Copyright © 2002 AP Online By RICK CALLAHAN, Associated Press - By implanting electrodes in rats' brains, scientists have created remote-controlled rodents they can command to turn left or right, climb trees and navigate piles of rubble. Someday, scientists said, rats carrying tiny video cameras might search for disaster survivors. "If you have a collapsed building and there are people under the rubble, there's no robot that exists now that would be capable of going down into such a difficult terrain and finding those people, but a rat would be able to do that," said John Chapin, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at the State University of New York in Brooklyn. The lab animals aren't exactly robot rats. They had to be trained to carry out the commands. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 1987 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Until recently, scientists thought human ears were passive devices that detected and processed sounds, but new findings suggest that ears are like perpetually turned on stereo receivers that quiver spontaneously and sing along with incoming sounds. The latest findings, published in the May issue of the journal Physics World, help to explain why some people's ears emit noise that actually can be heard by passers by. According to Thomas Duke, a physicist at The Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University in England, at least four major discoveries about how the ear works were made in recent months. The first is that hair bundles — filament-like sensors in the inner ear that are deflected by sound waves — have been found to vibrate spontaneously, which can itself produce noise similar to a stereo speaker. Copyright © 2002 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 1986 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Richard Black Scientists in Norway have for the first time managed to turn one sort of human cell into another. Conventional scientific wisdom has been once a skin cell, always a skin cell. All the evidence has been that nerve cells can only produce other nerve cells, muscle cells only produce other muscle cells, and so on. But researchers at the University of Oslo have turned the conventional view on its head. (C) BBC

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 1985 - Posted: 05.01.2002

STANFORD, Calif. - Using microarray technology, researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have uncovered thousands of genes that may be involved in multiple sclerosis. Although some of the genes are new, others were known genes that had previously been thought to play roles that were unrelated to MS. These results could lead to new treatments and help clarify previous observations about the disease. "We've been bumping around looking at a few genes," said Lawrence Steinman, MD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences. "Now there are hundreds if not thousands of other genes that may be critical." This work will be published in the May issue of Nature Medicine. MS occurs when cells of the immune system target their attack on cells that insulate neurons in the brain. The disease generally progresses in stages with an acute attack followed by a recovery - or chronic phase - in which the insulating cells degenerate and scar tissue builds up. Eventually, the disease can lead to paralysis and sensory disturbances such as blindness or deafness.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 1984 - Posted: 05.01.2002

Whether it's a widely prescribed medication or a placebo, a successful treatment for depression must trigger a common pattern of brain activity changes, suggests a team of researchers funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Using functional brain imaging, Helen Mayberg, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, have found increased activity in the cortex accompanied by decreases in limbic regions in patients who responded to either the popular antidepressant fluoxetine or to a placebo. They propose that this pattern of changes may be necessary for therapeutic response. However, patients who responded to fluoxetine also experienced unique changes in lower areas -- brainstem, striatum and hippocampus -- thought to confer additional advantage in sustaining the response long term and preventing relapse. The researchers report on their Positron Emission Tomography (PET scan) study in the May 2002 American Journal of Psychiatry.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 1983 - Posted: 05.01.2002

(REUTERS) Two new studies could shed more light on why infants who lie on their stomachs are more likely to die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. One shows that lying prone can twist a baby's neck so far that the arteries leading to the head become blocked, and another showed that nerve cells near brain arteries may not work properly. Both support the recommendation that babies be put to sleep on their backs. ©MMII, CBS Worldwide Inc, All Rights Reserved

Keyword: Sleep; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 1982 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JENNIFER HOYT The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- Concussions are common in soccer, with better training needed for coaches and parents to identify and treat children who may get serious head injuries, according to the Institute of Medicine. "A lot of people -- parents anyway -- found soccer more appealing for their kids because they saw it as less dangerous than football," said Janet Joy, who prepared a review for the institute. "But the fact is, concussions are just as frequent in soccer." Players can get concussions from heading the ball, colliding, running into goalposts or hitting their heads on the ground. A player who has a second concussion before recovering from the first may suffer brain swelling that could lead to brain damage and death. Copyright 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 1981 - Posted: 05.01.2002

By Brian Reid Special to The Washington Post Ten years ago, researchers stumbled onto a striking finding: Women who believed that they were prone to heart disease were nearly four times as likely to die as women with similar risk factors who didn't hold such fatalistic views. The higher risk of death, in other words, had nothing to with the usual heart disease culprits -- age, blood pressure, cholesterol, weight. Instead, it tracked closely with belief. Think sick, be sick. That study is a classic in the annals of research on the "nocebo" phenomenon, the evil twin of the placebo effect. While the placebo effect refers to health benefits produced by a treatment that should have no effect, patients experiencing the nocebo effect experience the opposite. They presume the worst, health-wise, and that's just what they get. © 2002 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 1980 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service Men are more likely to spoil their female partners and keep a close eye on their movements around the time of ovulation. This could be an evolutionary strategy to keep women away from other men during fertile periods, say the researchers who carried out a questionnaire study. "Non-paternity" rates vary from country to country but between one and 30 per cent of children are not the offspring of their purported father. Steven Gangestad and colleagues at the University of New Mexico, US, found that women fantasised more about other men just before ovulation and that their partners apparently responded to this increased risk of unfaithfulness. "It was clear from the results that the women's primary partners were more attentive and proprietary near ovulation," Gangestad says. "The results suggest a conflict of interest between the sexes when women are fertile." © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 1979 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JULIE BAIN Snoring can be a sign of something much more serious, and George Resto's wife at the time, Sonia, was worried. "She used to tell me I was snoring a lot, really loud," Mr. Resto, 39, of the Bronx, said. "But she was concerned because I also couldn't breathe. I would just gag and gasp for air over and over again." Mr. Resto did not think much of it. He often felt exhausted, but attributed it to waking up at 4:30 a.m. for his job as a sanitation worker. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 1978 - Posted: 04.30.2002

A Mayo Clinic study reports that narcolepsy, a sleep disorder, is more common in men and originates in their 20s. The study, which appeared in a recent edition of the journal Sleep, also found that narcolepsy without cataplexy -- a sudden loss of muscle tone -- is an important subgroup, warranting further study. Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder associated with excessive daytime sleepiness, involuntary daytime sleep episodes, disturbed nocturnal sleep and cataplexy (weakness with emotions such as laughter). Narcolepsy affects over 100,000 people in the United States. Copyright © 1995-2002 ScienceDaily Magazine

Keyword: Narcolepsy; Sleep
Link ID: 1977 - Posted: 06.24.2010

An international team of researchers leaded by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona have found experimental evidence that the various manifestations of fear in animals are influenced by a specific place or region within the genome. The results, published in the latest edition of Genome Research, were obtained with rats, but the scientists suspect that this research will facilitate an understanding of genetic characteristics and conditioning factors related to fear in humans. Demonstrating that a gene influences susceptibility to fear involves the need to determine the connection between the gene’s activity and a range of various behavioural and manifestation forms pertaining to this activity. To date, however, studies carried out in this area have only been able to establish a link between genetic charge and a few isolated tendencies related to fear. © AlphaGalileo 2002

Keyword: Emotions; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 1976 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The National Science Foundation has given its highest honor for a young researcher to a man of many dimensions. Erich Jarvis is a performing artist turned scientist. He overcame economic disadvantage as a child growing up in New York City's Harlem to become a top young researcher at Duke University -- one of only 52 African American men out of more than 4,300 biologists who received Ph.Ds. in 1995. Despite his parents' divorce and his father's intermittent homelessness, Jarvis claimed from his parents and other family members their best qualities - education, creativity, drive, sensitivity and compassion - and turned it to his own advantage as he developed into one of the nation's most promising young scientific minds. Today named to receive the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Alan T. Waterman Award, NSF's highest honor for a young scientist or engineer, Jarvis was chosen for his individual achievements and leadership in studying the brain system of vocal learning birds.

Keyword: Animal Communication
Link ID: 1975 - Posted: 04.30.2002

A just-published study describes for the first time a method of culturing important but poorly understood cell structures called Hirano bodies. The report by cellular biologists at the University of Georgia could shed light on numerous diseases in which Hirano bodies may play some role - including Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's Disease and cancer. The research was just published in the Journal of Cell Science and was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Alzheimer's Association. Hirano bodies - named for their discoverer - have been known for several decades, and their presence in autopsy tissue of Alzheimer's patients has led to speculation that they may play a role in disease processes. Studying Hirano bodies, however, has been extremely difficult because they have been resistant to culturing in the laboratory.

Keyword: Alzheimers; ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 1974 - Posted: 04.30.2002

ARTICLE: "Small intestinal enteropathy with epithelial IgG and complement deposition in children with regressive autismÓ It remains unclear whether autism is a single disease or a condition occurring as an end result of various abnormalities. Fundamental uncertainty remains about the relative input of genetic predisposition and environmental exposures. Central to this uncertainty is the conflicting evidence concerning the incidence of autism. While there are several reports of rapid increase in incidence in Western countries - suggesting an important environmental component - others suggest that the increase is more apparent than real, and dependent on increased recognition , thus favoring a primarily genetic predisposition. Most research has focused on the genetics of autism, and several genes have been implicated in classic autism. This study is based on children with a form of autism characterized by regression in the second year of life, after apparently normal early development. Most reports of immunological abnormalities in autistic children have been from this subgroup of affected children, and the authors cite the increasing body of evidence for abnormal immune regulation and autoimmunity in autism. The initial observation of unexpected bowel pathology in autistic children came from the same group, and centered on pathology in the colon (Lancet 1998; 351: 637-641, American Journal of Gastroenterology 2000; 95: 2285-2295). Use of immunohistochemical techniques had suggested a novel form of colitis, in which the epithelium of the colon was particularly affected (Journal of Pediatrics 2001; 138: 366-372), and, thus, possibly suggestive of autoimmunity.

Keyword: Autism; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 1973 - Posted: 04.30.2002

By Barbara Feder Ostrov Mercury News Fifty years ago, physician supply catalogs carried a wide array of sugar pills and tonics in all kinds of shapes and colors. Known as placebos, these were sham medicines, inert substances that sometimes made sick patients feel better, especially when they came from a kindly, authoritative family doctor. Physicians no longer dispense sugar pills, of course. But the placebo effect remains a powerful force in modern medicine, a mysterious victory of mind over body that seems to flout the cherished objectivity of medical science. New brain-imaging studies show for the first time how and where the placebo effect kindles changes in the brain, renewing interest in the topic. Researchers are searching for ways healers can work with the placebo effect, rather than against it, to help patients -- an endeavor in keeping with Americans' keen interest in alternative medicine.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 1972 - Posted: 04.30.2002

By Marianne Szegedy-Maszak In the darkened office of Lexicor Health Systems in Boulder, Colo., 11-year-old Shannon closes her dark brown eyes and sits quietly in her chair. She is wearing a multicolored electrode-studded cap, which transmits the electrical impulses of her brain to an electroencephalogram, or EEG. Behind her on a computer screen scrawl 19 wild lines that represent the activity in several regions of her brain. One would never surmise from Shannon's Zen-like demeanor what the brain scan is detecting inside her head: that she is one of the more than 2 million children in America who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The result of Shannon's session will be a QEEG–a "quantified EEG" that will allow diagnosticians to statistically compare her brain with thousands of others. What they are interested in, specifically, is the proportion of low-frequency theta brain waves to much faster beta waves in a region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. Studies have suggested abnormalities in both these rhythms associated with attention–or lack of it. Children produce a lot of low-frequency theta brain rhythms when they struggle to concentrate, and when their concentration is overwhelmed by too much stimulation they produce the speedier beta waves. By comparing what Shannon's brain does with both "normal" brains and those of others who have been diagnosed with ADHD, researchers at Lexicor are hoping for the first time to provide a quantitative tool to help identify this vexing disorder. Genetic mystery. The QEEG may never become the "gold standard" in diagnosing ADHD. But it illustrates how increasingly sophisticated understanding of brain activity may offer clinicians greater confidence in their diagnosis. It may also hold out promise for the 20 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD who do not respond to the usual stimulant treatment–by identifying a pool of symptoms that they all might share. Clearly, genes play a role in ADHD, because it runs strongly in families, but no ADHD gene has yet been identified. Lacking that kind of definitive diagnostic tool, a deeper understanding of the neurology underlying the disorder could help clinicians untangle true ADHD from accompanying disorders and disorders that resemble it. Indeed, QEEG is one of several brain-scanning technologies now being deployed to home in on the unique properties of the distracted mind. © 2002 U.S.News & World Report Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 1971 - Posted: 06.24.2010

FORTUNE examines business leaders and artists who have gone beyond the limitations of dyslexia. By Betsy Morris Consider the following four dead-end kids. One was spanked by his teachers for bad grades and a poor attitude. He dropped out of school at 16. Another failed remedial English and came perilously close to flunking out of college. The third feared he'd never make it through school--and might not have without a tutor. The last finally learned to read in third grade, devouring Marvel comics, whose pictures provided clues to help him untangle the words. These four losers are, respectively, Richard Branson, Charles Schwab, John Chambers, and David Boies. Billionaire Branson developed one of Britain's top brands with Virgin Records and Virgin Atlantic Airways. Schwab virtually created the discount brokerage business. Chambers is CEO of Cisco. Boies is a celebrated trial attorney, best known as the guy who beat Microsoft. © Copyright 2002 Time Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 1970 - Posted: 06.24.2010

For some people, overeating is not the only culprit By Myrna E. Watanabe Sedentary people who enjoy high-caloric diets—adults and children alike—are getting dangerously fat.1 Along with the increased weight comes complications. Take obesity, for example. It is a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes. Once considered a strictly adult disease, Type 2 diabetes is now diagnosed in both preadolescents and adolescents.2 Some researchers believe that the interaction between obesity-related genes and society's increasingly sedentary lifestyle and fat-filled diet is to blame. The questions of when and how the environmental triggers set off the genes have, as of yet, no answers. The first hint that obesity has a genetic rather than a totally behavioral basis came in 1994 when Rockefeller University researchers identified the obese gene and cloned the murine version of it.3 The mice were obese, suffered from Type 2 diabetes, and lacked the protein leptin which appears to act primarily on the hypothalamus, where it influences appetite and energy use. The discovery opened the genetic floodgates. "[It] was the paradigm shift that turned [obesity] into a tractable problem," remarks clinical endocrinologist Stephen O'Rahilly, University of Cambridge, who studies the genetics of childhood obesity. O'Rahilly's research had focused on severe insulin resistance in children; after the discovery, he shifted to investigating leptin deficiency in extremely obese youngsters and their families. "Among the first kids we looked at, we did find a pair of first cousins who were [leptin] deficient," says O'Rahilly. In total, they found three families with this deficit; the children had extremely large appetites. "It was the first demonstration that a human being could become severely obese on the basis of a simple genetic defect," he states.4 O'Rahilly points out that these children are not comparable to the average, overeating child in the United States or United Kingdom; the leptin-deficient children would become obese as long as food was available. But even more remarkable than the gene's discovery and its effect in people was the decreased appetites seen in these children when given leptin therapy. O'Rahilly is currently preparing this research for publication. © Copyright 2002, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 1969 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY Randolph Maddix, a schizophrenic who lived at a private home for the mentally ill in Brooklyn, was often left alone to suffer seizures, his body crumpling to the floor of his squalid room. The home, Seaport Manor, is responsible for 325 starkly ill people, yet many of its workers could barely qualify for fast-food jobs. So it was no surprise that Mr. Maddix, 51, was dead for more than 12 hours before an aide finally checked on him. His back, curled and stiff with rigor mortis, had to be broken to fit him into a body bag. At Anna Erika, a similar adult home in Staten Island entrusted by the state to care for the mentally ill, three other residents had previously jumped to their deaths when a distraught Lisa Valante, 37, sought help. But it was after 5 p.m. and, as usual, the residents, some so sick they cannot tie their shoes, were expected to fend for themselves. No one stopped Ms. Valante, then, from flinging herself out a seventh-floor window. Sometimes at these homes, the greatest threat can be the person who sleeps in the next bed. Despite a history of violent behavior, Erik Chapman was accepted at Park Manor in Brooklyn. After four years of roaming the place with a knife, Mr. Chapman stabbed his roommate, Gregory Ridges, more than 20 times. At last, Mr. Chapman was sent to a secure psychiatric facility. Mr. Ridges was sent to Cypress Hills Cemetery at the age of 35. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Alzheimers
Link ID: 1968 - Posted: 04.29.2002