some interesting theories explain why they do this. Psychology professor Dr. Norman Brown said while some people might conclude this happens because "men are pigs," there is in fact, important information to be gathered from his survey of approximately 1,100 Albertans, who were asked to recall how many sexual partners they had had during their lives. "Some would say men overestimate the number of partners they have had because they are pigs and like to boast and brag about their conquests," Brown said.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3548 - Posted: 03.13.2003

Cocaine and amphetamine drug users struggle with the residual effects for up to a year after going cold turkey, research suggests. Previous studies have shown that former cocaine-users show impaired concentration, memory and learning skills up to six months after kicking the habit. But new research has found that the effects last for up to twice as long. Scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston studied 50 sets of twins, in which one had previously used cocaine or amphetamines, and the other had not. They found that people who had used drugs showed diminished concentration and motor skills in comparison with their sibling a year after quitting. (C) BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 3547 - Posted: 03.12.2003

By MELODY PETERSEN BOSTON, — Dr. David P. Franklin decided within weeks of accepting a job with the drug maker Warner-Lambert that he had become a crucial component in an apparent corporate plan to illegally market an epilepsy drug called Neurontin, he said today. In his first extensive interview since filing a federal lawsuit against the company in 1996, Dr. Franklin said he thought he had little choice but to blow the whistle on what he says was a scheme to ignore federal regulations and market Neurontin for more than a dozen uses it was not approved to treat. "We were truly experimenting on patients, which put them at risk," said Dr. Franklin, 41, a microbiologist and a former fellow at Harvard Medical School who worked as a medical liaison for Warner-Lambert. "I was involved in this, trained and asked to deceive physicians and take advantage of their trust, and I'm embarrassed by that." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 3546 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Animal behaviorists have something new to crow about. Researchers at the University of Washington have found a species of crow that distinctly alters its behavior when attempting to steal food from another crow, depending on whether or not the other bird is a relative. The Northwestern crow (Corvus caurinus) uses a passive strategy when it attempts to take food from kin but becomes aggressive when it tries to steal a morsel from a non-related crow. This is believed to be the first time that such a behavior pattern has been observed in any bird species. The findings are published in the current issue of the journal Bird Behavior by Renee Robinette Ha, a UW lecturer in psychology, and James Ha, a research associate professor of psychology. In a companion paper to be published in the next issue of the journal Animal Behavior, the Has, a husband-wife team, quantified scrounging or thievery attempts among Northwest crows. When birds found valuable items such as small fish or clams, other birds tried to steal the food 46 percent of the time and 41 percent of those attempts were successful.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 3545 - Posted: 03.12.2003

Unreal but strongly held beliefs, delusions and hallucinations are characteristic of someone suffering from schizophrenia. This devastating mental illness distorts the thinking processes of its victims. Schizophrenics may hear voices telling them that someone is out to harm them, or they may feel that their thoughts are being broadcast for everyone to hear, according to Richard Warner, medical director at the Mental Health Center at Boulder County in Colorado. Currently, the most widely available treatment is a variety of medications. But Warner says they are not completely effective for everyone, and in fact can be ineffective for many. He points out that, “only one of the newer drugs really works on what we call ‘treatment-resistant schizophrenia’—[for which] the other drugs don’t work—and that’s Clozapine.” But he adds that like all other schizophrenia drugs, even this has negative side effects like weight gain, seizures and diabetes. Now some psychologists in the United Kingdom have shown that schizophrenics can get a reality check by talking in detail about their feelings and experiences. They found that, when combined with medication, a therapy known as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help schizophrenics make sense of their experiences. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 3544 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Dilip V. Jeste, M.D., and Elizabeth W. Twamley, Ph.D. Psychiatric Times March 2003 Vol. XX Issue 3 With the aging of the baby boomers, the number of people in the United States older than 65 is projected to double from about 35 million today to nearly 70 million by 2030. There will be a disproportionately greater increase in the number of elderly Americans who suffer from a mental illness--from approximately 6 million today to about 15 million by 2030 (Jeste et al., 1999a). Younger adults who have a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, currently have a significantly shorter life span than those without mental illness. The average life span of these patients is expected to increase, thanks to improved pharmacologic and other treatments, as well as general improvement in health and nutrition. In addition, as people in the general population live longer, the numbers of individuals who will develop psychotic disorders in later life will also grow. One of the most disenfranchised groups in health care is older people with psychotic disorders. The health-related well-being of older patients with psychosis living in the community is comparable to (or even slightly worse than) that of outpatients with AIDS (Patterson et al., 1996). Acute psychotic symptoms in older people may reflect delirium or metabolic causes. Chronic and persistent psychotic symptoms belong to one of two groups: primary psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder, psychotic mood disorder) or psychosis secondary to dementia or other general medical conditions. Two important chronic psychotic disorders in older people that will be discussed in this article are schizophrenia in late life and psychosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). © 2003 Psychiatric Times. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Alzheimers
Link ID: 3543 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Modern humans derive fully from Cro-Magnons, Stanford anthropologist contends David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor For generations, scientists have puzzled and argued over one of the great mysteries in the genealogy of the early humans: What really happened to the big-boned, heavy-browed Neanderthal people who vanished from Earth thousands of years ago? And why were they succeeded so swiftly by the Cro-Magnon people, who were the first truly modern humans? Museums, movies, books and magazines depict the relatively sophisticated lives and dwellings of our lithe-limbed Cro-Magnon kin whose astonishing art graces cave walls all over Europe. By comparison, the Neanderthals are portrayed as lumbering, uncouth "cavemen," unable to fashion tools and weapons beyond crude clubs and spears. ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 3542 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JANE E. BRODY The phrase "it can't be done" does not seem to be a part of the vocabulary of Dr. Janice E. Brunstrom. Born 40 years ago, she was three months premature and weighed just three pounds. She has cerebral palsy that cripples both legs. Her parents were told she would be mentally retarded, a prospect that seemed highly unlikely when she learned to read at 4 and was further refuted when she became her high school's valedictorian. College, medical school and advanced training in pediatrics and pediatric neurology then gave her the qualifications to establish what may well be the world's most comprehensive center for children with cerebral palsy at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 3541 - Posted: 03.11.2003