Researchers funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have found that an inexpensive program that trains primary care providers to work with patients and mental health specialists to diagnose and properly treat depression can reduce the time that participating patients spend clinically depressed. Over a two-year period, the program reduced the duration of participating patients' depression by well over a month. The training program cost less than $500 per depressed patient and increased the time that the depressed patients spent employed during that two-year period by about four workweeks. NIMH Director Steven E. Hyman, M.D. said, "This study shows that reducing the suffering that depression brings to nearly 19 million Americans a year, in a cost-effective way, is an achievable goal."

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 638 - Posted: 10.20.2001

By ERIC NAGOURNEY Healthy people over 60 on a course to develop memory problems show distinctive changes in their brains that can be seen with PET scans, even if the people experience no symptoms, a new study reports. The researchers administered mental acuity tests to 48 healthy people from 60 to 80 years old, and scanned their brains. Three years later, they re-evaluated the study group, and found that 11 of the people who had slowed glucose metabolism in part of the brain had cognitive impairment. The 12th had Alzheimer's. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers; Brain imaging
Link ID: 636 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Some of Grandma's health advice (wet feet cause colds, for instance) has not panned out. Some has stood the test of time (such as the idea that roughage-that is, fiber-is good for you). Fish as brain food may also get the nod from scientists. It has already gotten the nod for its cardiovascular benefits. There's now evidence that eating fish can play a positive role in mental health. It may sound like a joke, but the brain is largely composed of fat. Fats, along with water, are the chief components of brain cell membranes and the specialized tissues enclosing the nerves. The anti-fat message promoted as part of heart-healthy diets these days makes it easy to forget that not all fats are "bad," and that some types are essential to human life. © 2001 Health Letter Associates

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 634 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Emma Young The first clinical trial of a drug to treat vCJD will begin in the UK within weeks, says the Department of Health. However, experts are concerned that the prospects for a fully controlled investigation into the drug's effectiveness are slim. The trial has been spurred by the announcement in August of the "remarkable recovery" of a 20-year-old British woman, suspected of suffering from vCJD. She received quinacrine, conventionally used to treat malaria, along with chloropromazine, an anti-psychotic drug. However, the scientists at the University of California, San Francisco found the approach produced no improvement in a second American patient with classical CJD, which is not caused by eating BSE-infected material. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 632 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Moth larvae defend their homes with bad vibrations. JOHN WHITFIELD When caterpillar confronts caterpillar, it's a leaf-shaking event. Moth larvae settle turf wars with percussion battles, say researchers - residents deter intruders by drumming out a warning on their home leaf. Acoustic communication between caterpillars may be widespread, agrees entomologist Jim Costa of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. 1.Yack, J. E., Smith, M. L. & Weatherhead, P. J. Caterpillar talk: acoustically mediated territoriality in larval Lepidoptera. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 98, 11371 - 11375, (2001). © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001

Keyword: Animal Communication; Hearing
Link ID: 629 - Posted: 10.20.2001

A culturing technique produces a large source of potent cells for use in brain-disease treatment. By Jamie Talan NEWSDAY Researchers have isolated two specific populations of brain cells from human fetal tissue and expanded them in culture, yielding an incredibly large and still potent source of cells for eventual transplantation to treat a number of brain diseases. Steve Goldman and his colleagues at Cornell University Medical College said this technique "should allow us to produce 60 cells from every one cell we start with." They can obtain 10 million cells from tissue procured from one fetal brain, which means multiplying each by 60. The new cells retained their ability to act as neural stem cells. © 2001 KnightRidder.com

Keyword: Stem Cells; Parkinsons
Link ID: 627 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Scientists strive to understand how the brain translates sensory stimuli By Jennifer Fisher Wilson Freshly cut lilac, fingernails on a chalkboard, just-baked apple pie, satin and silk, the vivid hues of a sunset. Such sensory stimuli shape people's lives. They arouse and change, elate or sadden, calm or agitate. They tap memories of yesterday or years ago. Information that travels through the eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and skin define the world: what the senses don't perceive, the brain will never know. René Descartes, the famous 17th century French mathematician, philosopher, and physiologist, postulated that all information reaches the brain through the senses. He has since been proven correct: all sensory cues do end up there, arriving as electrical impulses in nerve fibers. But understanding how this happens and how this process can be manipulated is still being decoded. The Scientist 15[18]:1, Sep. 17, 2001 © Copyright 2001, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 626 - Posted: 10.20.2001

The oldest known hominid fossils yet found in southern Africa have been uncovered at the world-famous Sterkfontein Caves just north of Johannesburg. The remains, which include limb-bone and skull fragments, have been dated to be about 3.5 million years old. They were discovered by Dr Ron Clarke, and colleagues, of the University of the Witwatersrand.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 625 - Posted: 10.20.2001

A P300 event-related potential (ERP) is a brief electrical wave in a person's electroencephalogram (EEG). The P300 is a measure of the way the brain pays attention and discriminates between potentially important and non-important stimuli. People with anxiety disorders are believed more likely to use alcohol to self-medicate their anxiety. P300 amplitude may distinguish which anxious individuals are vulnerable to becoming alcoholic. Alcoholism is a genetically complex disorder. That is, it is produced by an unknown number of genes that interact in an unknown fashion with one another and with an unknown variety of environmental factors. To dispense with the mystery, individuals who wish to identify their risk for developing alcoholism can undergo a noninvasive measure of brain electrical activity called P300 event-related potential (ERP), one of the few brain measures associated with risk for alcoholism.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 624 - Posted: 10.20.2001

The body's endogenous opioid system has three classes of opioid receptors: mu, delta, and kappa. Previous research showed that mice lacking the mu opioid receptor do not drink alcohol. A new study shows that mice lacking the delta opioid receptor drink more alcohol. The delta opioid receptor may also play a mediating role between stress and alcohol consumption. The body's endogenous opioid system has traditionally been linked with peptides such as enkephalins and endorphins, which influence the brain's reward pathway to act as the body's natural response to pain. A study in the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research has found that the endogenous opioid system may also be important for the reinforcing properties of alcohol.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 623 - Posted: 10.20.2001

TAMPA, Fla (Sept. 17, 2001) -- A nicotine patch boosts the effectiveness of drugs administered to relieve the involuntary movements and other symptoms of Tourette's syndrome -- even when the drug dosage is cut in half, a University of South Florida College of Medicine study found. The double-blind, placebo-controlled study, published in the September issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Tourette's Syndrome Association of America. It demonstrated that a low-dose nicotine patch may be useful, particulary in alleviating the motor tics of children with Tourette's syndrome.

Keyword: Tourettes
Link ID: 622 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Copyright Scripps McClatchy Western Service By EMILY RICHMOND, Las Vegas Sun LAS VEGAS - When she needed a fix, Helene would flip through the yellow pages, looking for a doctor she had not yet fooled. Addicted to hydrocodone, a powerful prescription painkiller, Helene became an expert at "doctor shopping" - visiting numerous physicians to obtain multiple prescriptions. "You go to the doctor and say your back hurts, that was always good for a few refills," said the Las Vegas woman, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy. "Supply was never a problem." Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 621 - Posted: 10.20.2001

BY MARK COURT, HEALTH INDUSTRIES CORRESPONDENT ELAN CORPORATION, the Dublin-based drugs group, is to begin phase III trials of a unique treatment for multiple sclerosis, the devastating disease in which the body's immune system attacks its own nerves, after the release this weekend of positive phase II trial results. The drug, named Antegren and developed in partnership with Biogen, the US biotechnology company, showed more than a 90 per cent reduction in the formation of brain lesions. These lesions reflect the activity of the disease and determine its clinical symptoms. Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 619 - Posted: 10.20.2001

By WES ALLISON © St. Petersburg Times, 2001. With few effective drugs available, researchers will try draining toxins from the brains of Alzheimer's patients in hopes of slowing the disease and its mind-wasting effects. Fifteen U.S. medical centers, including the University of South Florida in Tampa, are participating in a clinical trial in which shunts will be implanted in the skulls of Alzheimer's sufferers. These plastic shunts then will drain two types of toxic proteins, called beta amyloid and tau, that accumulate in the brains of people with Alzheimer's.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 615 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Bruce Bower A nearly toothless jawbone found last year in France, which represents an early form of the Neandertals, speaks volumes about the ancient roots of providing life-saving care for the injured and infirm, according to a new report. The partial jaw, dated at between about 169,000 and 191,000 years old, contains extensive bone damage and loss. It belonged to an adult who survived for at least 6 months while being virtually unable to chew food, concludes archaeologist Serge Lebel of the University of Quebec in Montreal and his colleagues. Survival for this prehistoric individual required the caring efforts of his or her fellow Neandertals, Lebel's group concludes in a paper slated to appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. From Science News, Vol. 160, No. 11, Sept. 15, 2001, p. 167. Copyright ©2001 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 614 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Susan Milius The most common myth that people have about cats is that they're solitary, asocial creatures, fumes Sharon L. Crowell-Davis, a behavioral veterinarian at the University of Georgia in Athens. Supposed standoffishness hurts an animal's image, says Crowell-Davis, and she diagnoses the perceived aloofness of Felis catus as the main contributor to outbursts of anticatism. Which species provided the devious villains in the recent movie Cats & Dogs, for example? Not the romping, barking pack. And don't even get her started on the humor book that lists a hundred and one uses for a dead cat. Crowell-Davis contends that even in the scientific community, stereotypes of cat asociality persist. From Science News, Vol. 160, No. 11, Sept. 15, 2001, p. 172. Copyright ©2001 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 613 - Posted: 10.20.2001

By forcing people to eat chocolate until the point of disgust, researchers have demonstrated what happens to the brain when a good stimulus turns bad. The results shed light on the brain regions involved in addictions and eating disorders, the researchers say, which seem to tap into the same brain circuitry. "Chocolate is the number one craved food, so this is sort of an in-house model of addiction," says cognitive neuroscientist Dana Small at Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago. To look at what brain regions become active when people eat chocolate, Small and colleagues fed chocolate bars to nine self-proclaimed chocoholics and measured blood flow in the brain using positron emission tomography (PET). After each of seven snacks, the subjects were asked whether the sweets tasted good and whether they wanted more. Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Obesity; Emotions
Link ID: 611 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Scientists at Emory University have been able to increase bonding behavior in monogamous male prairie voles by transferring a receptor gene for the neuropeptide arginine vasopressin (AVP) into a particular region of the brain. The study reinforces previous findings that monogamy in voles, including the formation of pair bonds, is enhanced by vasopressin, and it is the first study to demonstrate that complex social behaviors, such as social attachment, can be increased by viral vector gene transfer. The research is reported in the September 15 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Emory University neurobiologist Larry J. Young, Ph.D., of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience and the Yerkes Primate Research Center, and his colleagues used an adenovirus vector to deliver the gene for the vasopressin receptor (V1aR) into an area of the voles' brains called the ventral pallidum - an area already known to naturally express V1aR in monogamous voles.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 610 - Posted: 10.20.2001

By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News Sep. 13 - Just hours after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Tuesday, the world's best searchers were on the job - elite canines trained to sniff out both survivors and those who perished in the disaster. From as far away as California, teams of handlers and their FEMA-certified search dogs were starting the heart-wrenching, dangerous task of searching for victims in the rubble. Hopes were high, however, that survivors will be found and rescued soon, said those involved with preparing dogs for this work. Copyright © 2001 Discovery Communications Inc

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 609 - Posted: 10.20.2001

DURHAM, N.C. -- A drug approved for the treatment of depression and smoking cessation appears effective for long-term weight loss in obese women, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center. The study results, which appear in the Sept. 12 issue of Obesity Research, show that women who took bupropion (trade name Wellbutrin) combined with a 1,600-calorie per day diet lost significantly more weight than women on placebo and the same diet, and those effects were sustained for up to two years, according to Dr. Kishore Gadde, director of obesity clinical trials at Duke and lead investigator of the study. Approximately 97 million Americans are estimated to be overweight or obese, according to a 1998 report on obesity published by the National Institutes of Health.

Keyword: Obesity; Depression
Link ID: 608 - Posted: 10.20.2001