Neuroscientists trying to tease out the mechanisms underlying the basis of human sympathy have found that such feelings trigger brain activity not only in areas associated with emotion but also in areas associated with performing an action. But, when people act in socially inappropriate ways this activity is replaced by increased activity in regions associated with social conflict. Understanding the neurophysiology of such basic human characteristics as sympathy is important because some people lack those feelings and may behave in anti-social ways that can be extremely costly to society, said Dr. Jean Decety of the University of Washington. Decety heads the social-cognitive neuroscience laboratory at the UW's Center for Mind, Brain & Learning and is lead author of a new study that appears in a just-published special issue of the journal Neuropsychologia. In the study, Decety and doctoral student Thierry Chaminade used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to explore what brain systems were activated while people watched videos of actors telling stories that were either sad or neutral in tone. The neutral stories were based on everyday activities such as cooking and shopping. The sad stories described events that could have happened to anyone, such as a drowning accident or the illness of a close relative. The actors were videotaped telling the stories, which lasted one to two minutes, with three different expressions – neutral, happy or sad.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 3099 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A Purdue University psychology professor says that infants appear to understand much more than they are given credit for. "Infants appear to learn words and grammar simultaneously," says George Hollich, director of the Infant Language Lab and assistant professor of psychological sciences. "This underscores the importance of talking to them, early and often." Hollich is studying how infants learn language in the Infant Language Lab, a component of the Purdue Baby Lab in the School of Liberal Arts. The Baby Lab is co-directed by Hollich and Barbara Younger-Rossmann, who also is director of the Infant Cognition Lab. Babies, ages 5 months to 2 years, participate in both labs.

Keyword: Language; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3098 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Experts say it’s important for health and safety that everyone get plenty of rest By Alicia Carmichael Michael Zachek tries to get a full eight hours of sleep every night. As a physician who specializes in pulmonary and critical-care medicine and sleeping disorders at Graves-Gilbert Clinic, he goes to bed at 10 p.m. If he’s lucky, he sleeps until 6 a.m. “I’m an intensive-care doc, too, so I get called all night, every night,” he said. Zachek talked last week in the Sleep Diagnostics Center at Greenview Regional Hospital, where he also practices, about the importance of getting a good night’s sleep.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 3097 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ST. PAUL, MN -- An anticonvulsant drug typically used to control seizures and neuropathic pain may reduce symptoms among those who suffer from restless legs syndrome (RLS), a movement disorder that affects up to 10 percent of the population. A study published in the November 26 issue of Neurology, journal of the American Academy of Neurology, concludes, “Gabapentin may be a potent agent for treatment of even severe RLS, without the disadvantages of long-term complications of previously favored treatments,” according to study author Diego Garcia-Borreguero, MD, of the Fundacion Jimenez Díaz in Madrid, Spain. RLS is characterized by: an urge to move the legs, generally accompanied by unpleasant sensations; an increase of symptoms during rest and a partial, temporary relief of symptoms through activity; and worsening of symptoms in the evening or at night. Symptoms tend to progress with age. RLS is usually treated with dopaminergic drugs, such as those used with Parkinson’s disease patients. However, the side effects and likelihood of long-term complications have driven the search for RLS treatment options.

Keyword: Movement Disorders
Link ID: 3096 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Comas may be caused by damage to a particular part of the brain which wakes us up every morning. A great deal is known about the parts of the brain that control us falling asleep. But what happens when the brain wants us to wake up is a little more of a mystery. Dr Bidi Evans, from King's College Hospital in London suggests there is a definite physical "switching on" process in the brain which allows us to emerge from sleep. She suggests that damage to sleep mechanisms may have a significant role to play in patients who are comatose. Since this process involves many different parts of the brain, she says, damage to any or all of them may rob us of this vital ability. This would mean that the patient may lie comatose because the brain is simply unable to wake itself up. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 3095 - Posted: 12.02.2002

By GINA KOLATA Patrick Keogan wanted to be big, like the men with the ripped muscles he saw at the gym. "I was training like an animal," he said, working out seven days a week. But he seemed to have reached his biological limit: 5 feet 8 inches tall, 150 pounds. "Finally, it dawned on me," he said. Those huge men at his gym who insisted they were simply lifting weights were dissembling. "There was something they were not telling me," Mr. Keogan said. Thus Mr. Keogan, a 30-year-old salesman who lives near Boston, entered the world of anabolic steroids — testosterone and other drugs that act like it, which can build muscle, fast. He soon was taking 4,000 milligrams of testosterone a week, which he bought from dealers at his gym. (A man his age normally produces about 35 milligrams a week.) Within 20 weeks, he weighed 200 pounds. "People would look at me," he said, and ask, "What did you do?" Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Muscles
Link ID: 3094 - Posted: 06.24.2010

For the brain to stay online, it needs quick delivery of oxygen and energy. Now, neuroscientists have identified the brain cells that order blood supply for humming parts of the brain. Understanding the link between brain activity and changes in blood flow is crucial to further improve clinical brain scans, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which chart changes in brain activity via measurements of blood flow. Once dismissed as mere scaffolding in the brain, starlike cells called astrocytes are stepping into the limelight. Astrocytes are far more abundant than the electrically powered neurons, and each one features entangled fingerlike processes connected to more than a thousand nerve cells. Positioned close to the neuronal chat sites, the synapses, astrocytes sense neuronal activity and can even influence it, a fact that researchers have come to appreciate in recent years. Astrocytes are also hooked up to the fine network of capillaries that feed neurons, but their interaction with blood vessels has remained mysterious. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Glia
Link ID: 3093 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NASA researchers are learning new things about the human brain by studying how astronauts regain their balance. Balancing is not as easy as it seems--just try to stand on one foot for a full minute, and you'll get a sense of the constant effort involved. It's one of those complex skills like reading that becomes so automatic with practice, we simply forget how tricky they were to learn. And, like reading, you might suppose it would take something extraordinary to make you forget. Indeed it does. Like traveling to space. Researchers have found that astronauts who return from a space voyage can still balance, but they find it far more difficult. That's because, explains NASA neuroscientist Bill Paloski, their brains are no longer sure how to interpret the information that comes from their senses.

Keyword: Muscles
Link ID: 3092 - Posted: 12.02.2002

Scientists have identified a critical, new stem cell protein – a marked advance in the elucidation of the molecular blueprint of stem cells. Drs. Robert Tsai and Ronald McKay at the NIH have discovered a novel gene, called nucleostemin, whose encoded protein is necessary for maintaining the proliferative capacity of embryonic and adult stem cells, and possibly some types of cancer cells. Their report is published in the December 1 issue of the scientific journal Genes & Development. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent progenitor cells that can differentiate into all of the cell types of the body. Adult stem cells, in contrast, have a less versatile potential: Their differentiation is generally restricted to the cell types of a specific tissue (although recent work has expanded the previously known range of adult stem cell differentiation potential).

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 3091 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Chemical reduces anxiety using novel nerve system in body Irvine, Calif. -- Man-made chemicals that are distant relatives of marijuana may eventually become new drugs to combat anxiety and depression, according to a UC Irvine College of Medicine study. The study is the first to show how anxiety is controlled by the body's anandamide system, a network of natural compounds known for their roles in governing pain, mood and other psychological functions. While marijuana relieves anxiety by working on the same system, laboratory rats given the new drugs don't seem to suffer the side effects produced by THC, marijuana's active ingredient. The study appears on Nature Medicine's Web site and will be published in the January 2003 issue. After designing and testing a number of different chemicals, pharmacology professor Daniele Piomelli and his team found two, called URB532 and URB597, which relieved anxiety and worked in ways far gentler than THC.

Keyword: Depression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 3090 - Posted: 12.02.2002

Researchers finding genes that probably create fertile ground for illness to take root By SUE GOETINCK AMBROSE / The Dallas Morning News Identifying a gene for schizophrenia is a lot harder than finding a needle in a haystack. Genes for some rare hereditary conditions – such as cystic fibrosis – are easier to spot, standing out like a single silver needle against the yellow hay. But genes for some common and complicated conditions, such as schizophrenia, are camouflaged. Scientists hunting down these genes aren't looking for one shiny needle, but are sifting through the genetic haystack for several dozen pieces of hay that don't look that different from the rest. ©2002 Belo Interactive

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3089 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CAROLYN ABRAHAM MEDICAL REPORTER Scientists have created new compounds that act like cannabis on the brain to reduce anxiety and depression -- but without the hunger or the high. By prolonging the punch of the cannabis-like chemicals that the brain makes naturally, researchers from the United States and Italy have shown in rat experiments that they can copy certain benefits of the common street drug with far fewer side effects. If the new compounds pass in clinical testing, these synthetic cannabinoid cousins could herald a new generation of antidepressants, offering the calm of marijuana without the munchies. © 2002 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc.

Keyword: Depression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 3088 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A hormone imbalance may cause chronic fatigue syndrome, a study suggests. Researchers in Germany have found that a hormone called ACTH does not work properly in people with the condition. ACTH plays an important role in helping the body cope with physical and psychological stress. The study is the latest attempt to discover the causes of this debilitating condition, which affects 243,000 people in the UK. Previous studies have suggested that exposure to chemicals or allergies may trigger the syndrome. Other studies have indicated that it may be caused by an abnormal immune system response to stress. (C) BBC

Keyword: Stress; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 3087 - Posted: 12.01.2002

Researchers puzzle over brain illness in North American wildlife Susan Milius This autumn, the nation's big-game hunters are lifting their guns and bows in the service of science. They're collecting the biggest sample ever of deer and elk brains—predicted to total 200,000—to test for a once-obscure wildlife disease that's become the stuff of headlines and headaches coast-to-coast. So-called chronic wasting disease strikes mule deer, white-tailed deer, and elk. It riddles the brain with tiny holes as the victim slowly withers and dies. Once found in the wild only in an area intersecting Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska, the disease appears to be spreading. This year, it turned up in wild herds in South Dakota, New Mexico, and Canada and jumped all the way to Wisconsin and Illinois. This disease belongs to the same class of maladies as mad cow disease, which appeared in Britain in 1986 and about a decade later, showed up in people who had eaten tainted meat. Last year, some 11 million people hunted deer and elk in the United States, and many more helped them eat their prizes. So far, the news for hunters looks reassuring. Several weighty groups, including a panel from the World Health Organization, have concluded that there's no evidence so far that people can catch chronic wasting disease. From Science News, Vol. 162, No. 22, Nov. 30, 2002, p. 346. Copyright ©2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 3086 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Beam could help repair spine damage or wire up implants. PHILIP BALL A laser beam can guide nerve cells to grow in a particular direction, researchers have shown. The technique might help damaged nerves to regrow or could connect them to electronic implants, such as artificial retinas and prosthetic limbs. Rat and mouse nerve cells growing over a glass plate take the path pointed out by a red laser, report Allen Ehrlicher, of the University of Leipzig in Germany, and colleagues1. The cells move towards the spot of laser light, travelling as if down a gentle slope, they think. Moreover, the laser does not harm the cells, the researchers report, even if it leads them along a zigzag. Normally, cells don't like making sharp turns; forced to do so, they soon try to straighten out. Previous attempts to guide cells in channels or on adhesive tracks damaged their delicate walls. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 3085 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A group of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have solved the structure of an enzyme that modulates central nervous system (CNS) functions such as pain perception, cognition, feeding, sleep, and locomotor activity. The enzyme, described in the latest issue of the journal Science, is called fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), and it breaks down certain fatty signaling molecules that reside in the lipid membranes of CNS cells. The TSRI group reports that FAAH modulates the action of these fatty signaling molecules through an unusual mechanism of action whereby it scoops them out of the cell membranes and chews them up. "I envision that if someone could make a specific inhibitor to FAAH, you could, in principal, get pain relief without any of the side effects," says Benjamin Cravatt, one of the paper's lead authors and an investigator in TSRI's Department of Cell Biology, Department of Chemistry, and The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 3084 - Posted: 12.01.2002

Berkeley - Nearly 40 years ago scientists were startled to discover that the eye, far from being a still camera, actually has cells that respond to movement. Moreover, these cells are specialized to respond to movement in one direction only, such as left to right or right to left. Now, in a paper in this week's issue of the journal Nature, biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, have finally detailed the cellular circuit responsible for motion detection in the eye's retina. This circuit, which enables us to track moving objects, serves as an example of other brain circuits, some of which perform thousands of computations every second. The findings could aid the design of bionic eyes that track motion and process visual information like our own eyes.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 3083 - Posted: 12.01.2002

Baby's first look at the world is likely a dizzying array of shapes and motion that are meaningless to a newborn, but researchers at the University of Rochester have now shown that babies use relationships between objects to build an understanding of the world. By noting how often objects appear together, infants can efficiently take in more knowledge than if they were to simply see the same shapes individually, says the paper published in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Roughly 100 babies, all about nine months of age, watched a series of shapes such as squares, circles, and arrows appearing together on a screen while researchers watched the babies' attention. József Fiser postdoctoral fellow and Richard N. Aslin, professor of brain and cognitive sciences, wanted to see if the nine-month-olds would pay more attention to the pairs of shapes that occurred most often in a crowded scene. "It's long been assumed that we use relationships among parts of scenes to learn which parts form whole objects, but the idea has never been tested, nor was it clear how early this ability develops," says Fiser. "This research shows that building a concept of the world by recognizing relationships among shapes in images is possibly innate, and a very essential ability in babies."

Keyword: Vision; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3082 - Posted: 12.01.2002

Environmental enrichment that stimulates brain activity can reverse the long-term learning deficits caused by lead poisoning, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health . It has long been known that lead poisoning in children affects their cognitive and behavioral development. Despite significant efforts to reduce lead contamination in homes, childhood lead poisoning remains a major public health problem with an estimated 34 million housing units in the United States containing lead paint. The Hopkins study is the first to demonstrate that the long-term deficits in cognitive function caused by lead can be reversed and offers a basis for the treatment of childhood lead intoxication. The findings appear in the online edition of the Annals of Neurology. “Lead exposure during development causes long-lasting deficits in learning in experimental animals, but our study shows for the first time that these cognitive deficits are reversible,” said lead author Tomás R. Guilarte, PhD, professor of environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “This study is particularly important for two reasons. First, it was not known until now whether the effects of lead on cognitive function were reversible. Secondly, the environmental enrichment that reversed the learning deficits was administered after the animals were exposed to lead. Environmental enrichment could be a promising therapy for treating millions of children suffering from the effects of lead poisoning,” added Dr. Guilarte.

Keyword: Neurotoxins; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3081 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Susan R. Farrer, Contributing Writer Health Behavior News Service Avoiding stressful life events and learning effective coping skills may help avert flare-ups of multiple sclerosis (MS) in women with the disease, new findings suggest. Researchers recruited 23 women with MS from the Multiple Sclerosis Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and followed them for a year. Each week, the women completed questionnaires asking about MS symptoms and life events, such as starting a new job, finding out that a child is doing poorly in school, having a motor vehicle accident, and being physically assaulted. Every four weeks, the women were interviewed about the nature and timing of life events they had experienced, and the life events data were later analyzed with the MS exacerbation data.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Stress
Link ID: 3080 - Posted: 12.01.2002