Fish DNA Reveals Brain Clues by Mary Ann Swissler 3:00 a.m. Aug. 3, 2000 PDT Research on a 1997 pileup of poisoned fish in Chesapeake Bay is beginning to yield genetic clues into learning disorders. After marine biologists determined that the ocean-borne microbe pfiesteria was killing fish and making the people who ate them sick, they began looking at their data for a different reason. To their surprise, the DNA test used to track down the presence of pfiesteria demonstrated that the cells affected by pfiesteria-induced memory loss have a similar genetic makeup as the brain cells involved in learning disabilities.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 12 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Childhood Abuse and Adult Stress A Study Links Trauma, Depression and Response to Anxiety By ERICA GOODE Women who were physically or sexually abused in childhood show exaggerated physiological responses to stressful events, a new study has found. And this abnormal stress response, the researchers found, appears especially pronounced in women who also have symptoms of clinical depression. When exposed to mild stress induced in a laboratory setting, women in the study who suffered from depression and had a history of childhood abuse showed levels of ACTH, a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland in response to stress, six times as high as those in women without such histories. They also had higher levels of cortisol, another stress hormone, and higher heart rates than women who had not been abused. Women with a history of abuse who were not depressed also showed hypersensitivity to the stress, but to a less extreme degree.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 10 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Study: Brains grow furiously into puberty Children's brains change dramatically in key areas into puberty, researchers report in a new study that contradicts some long-standing assumptions about brain development. The anatomical changes -- described as ``fine-tuning'' -- surprised scientists in the United States and Canada who conducted the study published Thursday in the journal Nature.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 9 - Posted: 10.20.2001

The sudden emergence of a brain cell "chorus" from the cacophony of normal brain cell activity may enable the brain to pay close attention to one item in a flood of incoming sensory information, according to a report in this week's "Nature." The report, based on data acquired from monkeys, suggests that a baseball player tracking a fly ball through a cloud-cluttered sky, a driver reaching into a pocket to feel for keys, and a high-school student seeking a cafeteria dish that smells edible could all have something in common: Some of the nerve cells in the cortex, the sophisticated outer layer of the brain, may be sending messages in unison to allow them to pay attention to a single stream of sensory input.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 7 - Posted: 10.20.2001

Brain Abnormality Linked to Pathology By ERICA GOODE Ask the average social scientist why people become criminals, and the answer is apt to center on poverty and abuse, not brain structure and neurochemicals. But in a new study, appearing in the February issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers report that 21 men with antisocial personality disorder, a psychiatric diagnosis often applied to people with a history of criminal behavior, had subtle abnormalities in the structure of the brain's frontal lobe.

Keyword: Aggression
Link ID: 6 - Posted: 10.20.2001

N E W Y O R K, Feb. 28 - Taryn Sardis and her parents will never forget November 19, 1997 - on that day it was as if somebody had cast a spell on the 17-year-old. “I went to school and slept through my first-period class, which I don’t do,” Taryn said. Taryn’s father remembers getting a call to bring her home. “I picked her up. She went right back to bed,” Mr. Sardis said. “It was almost impossible to wake her up. And we thought someone had given her something or she had taken something,” Mrs. Sardis said. Ten days later, Taryn suddenly snapped out of it, and everything seemed to go back to normal - but not for long. She would be OK for a few weeks, but then mysteriously Taryn would sleep for about 20 hours a day for weeks at a time.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 4 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Deconstructing Smell and Taste
Summary: Linda Buck is exploring the mechanisms underlying smell, taste, and pheromone sensing in mammals. Her goal is to understand how the nervous system translates thousands of different chemical structures into diverse perceptions and behavioral responses. The Sensing of Odors and Pheromones Much of our research has focused on the mechanisms underlying olfactory perception. In mammals, the olfactory system detects odorants that elicit odor perceptions as well as pheromones that stimulate instinctive behaviors. The prevailing view has been that odorants are detected in the nose, while pheromones are detected primarily in the vomeronasal organ (VNO). Recently, however, we found that some odorants are also detected in the VNO. We have explored these two subsystems by identifying multigene families encoding odor and VNO receptors and then using receptor genes to study how the olfactory system detects different chemicals and how sensory information is organized in the brain to elicit perceptions and behaviors.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 1 - Posted: 10.20.2001