Rats that have kicked a cocaine habit will desperately try to get the drug again if researchers stimulate a memory center in their brains. In contrast, there's little effect if they stimulate the brain area that produces the high itself. The new study shows for the first time where the rat retains the craving for the drug. And it opens up the possibility of new targets for treating addiction. Attempts to develop new drugs to treat addiction usually focus on the brain's all-purpose "reward" area--a dopamine-rich pathway called the medial forebrain bundle in the rat. But in recent years, scientists have found indications that the reward function operates independently of craving for a drug. --CONSTANCE HOLDEN Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 280 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Size and shape matter JOHN WHITFIELD "It's quite clear that the structure of the brain is ultimately governed by natural selection," says neuroscientist Samuel Wang of Princeton University. His team has worked out what percentage of the total brain volume is taken up by different brain regions in different species. This breakdown, christened 'cerebrotype', could shed light on brain evolution and the relationships between species1. Wang and colleagues found that within a particular group, such as tree shrews or Old World monkeys, the relative sizes of different parts of the brain seem to remain fairly constant, despite huge variations in overall brain size. But between groups, there are big differences in brain architecture. 1.Clark, D. A., Mitra, P. P. & Wang, S. S.-H. Scalable architecture in mammalian brains. Nature 411, 189–193 (2001). 2.Barton, R. A. & Harvey, P. H. Mosaic evolution of brain structure in mammals. Nature 405, 1055–1058 (2000). 3.Stevens, C. F. An evolutionary scaling law for the primate visual system and its basis in cortical function. Nature 411, 193–195 (2001). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 279 - Posted: 06.24.2010

James E. Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor (217) 244-1073; kloeppel@uiuc.edu; 5/1/2001
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - By recognizing both visual and audio cues, a self-aiming camera being developed at the University of Illinois can tell the difference between an airplane and an albatross. The camera system, which could find use as an intelligent sentinel in sensitive military applications, originally was built to demonstrate the versatility of a simulated neural network, which the researchers modeled after the superior colliculus of the human brain.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 278 - Posted: 10.20.2001

By DAVID SCHWAB c.2001 Newhouse News Service
A drug derived from daffodil bulbs and first described by Homer goes on sale this week as the newest weapon against Alzheimer's disease. "The Odyssey," written 2,500 years ago, contained perhaps the first recorded suggestions that extracts from a milky-white flower might affect the mind, and the new medicine can trace its origins to this ancient reference.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 277 - Posted: 10.20.2001

To Sleep No More By D. T. MAX Sometime in their 50's, half the members of an aristocratic Italian family die of insomnia. In their search to understand their obscure gothic affliction, they inadvertently helped explain the cause of mad cow disease. In 1791, in a small town near Venice, a man named Giacomo was born. Members of his family tended to be physically impressive, powerful and broad-shouldered (and still are today), but one day in the fall of 1836, at the age of 45, Giacomo fell mysteriously ill. He began to suffer from dementia. Eventually he was confined to bed, lying awake in torment. Then he died. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 276 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Adult stem cells may adapt for body's benefit 'Astounding' ability could repair damaged human organs, tissue David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor Friday, May 4, 2001 For the first time in the fast-moving field of stem cell research, scientists have discovered that primitive cells in adult bone marrow can transform themselves into an "astounding" variety of other cells crucial to many parts of the body. Until this discovery, researchers had believed that only the so-called stem cells of embryos in their earliest stages of growth could possess this kind of wide-ranging ability. ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 3

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 275 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Neuroscientists are mining an unlikely source for new treatments. Venoms. Researchers found that venoms contain many compounds that have an exceptional ability to zero in on specific targets in the nervous system. Insights into the specialized abilities of select venom components may lead to new treatments for a number of nervous system ailments. Scorpions, snails, snakes and spiders unleash venoms through their fangs or stingers. They hurt, stun and kill. Clearly the poisonous cocktails are bad news for an attacking bird, tasty-looking fish or hapless human. It turns out, however, that venoms are grand news for neuroscience. New research indicates that venoms contain many molecules packed with exceptional targeting abilities that interfere with specific internal mechanisms. Exploiting this characteristic may help solve a variety of problems in the nervous system, according to accumulating evidence from work on animals and humans. Copyright © 2001 Society for Neuroscience. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without permission of the Society for Neuroscience.

Keyword: Neurotoxins
Link ID: 274 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Seizures seem to hit an epileptic at random moments. But scientists have discovered that bursts of electricity in the brain can precede an attack as early as 7 hours. The study may help researchers predict seizures--and possibly prevent them. Many clinicians have long suspected that an epileptic seizure originates long before its symptoms appear; for one thing, patients sometimes perceive intuitively that a seizure is on its way. So far, though, most of the measurements of electrical activity in the brain have focused on the first few minutes before a seizure, when neurologists can pick up strong abnormal bursts of activity on an electroencephalogram. --CHARLOTTE SCHUBERT Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 273 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Fussy females play away JOHN WHITFIELD Breeding with a member of another species is generally thought to be pretty pointless. When a horse mates with a donkey, for example, the resulting mule is sterile. But, in the woods of Sweden and the Czech Republic, it can actually pay some female birds to set up home with males of a different species. Ben Sheldon, of the University of Oxford, and colleagues have discovered that female collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis) have sophisticated ways of avoiding the pitfalls of hybridization when they mate with male pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca)1. 1.Veen, T. et al. Hybridization and adaptive mate choice in flycatchers. Nature 411, 45­50 (2001). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 272 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Molecule Reduces Alzheimer's Plaques in Brain The highways and byways through which the brain exchanges messages require maintenance much as any municipal road. Crucial to these thoroughfares are the trash collectors, which prevent the accumulation of toxic waste. What would happen if such debris were left to accumulate? Alzheimer's disease would result. Unfortunately, that scenario plays itself out over and over again in the brains of the four million Americans with the disease. Now, researchers at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the UCSF department of neurology have identified a molecule that could be key to getting trash-collecting cells, called microglia, back to work. The University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, (415) 476-9000, Copyright © 2001, The Regents of the University of California.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 271 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Weight gain causes weight loss JOHN WHITFIELD Surgically implanting weights into mice fools them into thinking that they have got fatter. They slim down accordingly and stay slim even after the weights are removed, new research has discovered1. The result points to a means of weight regulation based on the body's perception of how heavy it is and controlled through the nervous system. If the same pertains in humans, ballast might just be the new fat buster. 1.Adams, C. S., Korytko, A. I. & Blank, J. L. A novel mechanism of body mass regulation. Journal of Experimental Biology 204, 1729­1734 (2001). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 270 - Posted: 10.20.2001

TOM CLARKE
When a male dove goes a-wooing he must strike a subtle balance between strutting his stuff and showing his sensitive side. A female needs to be convinced that he is macho enough to sire strong offspring, yet tender enough to help her raise them. When the time is right, a biological catalyst called aromatase puts a stop to the rough stuff Leonida Fusani at the Max Planck Research Centre for Ornithology in Andechs, Germany and colleagues have found. It is aromatase that, by breaking some chemical rings, brings on the billing and the cooing1. Fusani, L., Gahr, M. & Hutchinson, J. B. Aromatase inhibition reduces specifically one display of the ring dove courtship behavior. General and Comparative Endocrinology 122, 23­30 (2001). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 269 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Back from the Brink Psychological treatments for schizophrenia attract renewed interest By Bruce Bower Leslie Greenblat learned she had schizophrenia long after she had begun to hear, in her words, "thought-voices." She heard them all the time, whether she was driving, reading, shopping, or talking with friends. The disembodied remarks seemed to come from someone whose intimidating and demoralizing pronouncements couldn't be ignored. Greenblat's condition first landed her in a psychiatric hospital in 1990. Over the next 3 years, the young woman was briefly hospitalized another dozen times. After each discharge, she took antipsychotic medications for a few months until the thought-voices receded. Invariably, however, they returned. From Science News, Vol. 159, No. 17, Apr. 28, 2001, p. 268. Copyright © 2001 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 268 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Scientists use gene injections to make blind dogs see Doctors think similar method could help thousands of people Washington Post Saturday, April 28, 2001 Dogs born blind are seeing the world for the first time after scientists injected new genes into their eyes. The unprecedented feat may give hope to the nearly 10,000 Americans born with the same disease -- and hundreds of thousands of others with closely related forms of blindness. ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 3

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 267 - Posted: 10.20.2001

3 promising stem cell studies fuel debate over embryo use Rick Weiss, Washington Post Friday, April 27, 2001 Three research reports released yesterday provide tantalizing evidence that cells from human embryos and fetuses have the potential to cure ailments affecting millions of Americans -- a conclusion likely to intensify an already heated debate over the ethics of human embryo cell research. In one report, old rats performed better after scientists injected brain cells from aborted human fetuses into the rodents' age-addled brains. It's the first indication that such transplants can prompt cognitive improvements, and it hints at a treatment for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 1

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 265 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Researchers produce new diagnosis standard By K.C. Jaehnig CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Using a mathematical model originally developed overseas to measure achievement test results, three Illinois researchers have put together a "yardstick" they say doctors could use when trying to diagnose Alzheimer's disease. "Alzheimer's disease affects nearly 4 million people in this country, but it can be diagnosed only by ruling out all other possible causes for the dementia," said A. Kyle Perkins, a linguist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale who specializes in language testing.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 264 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Humanity: its all in the mind HELEN PEARSON The difference between chimps and humans is all in the mind. It is differences in our brain's gene activity that really sets us apart from chimps, delegates at the Human Genome Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, heard this week. "I'm interested in what makes me human," explains Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. After sequencing 3 million letters of the chimp genome and comparing them with the human draft, his group reasoned that DNA sequence can't be it: only 1.3% of letters are different. Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 263 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Researchers Discover Human Gene that May Produce Sweet Taste Receptor April 23, 2001- Two research groups led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators have independently identified a human gene that encodes a likely receptor for sweet compounds. The researchers say finding the gene, which is expressed by the tongue's taste cells, opens an important research pathway that may help answer fundamental questions such as how the brain perceives sweet taste and why molecules with dramatically different chemical structures can taste sweet. Discovery of the candidate sweet taste receptor adds to a repertoire of recently discovered receptors thought to be involved in the perception of bitter and umami tastes. 2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 262 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Gene double troubles minds HELEN PEARSON Everyone knows what it's like to feel worried. But anxiety disorders such as phobias are crippling forms of irrational fear that may be in part caused by an unusual genetic double-act, the annual Human Genome Meeting in Edinburgh heard this week. People with phobias are often double-jointed or ‘hypermobile' as well. Xavier Estivill of the Medical and Molecular Genetics Centre in Barcelona, Spain, and his colleagues used this phenomenon to help hunt down the genes involved. Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 261 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Chords strike a grammatical note TOM CLARKE The region of the brain that allows us understand whether a sentence makes sense may also help us tell the difference between a symphony and cacophony new research suggests1. The Broca's area - a brain region that processes the syntax, or word arrangement in a sentence - is activated when people hear a musical chord in the wrong place in a traditional progression of chords. So Burkhard Maess and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig, Germany find. 1.Maess, B., Koelsch, S., Gunter, T. C. and Friederici, A. D. Musical Syntax is processed in Broca's area: an MEG study. Nature Neuroscience 4, 540–545 (2001). Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 260 - Posted: 06.24.2010