By Rachel Zamzow One night in December 2013, Hans Korbmacher awoke in a fury. The book-loving, introverted 10-year-old was feverish, agitated and gnawing on his tongue. He headed downstairs, leaped onto an ottoman and threw his hands over his head, startling his parents. He was “clearly not present,” says his mother, Heather Korbmacher. When the same thing happened two weeks later, she thought fevers may have induced Hans’ bizarre behavior. A nurse said it could be the flu. Meanwhile, Hans’ condition worsened. He was anxious and volatile. His handwriting, once a model of penmanship, morphed into angry scribbles. And he became a peculiarly picky eater. Korbmacher, a behavioral specialist for schools in Bellingham, Wash., tried to manage Hans’ symptoms on her own. “It was working OK during those first five months, until it was absolutely not,” she says. Extreme rages came weekly and then daily, keeping Hans out of school. He punched holes in walls and ripped down curtains. The worst part: Hans was acutely aware that something was very wrong. He pleaded with his parents to make it stop. “He would beg us to kill him,” Korbmacher says. Several doctors’ appointments later, a psychiatrist suggested that Hans’ symptoms stemmed from obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. The diagnosis seemed off base to Korbmacher until she read online about a rare form of OCD with a mouthful of a name: pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcal infections, or PANDAS for short. Hans had all but one of the listed symptoms. Korbmacher immediately had Hans tested for a strep infection. A throat swab came back negative, but blood tests revealed that he had four times the typical levels of immune molecules that the body produces in response to a strep infection. © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2019.

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 26542 - Posted: 08.26.2019

Ashley P. Taylor When adults have strokes affecting a structure called the arcuate fasciculus in the left hemisphere of the brain, they usually lose their language abilities and regain them with difficulty, if at all. But the same is not true for infants who have strokes affecting this region during the first few days of life, according to a study published August 1 in eNeuro. Despite perinatal stroke damage to or near the left arcuate fasciculus, the study finds, developing infant brains acquire fairly normal language skills by age four. The arcuate fasciculus (AF), one of the brain’s axon highways, is present in both hemispheres, but it’s the left AF that is typically important for language. The study, of six four-year-olds who had had perinatal strokes near or overlapping with the left AF, found that the larger the right AF relative to its left-hemisphere counterpart the stronger the children’s language abilities were. Overall, “the brain is showing this capacity to use other areas on the contralesional hemisphere that will take over and will support language acquisition almost at the near normal level, which is good news,” says study coauthor Laura Bosch, a psychologist focusing on language acquisition at the University of Barcelona. She notes, however, that one of the six patients had significant language impairments that can’t be discounted. Previous research had indicated that, unlike in adults, strokes in the left hemisphere of newborns did not seem to hamper language development, but the neurological mechanisms behind this stroke recovery were unknown, the authors write in their report. Prior to their analysis, there had been no neuroimaging studies on pre-school-age kids who’d had a stroke in utero or as a newborn (known as a perinatal arterial ischemic stroke, or PAIS), a rare condition occurring in 1 in 4,000 births. © 1986–2019 The Scientist.

Keyword: Stroke; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 26541 - Posted: 08.26.2019

/ By Lola Butcher Like all primary care physicians, Danielle Ofri sees a lot of aching backs. Low back pain is one of the top five reasons people visit the doctor, and based on extensive experience, Ofri knows how the conversations will go. Patients want relief from miserable pain, so they want an imaging study. “I want to see what’s going on — that’s what they say,” says Ofri, who treats patients at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. The easy thing to do is order a scan and send them home to wait for the results. The right thing to do, in the vast majority of cases, is to deliver the bad news: They need to wait for the pain to subside on its own, which may mean a few weeks of agony. In the meantime, if possible, it’s best to stay active and limit bed rest. An over-the-counter pain reliever might help. Unless certain symptoms point to a more serious problem, the physician shouldn’t order any imaging within the first six weeks of pain. On this last point, medical guidelines are remarkably clear and backed by studies demonstrating that routine imaging for low back pain does not improve one’s pain, function, or quality of life. The exams are not just a waste of time and money, physician groups say; unnecessary imaging may lead to problems that are much more serious than back pain. And yet, between 1995 and 2015, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other high-tech scans for low back pain increased by 50 percent, according to a new systematic review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. According to a related analysis, up to 35 percent of the scans were inappropriate. Medical societies have launched campaigns to convince physicians and patients to forgo the unnecessary images, but to little avail. Copyright 2019 Undark

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Brain imaging
Link ID: 26540 - Posted: 08.26.2019

Ammar Kalia Three years ago, Paul (not his real name), now 31, went to the doctor with stomach pains. His blood test came back with low testosterone levels. “We went to see a urologist and he said bluntly that we wouldn’t have any options to have kids with my sperm – we would have to use a donor or adopt,” he says. “My wife immediately burst into tears.” The couple had been trying for a child since they married in 2015. Paul was also devastated. “It put so much stress on me, because I thought I couldn’t give my wife or my family what they so desperately wanted.” Eventually, Paul was diagnosed with Klinefelter syndrome. Affecting about one in 600 men, it is one of the most common genetic conditions in the UK, yet most people have never heard of it – including many who have it. Its symptoms – extra height, persistent tiredness, reduced bodily hair and small testes – can be difficult to identify, meaning it often goes unnoticed by patients and GPs. Untreated, however, it can lead to reduced testosterone and infertility, and even increased prevalence of testicular cancer. The non-hereditary syndrome was first discovered in 1942. It is caused by the presence of an extra X chromosome, resulting in XXY, as opposed to XY. With only one in six men who have Klinefelter’s ever diagnosed, even though symptoms often emerge during puberty, it may be one of the leading unexplored causes of infertility. Now, the first clinic in the UK to deal solely with Klinefelter’s has opened at Guy’s hospital in London – and its clinicians believe it could revolutionise its treatment and diagnosis. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 26539 - Posted: 08.26.2019

Rebecca Schiller When Professor Judith Grisel sat down to write her book Never Enough (a guide to the neuroscience of addiction that has been her life’s work), she didn’t expect to share so much of her own story. Nevertheless the resulting chapters are a collision of the personal and professional, detailing the deep links between her work life and the decade of drug and alcohol addiction that almost destroyed her. On paper, Grisel was an unlikely candidate for going off the rails. One of three children, she describes a privileged upbringing in a progressive, suburban area of New Jersey. With an airline pilot father and a mother who was a registered nurse, Grisel remembers growing up in a “perfect-looking family”. As her research would go on to help demonstrate, there was no single factor that predicted her drug problems. Neuroscientists have found a complex blend of nature and nurture at work in addictive tendencies and their research shows that many genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors work together in complex ways that often remain elusive. “Why me?” is the question that underpins much of Grisel’s research, and she continues to wonder why friends who drank heavily with her in high school were spared addiction. In Never Enough she offers a smorgasbord of theories behind her own and others’ predisposition to addiction: an “extreme” personality and love of risk-taking, trying drugs at a young age, lower levels of endorphins in the brain, potential hypersensitivity to the neurological rewards of drugs alongside, more surprisingly, her own parents’ strict response to her behaviour. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26538 - Posted: 08.26.2019

By James Gorman Here are three good things about gulls: They are devoted parents. Males share child care equally with females. That includes sitting on the eggs during incubation. And they have figured out a way — actually many ways — to survive in a harsh and unforgiving world. Some eat clams, some eat fish, some are attracted to landfills. Of course, a few will divebomb you at the beach or boardwalk to steal a French fry, or the cheese on your cracker, or an entire slice of pizza. The beach pirate approach to survival is, of course, where humans and gulls clash. And the outcry from humans is almost as loud and outraged as the cries of the gulls themselves. Several recent news articles have chronicled the predations of gulls and some possible remedies. Ocean City, N.J., is bringing in hawks, and some scientists have suggested staring directly at gulls to fend them off. Though that is hard to do when the birds sneak up behind you as you are putting cheese on a cracker. There are some reports of more serious trouble. In England, a woman said a gull carried off her Chihuahua, and in Russia a pilot was hailed as a hero for safely landing his plane after a collision with a flock of gulls. In the New York area, thousands of birds, including gulls, have been killed in the decade since the Miracle on the Hudson crash to clear the skies for airplanes, without an apparent reduction in bird strikes. But it’s at the beach where tempers flare most predictably. And in times like these, with heightened human-gull tensions, very little has been written about the gulls’ point of view. Is there a Lorax who speaks for the gulls? Admittedly, gulls have quite a strong voice of their own, it’s just that it’s pretty unintelligible to most of us. An ornithologist would seem to be the obvious choice. They like birds. I called Christopher Elphick at the University of Connecticut. He spends a lot of time studying sparrows, but has a soft spot for gulls. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 26537 - Posted: 08.24.2019

By Carolyn Wilke Illicit drug use lurks in the shadows — one reason it’s difficult to study. But public health researchers pull together numbers from surveys, overdose records and other sources to look for trends in how much people spend on drugs, numbers of users and frequency of use that can help policy makers fight substance abuse. Now, an analysis released August 20 by the Rand Corporation estimates that people in the United States spent between $121 billion and $146 billion dollars annually on cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine from 2006 and 2016. The analysis puts the drugs’ combined total on the same order as Americans’ annual alcohol tab, based on market research on the alcohol industry. Among the four drugs, users in 2006 spent the most money on cocaine, around $58 billion (in 2018 dollars). But that spending on cocaine then dropped to $24 billion in 2016. Marijuana spending, meanwhile, roughly doubled to garner the greatest spending in 2016, at $52 billion. Also, from 2010 to 2016, the number of people who had used marijuana in the last month increased from an estimated 25 million to 32 million, a roughly 30 percent increase. The uptick in cannabis consumption wasn’t a surprise, says report coauthor Greg Midgette, a criminologist at the University of Maryland and the RAND Corporation. In the United States, at least 1 in 4 people now lives in a state where recreational marijuana use is legal for adults over the age of 21. Other trends also reinforce what drug policy experts knew about substance abuse in America. For instance, increasing heroin use from 2010 to 2016 likely reflects the opioid crisis (SN: 4/13/19, p. 32). But other findings were more surprising, Midgette says, such as increases in methamphetamine spending, users and consumption. From 2010 to 2016, the average purity of methamphetamine increased, and cost fell. “When the drug is available, pure and cheap, that’s troubling for public health,” he says. © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2019.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26536 - Posted: 08.24.2019

By Matt Richtel and Sheila Kaplan A patient in Illinois is the first to die of a mysterious lung illness linked to vaping, public health officials announced on Friday. The death occurred as doctors and hospitals nationwide report an increasing number of vaping-related respiratory illnesses this summer: 193 cases have now been reported in 22 states, including 22 cases in Illinois, officials said. They have been stumped in recent weeks by the cause. State investigators have not found a common link — other than vaping in general — among the patients turning up in emergency rooms. Many patients, including some in Illinois, have acknowledged vaping of tetrahydrocannabinol, or (T.H.C.), the high-inducing chemical in marijuana, according to statements from federal and state health agencies. But officials don’t know whether the ailments have been caused by marijuana-type products, e-cigarettes, or some type of street concoction that was vaped, or whether a contaminant or defective device may have been involved. The Illinois patient’s death was disclosed during a news conference held by officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the state of Illinois. They did not provide details about the patient’s identity, saying only that the person was an adult who had vaped recently and then succumbed to a severe respiratory illness. Health officials did not say what product the patient had used, whether an e-cigarette or other vaping device; nor did they specify what substance was vaped. Amid the lack of information, investigators are scrambling to find shared links to the respiratory problems. Officials said earlier this week that many patients, most of whom were adolescents or young adults, had described difficulty breathing, chest pain, vomiting and fatigue. The most seriously ill patients have had extensive lung damage that required treatment with oxygen and days on a ventilator. Some are expected to have permanent lung damage. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26535 - Posted: 08.24.2019

Jake Harper Jason was hallucinating. He was withdrawing from drugs at an addiction treatment center near Indianapolis, and he had hardly slept for several days. "He was reaching for things, and he was talking to Bill Gates and he was talking to somebody else I'm just certain he hasn't met," his mother, Cheryl, says. She remembers finding Jason lying on the floor of the treatment center in late 2016. "I would just bring him blankets because they didn't have beds or anything." Cheryl had taken Jason to the clinic out of desperation. Jason, now in his late 30s, has struggled with addiction since he was a teenager. Cheryl saw his drug use escalate after he was prescribed a benzodiazepine for his anxiety, and he eventually began using heroin and meth. Over the years, Jason would try to get into recovery, but treatment programs didn't help him for very long. "I thought he was going to die," Cheryl says. (Side Effects and NPR are using only first names because Jason worried he would lose his job if his employer found out about his addiction history.) In late 2016, she saw a local TV news segment about a clinic called Emerald Neuro-Recover. The staff there treats addiction with something called NAD therapy, an IV infusion that can contain amino acids and other nutritional supplements, including nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, a compound found in living cells. The infusion, which is delivered over 10 to 15 days, cost $15,000, and it wasn't covered by insurance. But the TV report said Emerald's treatment was "proven to wipe drug cravings away." Cheryl was intrigued. Emerald and dozens of other companies across the U.S. say NAD therapy can address conditions from anxiety to depression to chronic fatigue and even Alzheimer's. © 2019 npr

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26534 - Posted: 08.24.2019

By Donald G. McNeil Jr Giving people an inexpensive pill containing generic drugs that prevent heart attacks — an idea first proposed 20 years ago but rarely tested — worked quite well in a new study, slashing the rate of heart attacks by more than half among those who regularly took the pills. If other studies now underway find similar results, such multidrug cocktails — sometimes called “polypills” — given to vast numbers of older people could radically change the way cardiologists fight the soaring rates of heart disease and strokes in poor and middle-income countries Even if the concept is ultimately adopted, there will be battles over the ingredients. The pill in the study, which involved the participation of 6,800 rural villagers aged 50 to 75 in Iran, contained a cholesterol-lowering statin, two blood-pressure drugs and a low-dose aspirin. But the study, called PolyIran and published Thursday by The Lancet, was designed 14 years ago. More recent research in wealthy countries has questioned the wisdom of giving some drugs — particularly aspirin — to older people with no history of disease. The stakes are high. As more residents of poor countries survive childhood into middle age and beyond — and as rising incomes contribute to their adoption of cigarette smoking and diets high in sugar and fat — a polypill offers a way to help millions lead longer, healthier lives. About 18 million people a year die of cardiovascular disease, and 80 percent of them are in poor and middle-income countries threatened by rising rates of obesity, diabetes, tobacco use and sedentary living. Medical experts, however, are sharply divided over the polypill concept. Its advocates — including some prominent cardiologists — point to the study as evidence that the World Health Organization should endorse distributing such pills without a prescription to hundreds of millions of people over age 50 around the globe. Some have estimated that widespread use could cut cardiac death rates by 60 to 80 percent. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 26533 - Posted: 08.23.2019

Scott Hensley At some point nearly everyone has to deal with pain. How do Americans experience and cope with pain that makes everyday life harder? We asked in the latest NPR-IBM Watson Health Poll. First, we wanted to know how often pain interferes with people's ability to work, go to school or engage in other activities. Overall, 18% of Americans say that's often a problem for them. Almost a quarter – 24% — say it's sometimes the case. The degree to which pain is a problem varies by age, with 22% of people 65 and older saying pain interferes often with their daily lives compared with only about 9% of people 35 and younger. Once pain strikes, how do people deal with it? The poll found that 63% of people had sought care for their pain and 37% hadn't. Younger people were less likely to have pursued care. The most common approach is an over-the-counter pain reliever. Sixty percent of people said that is something they do. Another popular choice, particularly among younger people, is exercise, including stretching and yoga. Forty percent of those under 35 say exercise is a way they seek relief. Only 11% of people 65 and older say exercise is something they try for pain. Overall, 26% of people see exercise as helpful for their pain. That level of exercise is "really exciting to see," says Brett Snodgrass, a nurse practitioner and clinical coordinator of palliative medicine at Baptist Health Systems in Memphis, Tenn. In her experience, not nearly as many people were doing that, even a few years ago. © 2019 npr

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26532 - Posted: 08.23.2019

By Lenny Bernstein With a nationwide prescription opioid lawsuit scheduled for trial in two months, attorneys for newborns suffering from exposure to opioids in the womb have made a last-ditch plea for special legal treatment for the infants and their guardians. Attorneys representing a group that may number more than 250,000 children have spent much of the past two years seeking a separate trial against drug companies but have been rebuffed twice by the judge who oversees the sprawling legal case. The children are still included in that lawsuit, along with about 2,000 other plaintiffs, against some two dozen defendants from the pharmaceutical industry. The children’s lawyers also have complained that attorneys for cities and counties spearheading the lawsuit have refused to let them take part in settlement negotiations that are occurring as the trial date approaches. The attorneys, from 20 firms that represent children across the country, insist that a settlement or verdict must yield billions of dollars specifically earmarked for years-long monitoring of the physical and mental health of children born with “neonatal abstinence syndrome.” That is the formal name for the cluster of difficult symptoms endured by babies who undergo withdrawal from opioids in the days after birth. Without that guarantee, the attorneys contend, cities and towns are likely to spend any money they receive from drug companies on more pressing and popular needs, as some states did with windfalls from the $206 billion settlement with tobacco companies two decades ago. “Our goal is to make sure that we do not have a tobacco-style settlement, where all of the money goes to the governmental entities, and there’s not a significant trust set aside to help these children,” said Stuart Smith, one of the lawyers representing the families. © 1996-2019 The Washington Post

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26531 - Posted: 08.23.2019

Jon Hamilton In mice, scientists have used a variety of drugs to treat brain disorders including murine versions of Alzheimer's disease, depression and schizophrenia. But in people, these same treatments usually fail. And now researchers are beginning to understand why. A detailed comparison of the cell types in mouse and human brain tissue found subtle but important differences that could affect the response to many drugs, a team reports Wednesday in the journal Nature. "If you want to develop a drug that targets a specific receptor in a specific disease, then these differences really matter," says Christof Koch, an author of the study and chief scientist and president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. One key difference involved genes that cause a cell to respond to the chemical messenger serotonin, says Ed Lein, a study author and investigator at the institute. "They're expressed in both mouse and human, but they're not in the same types of cells," Lein says. As a result, "serotonin would have a very different function when released into the cortex of the two species." That's potentially a big deal because antidepressants like Prozac act on the brain's serotonin system. So testing these drugs on mice could be misleading, Lein says. The comparison was possible because of new technology that allows scientists to quickly identify which of the hundreds of types of brain cells are present in a particular bit of brain tissue. © 2019 npr

Keyword: Brain imaging; Evolution
Link ID: 26530 - Posted: 08.22.2019

By Alison Abbott Marco Tamietto was aware that animal rights activists might target him after his team won ethical approval for an experiment in monkeys on blindness. But he hadn’t anticipated the threats of violence. “I found photographs of my face, my mobile phone number, and home address on Facebook posts,” he says, “with messages like: ‘We will find you and kill you.’” Tamietto, a neuroscientist at the University of Turin in Italy, is under police protection. Now, his colleagues may face similar threats. He learned this month that the Italian Ministry of Health, which approved the experiment in October 2018, has released the names and university affiliations of others involved in the study to Lega Anti Vivisezione (LAV), an animal rights group in Rome. “It’s unpleasant that a public office would do such a thing,” says Roberto Caminiti, a neuroscientist at Sapienza University of Rome whose monkey lab was filmed by undercover activists in 2014. “And paradoxical that the ministry that authorized the research would actually expose those doing the research to danger.” Lawyers at the University of Turin and University of Parma—where the monkey experiments will be carried out—say they are considering civil proceedings in relation to the leak of sensitive information and intellectual property associated with the experimental protocols. Animal research regulations in Italy are already the strictest in Europe. Yet in the past few years, activists have pressed their advantage. Tamietto’s case is a sign that they have a sympathetic ear in government: Minister of Health Giulia Grillo, a member of the populist Five Star party and a declared friend of animal rights groups. © 2019 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Animal Rights; Vision
Link ID: 26529 - Posted: 08.22.2019

By Bruce Bower A 20-million-year-old monkey skull that fits in the palm of an adult’s hand may contain remnants of piecemeal brain evolution in ancient primates. Neural landmarks preserved on the skull fit a scenario in which specific primate brain regions expanded or, at times, contracted while other regions remained unchanged, a new study finds. In an early clue to that evolutionary process, researchers say, a small part of the monkey’s brain devoted to odor perception was not counterbalanced by an enlarged visual system, as is typical of primates today. Primate visual systems expanded in size and complexity over millions of years without requiring substantial changes elsewhere in the brain, contend paleontologist Xijun Ni of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and colleagues. And comparisons of the skull with fossils of African primates from 30 million years ago or more indicate that major brain structures evolved at different rates in different primate lineages, as did increases in brain size relative to body size, the team reports August 21 in Science Advances. The study adds evidence to the idea that the brains of primates, a group that includes humans, evolved in a piecemeal way, instead of progressively getting bigger overall as time passed. The skull, from an extinct monkey called Chilecebus carrascoensis, was reported discovered in Chile’s Andes Mountains in 1995 by a team led by paleontologist John Flynn of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In the new study, Flynn and colleagues used high-resolution scanning and a digital, 3-D cast of the inner surface of the skull’s tiny braincase to reveal impressions made by a set of neural folds. © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2019.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 26528 - Posted: 08.22.2019

By Greg Miller Can a three-digit phone number avert suicides on a grand scale? Last week, the Federal Communications Commission recommended designating 988 as a nationwide suicide prevention hotline number. Currently, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached around the clock through the more cumbersome 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Many paths in life can bring someone to the brink of suicide, and a shorter phone number might seem to be a naïvely simple solution. But researchers have repeatedly found that simple works: Callers routinely credit the existing hotline, which is on track to take 2.5 million calls this year, with keeping them safe. "It's one of the most basic human realities," says Lifeline Director John Draper, a counseling psychologist with Vibrant Emotional Health, the New York City nonprofit that administers the hotline. "Helping people feel understood and cared about saves lives." More than 47,000 people died by suicide in the United States in 2017. Although the global suicide rate has dropped, in the United States it has increased 33% since 1999. Beating back that number is challenging. Although suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, it's still rare enough that designing large studies to probe interventions is difficult—and the high stakes bring ethical worries. "For a long time, the field was just kind of demoralized," says Jane Pearson, a clinical psychologist and researcher who helps strategize suicide prevention research for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland. But Pearson and others see glimmers of optimism. NIMH spent $51 million on suicide prevention research in 2018, twice as much as in 2015 though still well below research funding for other conditions that cause similar numbers of deaths. Other government agencies and nonprofits now spend tens of millions more. Suicide has shed some of its stigma and is increasingly viewed as a public health issue. © 2019 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 26527 - Posted: 08.22.2019

By Emily Anthes Every spring, throngs of garden warblers make a treacherous, multiweek journey from their winter homes in Africa to their summer breeding grounds in Europe. The small, brown-and-white songbirds fly thousands of miles, across the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea, en route to their destinations. It’s an exhausting, arduous trip, and the warblers make numerous pit stops to rest and refuel along the way. During these layovers, the birds need to catch up on sleep, replenish their fat stores, and somehow manage to avoid being eaten by predators, including the hungry raptors that migrate alongside them. A study published on Monday in Current Biology revealed one way that migrating warblers manage these dangers and demands: They adjust their sleep postures depending on their physical condition and physiological needs. Plump, well-muscled birds tend to sleep with their heads held upright, while scrawnier warblers tuck their heads into their feathers, a posture that makes them more vulnerable to predation but helps them conserve their much needed energy. “Migratory warblers have to make trade-offs between staying safe and saving energy,” said Leonida Fusani, a behavioral physiologist at the University of Vienna and the lead author of the paper. Dr. Fusani worked with a doctoral student, Andrea Ferretti, and several other colleagues to study garden warblers that had stopped on the island of Ponza during their spring migration. The small, craggy isle, off the western coast of Italy, is a popular stopover for northbound birds, which typically arrive drained after a 300-plus-mile flight over open water. The researchers caught warblers with nets, then gave each one a brief physical exam before transferring it to a custom-built cage for observation. Some of the warblers were thriving, with heavy bodies, big muscles and ample body fat. Others seemed to be struggling, appearing gaunt and worn down by their journeys. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 26526 - Posted: 08.21.2019

Natalie Parletta Poor air quality has been associated with higher rates of bipolar disorder and major depression in observational research involving more than 150 million people in the US and Denmark. The link was found to be more pronounced in Denmark, with research also suggesting that pollution exposure during childhood more than doubled the risk of schizophrenia and personality disorders. Genetic studies now reveal that genes only explain a small fraction of psychiatric illness onset. Therefore, researchers are exploring environmental factors in the search to comprehend the global increase in these complex disorders of brain function. “We were hoping to understand what aspects of human environments are driving psychiatric and neurological disease prevalence,” says senior author Andrey Rzhetsky from the University of Chicago, US. The findings are published in the journal PLOS ONE. The search thus far has focussed largely on family environments and childhood trauma, including prenatal influences. Other possible avenues include social circumstances, stressful life events, substance abuse, and emerging evidence for poor diet. Far less attention has been given to physical environments. Yet as the numerous adverse health impacts of air pollution have come to light, inspection of its potential role in neurological disorders has lagged.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 26525 - Posted: 08.21.2019

By Emily Underwood By his late 20s, Moe had attained the young adult dream. A technology job paid for his studio apartment just blocks from the beach in Santa Barbara, California. Leisure time was crowded with close friends and hobbies, such as playing the guitar. He had even earned his pilot's license. "There was nothing I could have complained about," he says. Yet Moe soon began a slide he couldn't control. Insomnia struck, along with panic attacks. As the mild depression he'd experienced since childhood deepened, Moe's life collapsed. He lost his job, abandoned his interests, and withdrew from his friends. "I lost the emotions that made me feel human," Moe says. (He asked that this story not use his full name.) Although many people with depression respond well to treatment, Moe wasn't one of them. Now 37, he has tried antidepressant drugs and cycled through years of therapy. Moe has never attempted suicide, but he falls into a high-risk group: Though most people with depression don't die by suicide, about 30% of those who don't respond to multiple antidepressant drugs or therapy make at least one attempt. Moe was desperate for relief and fearful for his future. So when he heard about a clinical trial testing a new approach to treating depression at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, near his home, he signed up. People like Moe present a conundrum to doctors but an opportunity for researchers: a group whose health could be transformed by precision psychiatry. Depression is often treated as a single disease, but many researchers agree that it is actually multiple, distinct ailments. Some of those conditions may heighten suicide risk more than others. How many depression subtypes exist—and how they differ—is hotly debated. One way researchers are trying to settle the question is by peering into the brain. They're studying the neural circuits that light up during specific tasks and then correlating those patterns of activation with symptoms. © 2019 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 26524 - Posted: 08.21.2019

By Kelly Servick Every Wednesday afternoon, an alert flashes on the cellphones of about 50 teenagers in New York and Pennsylvania. Its questions are blunt: "In the past week, how often have you thought of killing yourself?" "Did you make a plan to kill yourself?" "Did you make an attempt to kill yourself?" The 13- to 18-year-olds tap their responses, which are fed to a secure server. They have agreed, with their parents' support, to something that would make many adolescents cringe: an around-the-clock recording of their digital lives. For 6 months, an app will gobble up nearly every data point their phones can offer, capturing detail and nuance that a doctor's questionnaire cannot: their text messages and social media posts, their tone of voice in phone calls and facial expression in selfies, the music they stream, how much they move around, how much time they spend at home. Most of these young people have recently attempted suicide or are having suicidal thoughts. All have been diagnosed with a mental illness such as depression. The study they're part of, Mobile Assessment for the Prediction of Suicide (MAPS), is one of several fledgling efforts to test whether streams of information from mobile devices can help answer a question that has long confounded scientists and clinicians: How do you predict when someone is at imminent risk of attempting suicide? © 2019 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 26523 - Posted: 08.21.2019