By Benedict Carey Health Correspondent For generations scientists have studied the peacock feathers of human mating, the swish and swagger that advertise sexual interest, the courtship dance at bars, the public display. They've left the private experience -- what's happening in the brain when we fall for someone -- mostly to poets. We know there's an inborn human urge to mate, after all. Love is a mystery, a promise, an arrow from Cupid's bow. Yet recent research suggests that romantic attraction is in fact a primitive, biologically based drive, like hunger or sex, some scientists argue. While lust makes our eye wander, they say, it's the drive for romance that allows us to focus on one particular person, though we often can't explain why. The biology of romance helps account for how we think about passionate love, and explain its insanity: why we might travel cross-country for a single kiss, and plunge into blackest despair if our beloved turns away. Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3259 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Fears that taking the anti-impotence drug Viagra may damage nerves in the eye have been eased by a new study. However, researchers found that the drug may cause damage to the optic nerves of people whose blood vessels are already in a poor state. And they still cannot explain why taking the drug seems to be linked to problems in picking up subtle changes of colour. When Viagra was introduced in 1999, the drug's manufacturers warned of a number of visual side effects, including possible nerve damage to the eyes. But researchers at the University of California, Irvine found that nerve damage in healthy people is extremely unlikely - even when Viagra is taken in high doses. Since Viagra lowers blood pressure overall, there was persistent suspicion that the drug might reduce blood flow to the eyes, which can cause nerve damage. (C) BBC

Keyword: Vision; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3258 - Posted: 01.04.2003

By BLOOMBERG NEWS WASHINGTON, (Bloomberg News) — Prozac, the antidressant made by Eli Lilly, was approved for treating children and adolescents with depression, federal regulators said today. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Prozac for use in treating patients 7 to 17 years of age, the agency said after reviewing Lilly's research on the drug's safety. Lilly does not plan to promote the depression pill for children, the company said. For years, doctors have prescribed Prozac and similar drugs for children even though these medications were approved only for adults. Federal officials wanted to review safety issues for the drug, once the world's top-selling depression treatment with annual sales of more than $2 billion. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3257 - Posted: 06.24.2010

For many animals, making sense of odors is a matter of survival. Researchers studying mice have now discovered that a hormone called prolactin enhances the sense of smell by stimulating the development of new neurons. The upgrade is kick-started by mating and pregnancy, which cause prolactin levels to surge. Odors from putrid to pleasant are detected by specialized neurons that line the nose. These neurons alert the brain’s smell center, the olfactory bulb. From there, information is sent around the brain and processed, eventually confirming, for example, that yep, that milk has gone sour, and perhaps conjuring up the memory of the time you took a big gulp without checking. New olfactory neurons are created throughout life, but until now, researchers haven’t understood what regulates this neurogenesis. Copyright © 2003 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 3256 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Alderley Park, UK – AstraZeneca has announced that it has submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for quetiapine (Seroquel) to be granted a licence for the treatment of acute mania associated with bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). The application to the FDA follows the completion of a comprehensive clinical trial programme in bipolar disorder undertaken by AstraZeneca. The trials examined the efficacy and tolerability of quetiapine in the treatment of acute mania on two levels: as monotherapy (i.e to be prescribed on its own) and as adjunctive therapy with standard mood stabilising medication. These clinical trials have delivered strong and positive results in both the monotherapy and adjunctive therapy studies, which confirm quetiapine to be an ideal first line therapy for the treatment of acute mania associated with bipolar disorder. "Quetiapine is destined to be an important treatment option for patients suffering from bipolar disorder" commented Dr. Gary Sachs from Harvard Medical School, Boston, and lead investigator on the studies.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 3255 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Flashing lights are being used in a computer programme designed to help dyslexics improve their reading and writing skills. The makers say trials have shown a dramatic improvement in both adults and children with dyslexia. They claim children who went through the six-week programme advanced their reading age by 11 months. Under the programme, a person's heart is monitored and they are shown flashing lights and colours. The makers of the technology - called Brightstar - say watching the lights trains structures in the brain to work more efficiently and so helps word recognition. The company behind Brightstar is Advanced Learning Science. Chief Executive Jim Hinds says the results of trials have been very impressive. (C) BBC

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 3254 - Posted: 01.03.2003

The pharmaceutical industry has "created" a disease out of female sexual problems, it has been suggested. An article in the British Medical Journal suggests drug manufacturers are defining the condition in order to have a new market for products. Since the launch of Viagra to treat male impotence in 1998, its manufacturers Pfizer has reported sales of $1.5bn. Drug companies are now looking to recreate that kind of market with female sexual dysfunction, says the BMJ. It says females sexual problems are being wrongly "medicalised", and the numbers affected exaggerated. It also suggests some researchers are too closely linked to drug companies who sponsor conferences and research. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3253 - Posted: 01.03.2003

By JANE E. BRODY Over the course of a decade, despite trying every conceivable healthy way to lose weight and to keep it off, Sharon Clapp watched with alarm as her weight soared to 320 pounds from 220. Now 62 and about to become a grandmother for the second time, Mrs. Clapp, who is from St. Paul, had to face facts: physically, by some miracle, she was still healthy (and she wanted to stay that way), but she could not tie her own shoes, walk uphill unaided or travel to distant lands for fear she would not fit in narrow bus and airline seats. Nor did she want her grandchildren to grow up embarrassed by a hugely fat grandmother who could not take proper care of them. So, after careful investigation and discussions with a psychotherapist and various medical experts, Mrs. Clapp decided to undergo what has become the only truly successful weight-loss technique for the morbidly obese: surgery to greatly reduce the number of calories her body can consume and absorb. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 3252 - Posted: 01.03.2003

By CAROL KAESUK YOON Orangutans, those red-haired knuckle-dragging apes, are loping today into the upper echelons of the primate hierarchy. According to research reported in the journal Science, they exhibit what was until very recently considered a uniquely human attribute, culture. Drawing on years of research and thousands of hours of observations from six sites in the wild, an international team of scientists found evidence that orangutan groups differ across a spectrum from bedtime rituals to eating habits to sexual practices, patterns of behavior learned from being around others in a group that scientists call culture. Other researchers said four years ago that chimpanzees also exhibited widespread cultural differences, for example, in how they groom, hunt, eat and so on. Scientists say that the new work suggests that the two remaining great-ape species, gorillas and bonobos, are highly likely to have culture, as well, and that great-ape culture dates from at least the group's origin 14 million years ago. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 3251 - Posted: 01.03.2003

DURHAM, N.C. -- An international collaboration of primatologists has gleaned evidence from decades of observations of orangutans that the apes show behaviors that are culturally based. The scientists' findings push back the origins of culturally transmitted behavior to 14 million years ago, when orangutans first evolved from their more primitive primate ancestors. Previous evidence for cultural transmission in chimpanzees suggested an origin of cultural traits 7 million years ago. The researchers also warn that illegal logging and other habitat destruction in the forests of Sumatra and Borneo could not only threaten further research into the earliest origins of culture, but continue the dangerous decline in orangutan populations.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 3250 - Posted: 01.03.2003

COLLEGE STATION – They behaved just like pigs. Or at least, that's what a study of cloned pigs found at Texas A&M University. The behavior of cloned pigs, produced last year at Texas A&M, were compared to pigs bred normally. The recent study was completed by master's of science student Greg Archer, under the supervision of Dr. Ted Friend, professor of applied ethology in the department of animal science. "We found the variation within a litter of clones to be as variable or greater (than the normal litters) at least 80 percent of the time for all the tests that we did," Archer said.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3249 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CATHERINE CLABBY, Staff Writer What do you get when you kidnap lobsters from their home waters, blindfold them and test whether they find their way back? Big news. Animals with brains the size of peas can navigate in places they've never been. Science long assumed that only a handful of creatures, mostly migrating birds, had smarts enough to pull that off. © Copyright 2003, The News & Observer Publishing Company

Keyword: Animal Migration
Link ID: 3248 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have developed a new test for a rare brain disorder similar to Parkinson's Disease. They have found that all patients have a distinctive pattern of brain changes which can be detected by scanning. The genetic disease, known as Hallervorden-Spatz Syndrome (HSS), affects the basal ganglia. A number of neurological disorders, including Parkinson's, Huntingdon's disease and Tourette's syndrome, are also believed to arise from problems in this part of the brain. Researchers hope the test could lead to a better understanding of what goes wrong as well as improved diagnosis of the rare condition. (C) BBC

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 3247 - Posted: 01.02.2003

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition A bonobo has surprised his trainers by appearing to make up his own "words". It is the first report of an ape making sounds that seem to hold their meaning across different situations, and the latest challenge to the orthodox view that animals do not have language. Kanzi is an adult bonobo kept at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He has grown up in captivity among humans, and is adept at communicating with symbols. He also understands some spoken English, and can respond to phrases such as "go out of the cage" and "do you want a banana?" Jared Taglialatela and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, who work with Kanzi, noticed that he was making gentle noises during his interactions with them. "We wanted to know if there was any rhyme or reason to when they were produced," says Taglialatela. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Language; Animal Communication
Link ID: 3246 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — When Susan Clancy, a psychologist at Harvard University, wanted to study people with memories of events that had never happened, she cast her net wide. So wide it reached galaxies far, far away. Have you ever been "contacted or abducted by space aliens?" the newspaper ads she ran read. Researchers at Harvard, the ads said, were seeking subjects "to participate in a memory study." The responses tumbled in. From people outraged that a venerable institution like Harvard would raise such oddball questions. From illegal immigrants who thought that Dr. Clancy was asking about abductions by the border police. From reporters, and from tricksters who left the names of unsuspecting friends. From people who, Dr. Clancy guessed, believed that they were aliens themselves, and left messages that went "beep-bop-boop." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 3245 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Early studies find good results with Crohn's disease as well Ulysses Torassa, Chronicle Health Writer The first in a new class of drugs targeting an aspect of the immune system works remarkably well against multiple sclerosis and Crohn's disease, scientists report today. In one of two studies being published in the New England Journal of Medicine, MS patients given the experimental drug natalizumab showed a decrease in relapses of 45 to 75 percent, and a 90 percent reduction in new lesions in the central nervous system. The second study found that one regimen of the drug produced a remission rate in Crohn's patients twice as high as that seen in a group given a placebo. MS, which affects about 400,000 people in the United States, is a neurological disease in which the body's own immune cells eat away at the protective sheaths surrounding nerves in the brain and spinal cord. In Crohn's, estimated to affect half a million Americans, immune cells infiltrate the intestinal system, damaging tissues and producing chronic inflammation. Both illnesses often strike young and middle-aged adults in the prime of life. For MS patients in particular, natalizumab appears promising, although it is not a cure. Most other therapies work by dampening nerve inflammation. They produce unwanted side effects and have shown a more modest reduction in relapse rates. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Stress
Link ID: 3244 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Thrasy Petropoulos As Chris Underhill, a north London estate agent, pulled up at a set of traffic lights he felt ambivalent about the Allen Carr stop-smoking session he had just attended. It was supposed to be - as the brochure put it - 'the easy way to stop smoking'. But after five hours in a smoke-filled room with fellow hopefuls and a group therapist he could not say whether he had smoked his last cigarette. Then he spotted a man in a car alongside his with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. "Mug," he blurted. It was a word he could not recall using before, but it came out all the same. And three years on, neither he nor his wife, Julia, who also attended the clinic that day, have smoked another cigarette. (C) BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 3243 - Posted: 01.01.2003

Drug attacks the very cells that allow users to feel its effects ANN ARBOR, MI – New research results strongly suggest that cocaine bites the hand that feeds it, in essence, by harming or even killing the very brain cells that trigger the "high" that cocaine users feel. This first-ever direct finding of cocaine-induced damage to key cells in the human brain's dopamine "pleasure center" may help explain many aspects of cocaine addiction, and perhaps aid the development of anti-addiction drugs. It also could help scientists understand other disorders involving the same brain cells, including depression. The results are the latest from research involving postmortem brain tissue samples from cocaine abusers and control subjects, performed at the University of Michigan Health System and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System. The paper will appear in the January issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Depression
Link ID: 3242 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NEW YORK, (AP) Chronic cocaine use harms brain circuits that help produce the sense of pleasure, which may help explain why cocaine addicts have a higher rate of depression, a study suggests. It's not clear whether cocaine kills brain cells or merely impairs them, or whether the effect is reversible, said study author Dr. Karley Little. But it's bad news for cocaine addicts in any case, he said. "I personally wouldn't want to lose 10 or 20 percent of my reward-pleasure center neurons, or have them just deranged or not working right," said Little, of the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Michigan. By Malcolm Ritter © MMIII The Associated Press

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Depression
Link ID: 3241 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NATALIE ANGIER In these days of extravagant bio-worryism, the menace of the moment is smallpox: Is it yesterday's bane or tomorrow's gift from Saddam Hussein? Few people realize that there is a counterpoint scourge, the great pox, named to distinguish its large and asymmetric skin rashes from the knobby little blisters that characterize smallpox. The great pox was long as feared as smallpox, for it provoked a wide and insidious array of symptoms: deep aches in the bones and joints, loss of appetite, blinding headaches with vomiting, blurring of vision, deafness, a feeling of being poisoned, "lightning pains" in the hands, feet and eyes, periods of paranoia, exhaustion, depression and rage alternating with exaltation and bursts of creative energy and grandiosity, and, finally, dementia, paralysis and death. In fact, the great pox mimicked such a multitude of ailments — from measles, lupus and epilepsy to manic-depression and schizophrenia — that it was often called the Great Imitator. And any of these other diagnoses might have been preferable to sufferers and their families than was the genuine verdict, with its taint of moral turpitude. The pox, after all, was a venereal disease, a fanged souvenir of carnal indulgence — what we now call syphilis. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3240 - Posted: 06.24.2010