Autism: Pointing the finger From The Economist print edition A CHILD'S future really may be written in his hands--not in the creases of his palms but in the relative lengths of his fingers. A report just published in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology suggests that people with autism have ring fingers that are abnormally long compared with their index fingers. Children with autism have trouble interacting with other people. Both their verbal and their gesture-based communication is poor, and they often have low intelligence. Early hallmarks--a failure to point at things, follow the gaze of someone else, or engage in pretend play--are often obvious by the tender age of 18 months. About one child in 500 suffers from the condition. Copyright © 1995-2001 The Economist Newspaper Group Ltd

Keyword: Autism; Laterality
Link ID: 259 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Mother Is Just Another Face In The Crowd To Autistic Children Unlike normally developing and mentally retarded children, autistic 3- and 4-year-olds do not react to a picture of their mother but do react when they see a picture of a familiar toy, a University of Washington psychologist has found. Geraldine Dawson will report her result Thursday in Minneapolis at the annual meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Her finding suggests that an impairment in face recognition may turn out to be one of the earliest indicators of abnormal brain development in autism.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 258 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Your Cheating Heart: Questions for David Barash and Judith Eve Lipton Interview by DAVID RAKOFF Your new book contends that extramarital dalliances are natural throughout the animal kingdom -- even among such legendarily faithful species as geese. But how do you then make the leap to drawing conclusions about people? LIPTON: People are certainly unusual as mammals, but not that unusual. The evidence from anthropology and from biology suggests that by nature human beings are prone to what are called extra-pair copulations or E.P.C.'s, also known as philandering, adultery or cheating. BARASH: We've always known that males, by their biology, are particularly prone to looking for sexual opportunities. But we always assumed that females, with their yearning for a sort of cozy monogamous domesticity, were the exact opposite. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 257 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Researchers have the first evidence that cues that guide migrating nerve cells also direct white blood cells called leukocytes, which have to find their way to inflamed, infected or damaged areas of the body. The study is reported in the April 19 issue of Nature. "This similarity between the immune system and nervous system might suggest new therapeutic approaches to immune system disorders such as inflammation and autoimmune diseases," says Yi Rao, Ph.D., an associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Wu JY, Feng L, Park H-T, Havlioglu N, Wen L, Tang H, Bacon KB, Jiang Z, Zhang X, Rao Y. The neuronal repellent Slit inhibits leukocyte chemotaxis induced by chemotactic factors. Nature, April 19, 2001.

Keyword: Glia
Link ID: 256 - Posted: 10.20.2001

When to Abandon Your Nest Cold-hearted though it may seem, a breeding bird is sometimes willing to sacrifice its young to save itself, perhaps to breed again. Now researchers report that birds take two factors into account when deciding whether to risk delivering food to the nest in the presence of a predator: the number of their young and their own likelihood of surviving the encounter. The new study started with an earlier observation by physiological ecologist Cameron Ghalambor of the University of California, Riverside, and his colleague Thomas Martin at the U.S. Geological Survey in Missoula, Montana. They documented that birds in the Northern Hemisphere tend to lay more eggs than do similar species in the Southern Hemisphere. Then they examined if the number of eggs affected the parent birds' behavior, in particular, its willingness to return to the nest to feed their chicks when confronted with a predator. --ELIZABETH PENNISI Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 255 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Elephant Elders Deserve Respect There's good reason why elephants never forget. New research shows that the lifetime experience of the oldest female in an elephant group helps them discriminate friend from foe. Ultimately, groups with wise females produce more offspring. The results may extend to other animals as well, the researchers speculate, and may even explain why some populations of sperm whales have relatively few young. For the new study, reported in the 20 April issue of Science, animal communication researcher Karen McComb of the University of Sussex in Brighton, United Kingdom, and Sarah Durant of the Institute of Zoology in London studied 20 small family groups of elephants, each typically containing several females and their calves, in Kenya. Each group moves independently, often encountering other clans or individuals while foraging for food. --ELIZABETH PENNISI Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 254 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Bees brighter than we knew, study finds They pass cognitive tests usually given apes, people Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer Thursday, April 19, 2001 Bees are famously busy -- but they're also pretty brainy. Our pollen-hunting friends possess "higher cognitive functions," judging by cunning experiments in which the creatures learned to compare and distinguish different colors and patterns, according to today's issue of Nature. In what an outside expert praises as "an exciting discovery," the French researcher Martin Giurfa and four colleagues showed that honeybees -- that's Apis mellifera to bee fanciers -- excel at cognitive tests normally performed by lab primates and human volunteers. 2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 1

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 253 - Posted: 10.20.2001

From staff and the news wires
Russian scientists claim to have developed the first artificial brain, a "neuro-computer" with the same intellectual potential as its human counterpart, the Interfax news agency reported last weekend. The new Russian computer is based on the human brain cell, or neuron, and outstrips previous brain models by using state-of-the-art findings in neurophysiology and neuromorphology to produce a truly thinking machine, scientist Vitaly Valtsev said. (c) 2001 Christian Science Monitor

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 252 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Surprise Me, Please! When your body gets something it wants, a pleasure center near the front of the brain buzzes with activity. Now, psychologists have found that this reward region responds more strongly when the pleasurable stimuli it encounters are unpredictable. The results, reported in the 15 April issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, may lead to a better understanding of addiction. A key part of this reward circuitry is the nucleus accumbens, a patch of tissue in the forebrain about the size of an almond. When it is experimentally removed from the brains of drug-addicted animals, their cravings cease. In the late 1980s, researchers studying this pathway in monkeys found that it responded more strongly to unexpected, rather than predictable, stimuli. Other brain-imaging studies showed that the nucleus accumbens is active when humans receive a reward, whether drugs, money, or just plain sugar--but before the new study by Gregory Berns of Emory University and E. Read Montague of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, the role of surprise in activating the region in humans was unknown. --JOSH GEWOLB Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 251 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Chimps touched by television TOM CLARKE If you reach for your hanky as Leonardo DiCaprio slips beneath the freezing Altlantic waves in Titanic, or dive behind the sofa during Alien, you may not be alone. A new study suggests that humans are not the only animals to feel sad or scared when watching television - chimpanzees are also moved by video clips of fearful or appealing scenes. What's more, Lisa Parr of Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia has found that chimps (Pan troglodytes) respond physically to events portrayed in videos just as they would to the events themselves1. 1.Parr, L. Cognitive and physiological markers of emotional awareness in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Animal Cognition (2001) (In the press). © Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 250 - Posted: 10.20.2001

St. John's wort found futile against deep depression Big U.S. study contradicts earlier tests Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer Wednesday, April 18, 2001 St. John's wort, the popular herbal supplement taken to fight off the blues, has failed a tightly controlled scientific test to see if it really works against major depression. Nearly two dozen previous trials have found evidence that extracts of the little flowering weed were effective against depression -- perhaps as good as some prescription drugs. But this study casts doubt on the value of earlier trials. ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 11

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 249 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Having a high IQ may help you live longer, according to a study of elderly Scots. Researchers traced more than 2200 people who took the same mental test in 1932 and found that those who scored highest were significantly more likely to be alive in 1997. It's not clear why, however. The finding is based on a recently uncovered trove of raw data. On 1 June 1932, every 11-year-old schoolchild in Scotland sat down for the Scottish Mental Survey. The results were stashed in government archives for decades. Psychologist Ian Deary of the University of Edinburgh dug up the tests in 1997, seeing in them an unparalleled opportunity to track cognitive changes with age. Last year Deary and colleagues reported that they gave the same test to 101 of the subjects exactly 66 years later. The results demonstrated the stability of IQ throughout life. In addition, kids who scored high in 1932 today have better health and less dementia than their classmates who didn't perform as well. --CONSTANCE HOLDEN Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 248 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Understanding Huntington's Disease Researchers implicate a second protein in the debilitating illness Researchers are inching ever closer to a treatment for the inherited neurodegenerative disorder Huntington's disease (HD). Following close on the heels of recent optimistic reports on fetal cell implants1,2 comes a report from Johns Hopkins University that sheds light on a possible mechanism of neuronal destruction in HD.3 The work reveals possible new drug targets. Legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie's fight with HD brought the disease into the public eye in the 1960s. Today, some 30,000 people in the United States are affected by the late-onset, autosomal dominant condition. Early symptoms--such as anger or depression, repetitive fidgety movements, and a clumsiness and tendency to fall--may go unnoticed for years. Neurological deterioration, reflecting cell death in the brain's striatum, typically continues for 15 to 20 years. The Scientist 15[8]:14, Apr. 16, 2001 © Copyright 2001, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 247 - Posted: 10.20.2001

An owl knows where to aim its talons even in the dark, thanks to neurons that can pinpoint the sound of a rustling mouse. These space-specific neurons perform more sophisticated computations than expected, researchers say. While most neurons simply add incoming signals to come up with an answer, these neurons can multiply. Space-specific neurons receive two kinds of inputs. If a mouse squeaks to an owl's right side, that ear registers a slightly louder signal, and slightly sooner, than the left ear. Earlier research by Masakazu Konishi and colleagues showed that a set of auditory neurons calculates the difference in loudness and time and sends the results to neurons that are precisely tuned to particular locations. To learn how these neurons process the signals, neuroscientists José Luis Peña and Konishi of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena outfitted 14 barn owls with headphones and monitored space-specific neurons' responses to pairs of sounds. --LAURA HELMUTH Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 246 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Novel locale for ERs sparks new direction in steroid hormone research By Eugene Russo For years, endocrinologists believed that the actions of estrogen and other steroids were confined to the cell's nucleus. By presenting evidence for a plasma membrane estrogen receptor (ER), this paper made the rather unorthodox claim that estrogen also had cell biologic effects that originate in the plasma membrane. The results presented continue to be divisive. "There's been a tremendous turn-around by a number of prominent people in the field who are now looking at this concept very seriously," says senior author Ellis R. Levin, chief of endocrinology and metabolism at the Long Beach Veterans Affairs Medical Center and vice chairman for research in the department of medicine at the University of California, Irvine. The Scientist 15[8]:15, Apr. 16, 2001 © Copyright 2001, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Apoptosis
Link ID: 245 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Susan Okie, Washington Post Wednesday, April 11, 2001 Doctors in San Diego have implanted genetically modified cells into the brain of a 60-year-old woman with early Alzheimer's disease in an effort to slow her mental decline, members of the research team announced yesterday. The experimental surgery, which researchers hope to test in seven additional patients, represents the first trial of gene therapy for a degenerative brain disorder, said neuroscientist Mark Tuszynski, who heads the project. (c) 2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 3

Keyword: Alzheimers; Trophic Factors
Link ID: 244 - Posted: 10.20.2001

New Treatment for Some Ataxias People who inherit the neurological disease ataxia suffer from balance and coordination problems, seizures, and brain damage. By giving some of these patients a vitamin-like compound that helps the body turn food into energy, these symptoms can be alleviated, according to a small study reported in the 10 April issue of Neurology. The compound, called coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), plays an essential role in the series of biochemical reactions by which cells extract energy from sugars. Although CoQ10 is present in every cell in the body, researchers knew that a shortage of CoQ10 is particularly devastating to muscles, which need a lot of energy. Neurologist Salvatore DiMauro of Columbia University was studying a patient with wasted muscles when he discovered an unexpected link to hereditary ataxia. --CAROLINE SEYDEL Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 243 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Bowerbirds, Brainy Birds As bird behavior goes, the displays of bowerbirds are among the weirdest. Male bowerbirds have taken up architecture to impress females, building large hutlike structures of twigs, decorated with shiny beetles, shells, and other colorful touches. Now, a new study shows that bowerbirds have substantially larger brains, compared to their body size, than other birds. It seems that building and appreciating designer follies has led to smarter birds. To study the brain size of bowerbirds, zoologist Joah Madden of the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, borrowed 70 stuffed specimens of various bowerbird species from one of Britain's largest bird museums, the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum at Tring. He placed them under the x-ray machine of a friendly dental practice and took detailed measurements of their skulls. Using his data, he could calculate the original brain sizes. --MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN Copyright © 2001 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 242 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Weighing on your mind HELEN PEARSON Cannabis users know all too well the hunger that strikes after a smoke. Now researchers in the United States confirm that molecules in the brain, similar to those found in cannabis, have an everyday role in controlling food intake. Together with the fat-regulating hormone leptin, these 'cannabinoids' help to manage body weight1. Cannabinoids make mice eat. George Kunos and colleagues at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond find that mice genetically engineered so that cannabinoids have no effect in their brains eat less than normal after fasting. 1.Di Marzo, V. et al. Leptin-regulated endocannabinoids are involved in maintaining food intake. Nature 410, 822–825 (2001). Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - NATURE NEWS SERVICE Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2001 Reg. No. 785998 England.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 241 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Fat Cells May Combat Disease Hope for joint repair, brain implants Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Tuesday, April 10, 2001 Fat, the great American obsession, might aid treatments for a variety of conditions, from cartilage implants in damaged knees to brain implants for Parkinson's disease and strokes, researchers report today. A team of researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Pittsburgh has isolated stem cells -- primitive cells with the potential to become virtually any type of tissue -- from fat collected by liposuction and converted them into bone, cartilage and muscle. 2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 2

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 240 - Posted: 10.20.2001