Laura Sanders Brains have long been star subjects for neuroscientists. But the typical “brain in a jar” experiments that focus on one subject in isolation may be missing a huge part of what makes us human — our social ties. “There’s this assumption that we can understand how the mind works by just looking at individual minds, and not looking at them in interactions,” says social neuroscientist Thalia Wheatley of Dartmouth College. “I think that’s wrong.” To answer some of the thorniest questions about the human brain, scientists will have to study the mind as it actually exists: steeped in social connections that involve rich interplay among family, friends and strangers, Wheatley argues. To illustrate her point, she asked the audience at a symposium in San Francisco on March 26, during the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, how many had talked to another person that morning. Nearly everybody in the crowd of about 100 raised a hand. Everyday social interactions may seem inconsequential. But recent work on those who have been isolated, such as elderly people and prisoners in solitary confinement, suggests otherwise: Brains deprived of social interaction stop working well (SN: 12/8/18, p. 11). “That’s a hint that it’s not just that we like interaction,” Wheatley says. “It’s important to keep us healthy and sane.” |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 26122 - Posted: 04.09.2019

By Emily Mullin About noon most days, the Lieber Institute for Brain Development in East Baltimore gets a case — that is, a brain. It arrives in an inconspicuous red cooler. Almost immediately, resident neuropathologist Rahul Bharadwaj gets to work, carefully inspecting it for any abnormalities, such as tumors or lesions. Often, the brains come from the Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office, just a 15-minute drive across town. On other days, they are flown in — packed on dry ice — from around the country. Since opening in 2011, the institute has amassed more than 3,000 of these post-mortem brains that they are studying to better understand the biological mechanisms behind such neuropsychiatric disorders as schizophrenia, major depression, substance abuse, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. About 100 brain banks exist across the country for all sorts of brain diseases. But Lieber, founded with the support and funding of a wealthy couple whose daughter suffered a psychotic break in her 20s, is the biggest collection dedicated specifically to mental conditions. Current therapies for neuropsychiatric disorders — antipsychotics and antidepressants — treat symptoms rather than the underlying cause of illness, which remains largely unknown. And while they can be lifesaving for certain people, they can cause unpleasant and sometimes serious side effects. In some cases, they won't work at all. Most of these drugs were also discovered by accident. Lieber’s goal is to unravel what happens biologically in the brain to make these conditions occur and then to develop therapies to treat these conditions at their root cause, or even prevent them from happening in the first place. © 1996-2019 The Washington Post

Keyword: Brain imaging; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 26121 - Posted: 04.08.2019

By Sarah Mervosh He is called the “father of the American cavalry,” a Polish-born Revolutionary War hero who fought for American independence under George Washington and whose legend inspired the dedication of parades, schools, roads and bridges. But for more than 200 years, a mystery persisted about his final resting place. Historical accounts suggested the cavalryman, Casimir Pulaski, had been buried at sea, but others maintained he was buried in an unmarked grave in Savannah, Ga. Researchers believe they have found the answer — after coming to another significant discovery: The famed general was most likely intersex. New evidence suggests that although Pulaski identified and lived as a man, biologically, he did not fit into the binary definitions of male and female, a twist that helps explain why scientists could not previously identify his remains. The revelatory findings are detailed in a new documentary, “The General Was Female?,” which is showing on the Smithsonian Channel on Monday. The discovery offers historical representation to people who are intersex, a group that has often been stigmatized and overlooked throughout history. About one in 2,000 people is born with ambiguous genitalia, which can lead doctors to perform what advocates say are unnecessary and harmful surgeries, according to the Intersex Society of North America. But intersex includes a variety of conditions, and many more people have subtler variations in sex anatomy, which may manifest later in life — or not at all. Some estimates suggest that about 1.7 percent of the population has intersex traits, making such characteristics about as common as having red hair. Though Pulaski’s role in history has long been embraced in areas with strong Polish and Catholic ties — his birthday is an Illinois state holiday and he is celebrated with an annual Polish pride parade in New York City — the new findings now also place him alongside the few historical figures who are known to have had intersex traits. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 26120 - Posted: 04.08.2019

By Stephen L. Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde We were very sad to learn that Johnny Thompson (aka The Great Tomsoni) passed away on March 9, 2019, at the age of 84. We first met Johnny in 2007, when he spoke at the ‘Magic of Consciousness’ Symposium that we organized at the annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, in Las Vegas. Johnny Thompson, along with Mac King, Teller, Apollo Robbins, and James Randi, talked to an academic audience of neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers about his impressions about the psychologically puzzling aspects of magic, and helped jumpstart ‘neuromagic’ as a field of scientific enquiry. Johnny Thomson and his co-presenters inspired us, among many other investigators, to conduct research into the neuroscientific bases of magic. Dozens of papers by labs around the world have been published in the intervening decade as a result. Johnny himself co-authored an academic review with us, on the intersection of magic and neuroscience, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience in 2008. Our later book Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions, drew significantly from our extensive conversations with Johnny and his keen insights. Thompson was regarded as a deeply knowledgeable magician's magician and magic theorist. He was generous and kind with his wisdom and is widely recognized for having served as consultant to numerous world-renowned magic acts. Though his contributions to the neuroscience of magic are less well known than his magic artistry, they have led to significant advances in the science of attention and misdirection, too. Among the magic aphorisms we have heard over the years, one of our favorites is Johnny’s assertion that “when the audience laughs, time stops,” allowing the magician, at that precise moment, to get away with magical murder. © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 26119 - Posted: 04.08.2019

Nicola Davis A low level of alcohol consumption does not protect against stroke, new research suggests, in the latest blow to the idea that a few drinks can be beneficial to health. At least 100,000 people have strokes in the UK every year, according to recent figures. It had been thought that low levels of alcohol consumption might have a protective effect against stroke, as well as other diseases and conditions. Now researchers say that in the case of stroke, even low levels of alcohol consumption are bad news. “Moderate drinking of about one or two drinks a day does not protect against stroke,” said Dr Iona Millwood, co-author of the study from the University of Oxford. Advertisement The results chime with a major study released last year which concluded there is no healthy level of drinking. Writing in the Lancet, researchers from the UK and China described how they examined the impact of alcohol on stroke using a type of natural experiment. About a third of people from east Asia have genetic variants that affect the way alcohol is broken down in the body, which can make drinking an unpleasant experience and lead to flushed skin. People with these genetic variants are known to drink less – a situation confirmed by the latest study – but who has these genetic variants is random, meaning they can appear in people regardless of their social situation or health. As a result, the team were able to look at the impact of drinking on the risk of stroke without many of the other issues that can muddy the waters. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Stroke; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26118 - Posted: 04.06.2019

By: Kevin P. Madore, Ph.D., and Anthony D. Wagner, Ph.D. As you go about your day, you may barely notice that you are frequently multitasking. It may be driving to work while listening to a radio program or talking to a loved one on the phone (putting yourself and others at risk), or perusing Facebook while texting a friend, or switching back and forth between a high-level project like compiling a report and a routine chore like scheduling an appointment. Multitasking means trying to perform two or more tasks concurrently, which typically leads to repeatedly switching between tasks (i.e., task switching) or leaving one task unfinished in order to do another. The scientific study of multitasking over the past few decades has revealed important principles about the operations, and processing limitations, of our minds and brains. One critical finding to emerge is that we inflate our perceived ability to multitask: there is little correlation with our actual ability. In fact, multitasking is almost always a misnomer, as the human mind and brain lack the architecture to perform two or more tasks simultaneously. By architecture, we mean the cognitive and neural building blocks and systems that give rise to mental functioning. We have a hard time multitasking because of the ways that our building blocks of attention and executive control inherently work. To this end, when we attempt to multitask, we are usually switching between one task and another. The human brain has evolved to single task. Together with studies of patients who have suffered focal neural injuries, functional neuroimaging studies indicate that key brain systems involved in executive control and sustained attention determine our ability to multitask. These include the frontoparietal control network, dorsal attention network, and ventral attention network. © 2019 The Dana Foundation

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 26117 - Posted: 04.06.2019

By Nicholas Wade Sydney Brenner, a South African-born biologist who helped determine the nature of the genetic code and shared a Nobel Prize in 2002 for developing a tiny transparent worm into a test bed for biological discoveries, died on Friday in Singapore. He was 92. He had lived and worked in Singapore in recent years, affiliated with the government-sponsored Agency for Science, Technology and Research, which confirmed his death. A witty, wide-ranging scientist, Dr. Brenner was a central player in the golden age of molecular biology, which extended from the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 to the mid-1960s. He then showed, in experiments with a roundworm known as C. elegans, how it might be possible to decode the human genome. That work laid the basis for the genomic phase of biology. Later, in a project still coming to fruition, he focused on understanding the functioning of the brain. “I think my real skills are in getting things started,” he said in his autobiography, “My Life in Science” (2001). “In fact, that’s what I enjoy most, the opening game. And I’m afraid that once it gets past that point, I get rather bored and want to do other things.” As a young South African studying at Oxford University, he was one of the first people to view the model of DNA that had been constructed in Cambridge, England, by Francis H. C. Crick and James D. Watson. He was 22 at the time and would call it the most exciting day of his life. “The double helix was a revelatory experience; for me everything fell into place, and my future scientific life was decided there and then,” Dr. Brenner wrote. Impressed by Dr. Brenner’s insights and ready humor, Dr. Crick recruited him to Cambridge a few years later. Dr. Crick, a theoretical biologist, liked to have with him someone he could bounce ideas off. Dr. Watson had played this role in the discovery of DNA, and Dr. Brenner became his successor, sharing an office with Dr. Crick for 20 years at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 26116 - Posted: 04.06.2019

Helen Thompson Whether practical, dramatical or pragmatical, domestic cats appear to recognize the familiar sound of their own names and can distinguish them from other words, researchers report April 4 in Scientific Reports. While dog responses to human behavior and speech have received much attention (SN: 10/1/16, p. 11), researchers are just scratching the surface of human-cat interactions. Research has shown that domestic cats (Felis catus) appear to respond to human facial expressions, and can distinguish between different human voices. But can cats recognize their own names? “I think many cat owners feel that cats know their names, or the word ‘food,’” but until now, there was no scientific evidence to back that up, says Atsuko Saito, a psychologist at Sophia University in Tokyo and a cat owner. So Saito and her colleagues pounced on that research question. They asked cat owners to say four nouns of similar length followed by the cat’s name. Cats gradually lost interest with each noun, but then reacted strongly to their names — moving their ears, head or tail, shifting their hind paw position or, of course, meowing. The results held up with cats living alone, with other cats and at a cat café, where customers can hang out with cats. And when someone other than the owner said the name, the cats still responded to their names more than to other nouns. One finding did give the team pause. Cat café cats almost always reacted to their names and those of other cats living there. Housecats did so much less frequently. Lots of humans visit cat cafés, and cats’ names are frequently called together, so it may be harder for cats to associate their own names with positive reinforcement in these environments, the researchers write. As for whether or not a cat understands what a name is, well, only the cat knows that. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019

Keyword: Animal Communication
Link ID: 26115 - Posted: 04.06.2019

By Jamie Lauren Keiles When Jennifer Allen watched videos of space, she sometimes felt this peculiar sensation: a tingling that spread through her scalp as the camera pulled back to show the marble of the earth. It came in a wave, like a warm effervescence, making its way down the length of her spine and leaving behind a sense of gratitude and wholeness. Allen loved this feeling, but she didn’t know what caused it. It was totally distinct from anything she’d experienced before. Every two years or so she’d take to Google. She tried searching things like “tingling head and spine” or “brain orgasm.” For nine years, the search didn’t turn up anything. Then, around 2009, it did. As always, Allen typed her phrases into Google, but this time she got a result on a message board called SteadyHealth. The post was titled WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD: i get this sensation sometimes. theres no real trigger for it. it just happens randomly. its been happening since i was a kid and i’m 21 now. some examples of what it seems has caused it to happen before are as a child while watching a puppet show and when i was being read a story to. as a teenager when a classmate did me a favor and when a friend drew on the palm of my hand with markers. sometimes it happens for no reason at all The poster went on to demand an explanation. In the discussion, nobody had one, but many described a similar feeling — a “silvery sparkle” inside the head, a euphoric “brain-gasm” or a feeling like goose bumps in the scalp that faded “in and out in waves of heightened intensity.” Many people agreed that the sensation was euphoric. (“Aside from an actual orgasm, it’s probably the most enjoyable sensation possible,” one user wrote.) Its triggers were as varied as watching someone fill out a form, listening to whispering sounds or seeing Bob Ross paint landscapes on TV. Allen scrolled through pages and pages of discussion. Oh my gosh, she remembers thinking. These people are talking about exactly what I experience. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Hearing
Link ID: 26114 - Posted: 04.04.2019

/ By Troy Farah Despite the ubiquity of labels and advertisements reminding those who drink to “enjoy responsibly,” millions of Americans fail to heed the warning. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in six adults binge drinks about four times a month. Defined as the consumption of four or more drinks within two hours for women, and five or more drinks in that timespan for men, binge drinking is associated with an array of health problems, including alcohol dependence, memory issues, and unintentional injuries. The problem is global. Alcohol is directly or indirectly responsible for more than 5 percent of all deaths worldwide — or around 3 million annually, according to the World Health Organization. At least seven cancers are linked to its use, and it is considered a causal factor in more than 200 diseases. Heavy drinking, recent research suggests, can even alter DNA, triggering more cravings. For decades, efforts to curb binge drinking and other forms of alcohol misuse have largely focused on reductions in alcohol purchases, and more vigorous enforcement of laws against underage drinking and drunk driving. But as the problem continues to rise, a growing number of scientists — many of them taking a careful, regulated approach, and some not so much — are turning their attention toward developing chemical solutions. “Replacing alcohol is going to be a very challenging thing to do,” said David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London. “The person that does it first is going to become very successful.” Yet Nutt is attempting to do just that. Copyright 2019 Undark

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26113 - Posted: 04.04.2019

By Steph Yin For animals that hibernate, making it to spring is no small feat. Torpor — the state of reduced bodily activity that occurs during hibernation — is not restful. By the time they emerge, hibernating animals are often sleep-deprived: Most expend huge bursts of energy to arouse themselves occasionally in the winter so their body temperatures don’t dip too low. This back-and-forth is exhausting, and hibernators do it with little to no food and water. By winter’s end, some have shed more than half their body weight. But just because it’s spring doesn’t mean it’s time to celebrate. Spring means getting ready for the full speed of summer — and after spending a season in slow motion, that requires some ramping up. Here’s a look at what different animals have on the agenda after coming out of winter’s slumber. Black bears emerge from their dens in April, but stay lethargic for weeks. During this so-called walking hibernation, they sleep plenty and don’t roam very far. Though they have lost up to one-third of their body weight over winter, they don’t have a huge appetite right away — their metabolism is not yet back to normal. They snack mostly on pussy willows and bunches of snow fleas. In January or February, some females give birth, typically to two or three cubs. New mothers continue to hibernate, but they go in and out of torpor, staying alert enough to respond to their cubs’ cries. When they emerge from their dens, mama bears find trees with rough bark that her cubs can easily climb for safety. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 26112 - Posted: 04.04.2019

Corey Hill Allen and Eyal Aharoni Brain evidence is playing an increasing role in criminal trials in the United States. An analysis indicates that brain evidence such as MRI or CAT scans – meant to provide proof of abnormalities, brain damage or disorder in defendants – was used for leniency in approximately 5 percent of murder cases at the appellate level. This number jumps to an astounding 25 percent in death penalty trials. In these cases, the evidence is meant to show that the defendant lacked the capacity to control his action. In essence, “My brain made me do it.” But does evidence of neurobiological disorder or abnormality tend to help or hurt the defendant? Legal theorists have previously portrayed physical evidence of brain dysfunction as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it might decrease a judge’s or juror’s desire to punish by minimizing the offender’s perceived responsibility for his transgressions. The thinking would be that the crime resulted from disordered brain activity, not any choice on the part of the offender. On the other hand, brain evidence could increase punitive motivations toward the offender by making him seem more dangerous. That is, if the offender’s brain truly “made him” commit the crime, there is an increased risk such behavior could occur again, even multiple times, in the future. To tease apart these conflicting motivations, our team of cognitive neuroscientists, a medical bioethicist and a philosopher investigated how people tend to weigh neurobiological evidence when deciding on criminal sentences. © 2010–2019, The Conversation US, Inc.

Keyword: Brain imaging; Consciousness
Link ID: 26111 - Posted: 04.03.2019

Wency Leung A new Canadian study on how the birth control pill affects a woman’s ability to think is the latest to address a decades-old knowledge gap researchers say needs to be fixed: How oral contraceptives impact the brain. The study aims to test the working memory of around 60 young women who use oral contraceptives, says researcher Laura Gravelsins, a PhD student with the Einstein Lab on cognitive neuroscience, gender and health at the University of Toronto. Gravelsins is among a number of researchers exploring an area that has historically been overlooked. Since the introduction of the pill in the 1960s, hormonal contraceptives – which contain estrogen, progestin, or a combination of both – have become a preferred option for many women. Yet, due, in part, to past assumptions that the brain operates separately from the rest of body and a general lack of research into women’s health, scientists are only now investigating how they may influence mood and cognition. Another area that needs exploration is how sex hormones, including those naturally produced by the body, influence developing brains. At the University of British Columbia, researchers are currently recruiting 300 girls, ages 13 to 15, to study what role sex hormones may play in their emotional development. “We need more research,” says Dr. Gillian Einstein, a professor of psychology at University of Toronto and the Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Chair in Women’s Brain Health and Aging. “Women should demand more research on this.”

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 26110 - Posted: 04.03.2019

By Darby Saxbe Perinatal depression—depression that occurs during pregnancy or after the birth of a child—is surprisingly common, affecting about 1 in 7 women. And, although depression is debilitating at any time, it may carry a particularly heavy public health burden during the transition to parenthood. Women with depression are less likely to obtain medical care for themselves and their babies, and may struggle to bond with their infants. It’s no wonder that the children of depressed mothers experience heightened long-term risk of emotional and behavioral problems. Despite this grim picture, a new report from the US Preventive Services Task Force offers some hope. The USPSTF, a nonpartisan body of experts, reviews scientific research and makes recommendations for preventing disease. In the past, they’ve issued guidelines for lung cancer detection, aspirin use to prevent heart disease, and blood pressure screening. In a review recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the task force shared what they deemed “convincing evidence” that counseling (talk therapy) interventions can not just treat, but actually prevent, perinatal depression. This is exciting news given the high cost of depression during this time and the fact that, unlike other potential treatments for perinatal depression (like the new drug Zulresso), talk therapy is low-tech, relatively low-cost, and brings few side effects. In their report, the USPSTF reviewed 50 studies that they deemed to be at least “good or fair quality.” Almost all were randomized clinical trials, the gold standard for treatment research, in which a treatment is directly compared to a control group condition. About half of the studies focused on pregnant women, and the rest on postpartum women. Some studies targeted women who already had elevated risk for depression, based on risk factors like a personal or family history of depression, low socioeconomic status, and exposure to life stress or intimate partner violence. © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Depression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 26109 - Posted: 04.03.2019

By Jeffrey Mervis A fledgling, small-scale approach to dealing with the state’s opioid crisis paid off big last week for Oklahoma State University (OSU) when it became the surprise beneficiary of a $270 million legal settlement with Purdue Pharma. It’s the first agreement in some 1700 pending cases around the United States against Purdue, which makes the painkiller OxyContin, and other manufacturers of prescription opioids. On 26 March, the state of Oklahoma agreed to drop its suit alleging deceptive marketing practices by Purdue in exchange for a National Center for Addiction Studies and Treatment at OSU’s medical complex in Tulsa. Purdue and the Sackler family, which owns the Stamford, Connecticut–based company, will provide a $177 million endowment for the national center, along with $20 million over 5 years for naloxone and other drugs to treat opioid addiction. The state is continuing its suit against several other companies, with opening arguments set for 28 May. The windfall for the new entity, which aspires “to become the premier addiction research center in the nation,” rewards OSU’s ambition. In October 2017, it opened a modest Center for Wellness and Recovery within its medical school to train future addiction medicine physicians, study the underlying causes of addiction and pain, provide treatment to those suffering from opioid use disorder, and educate the public about the burgeoning epidemic, which claims 130 lives a day in the United States and in 2017 killed nearly 800 Oklahomans. The center now has a staff of eight and a $2.4 million budget. © 2019 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26108 - Posted: 04.03.2019

/ By Richard Kemeny Northern Ethiopia was once home to a vast, ancient lake. Saber-toothed cats prowled around it, giant crocodiles swam within. The streams and rivers that fed it — over 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene — left behind trails of sediment that have now hardened into sandstone. Deposited within these layers are fossils: some of early hominins, along with the bones of hippos, antelope, and elephants. Anthropologist Jessica Thompson encountered two of these specimens, from an area named Dikika, in 2010. At the time, she was a visiting researcher at the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. Given no explanation as to their history, she analyzed the bones and found signs of butchery. Percussion marks suggested someone may have accessed the marrow; cut marks hinted that flesh was stripped from bone. To her surprise, the specimens were 3.4 million years old, putting the butcher’s behaviors back 800,000 years earlier than conventional estimates would suggest. That fact got Thompson, now an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Yale University, thinking there might be more traces of tool use from those early times. In a wide-ranging review published in February’s issue of Current Anthropology, Thompson joins a team of researchers to weave together several strands of recent evidence and propose a new theory about the transition to large animal consumption by our ancestors. The prevailing view, supported by a confluence of fossil evidence from sites in Ethiopia, is that the emergence of flaked tool use and meat consumption led to the cerebral expansion that kickstarted human evolution more than 2 million years ago. Thompson and her colleagues disagree: Rather than using sharpened stones to hunt and scrape meat from animals, they suggest, earlier hominins may have first bashed bones to harvest fatty nutrients from marrow and brains. Copyright 2019 Undark

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 26107 - Posted: 04.03.2019

“What we didn’t know before was some individuals seem to be able to choose whether they lay eggs or give birth to live babies,” Whittington said on Wednesday. “That was pretty staggering. We had no idea that could be the case. So I think it just makes this lizard even weirder.” Previous research has shown that if a Sydney skink was taken north it would still lay eggs, while live bearers transferred south would also continue to reproduce as they previously did. “I’m curious to know what happens if you breed an egg layer with a live bearer – what do their sons and daughters do?” Whittington said. Another skink in South Australia has also been shown to be bimodal. Bougainville’s skinks give birth to babies on Kangaroo Island, while on the mainland they lay eggs. Only a handful of species in the world do this. The University of Sydney study into the three-toed skink will be published in Biology Letters this week. Whittington hopes to map where they lay eggs and where they give birth in further research. The three-toed skink, which looks like a baby snake with tiny legs, is widespread along Australia’s east coast and is often seen in gardens or compost heaps. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 26106 - Posted: 04.03.2019

By Carl Zimmer In 2011, Dr. Dena Dubal was hired by the University of California, San Francisco, as an assistant professor of neurology. She set up a new lab with one chief goal: to understand a mysterious hormone called Klotho. Dr. Dubal wondered if it might be the key to finding effective treatments for dementia and other disorders of the aging brain. At the time, scientists only knew enough about Klotho to be fascinated by it. Mice bred to make extra Klotho lived 30 percent longer, for instance. But scientists also had found Klotho in the brain, and so Dr. Dubal launched experiments to see whether it had any effect on how mice learn and remember. The results were startling. In one study, she and her colleagues found that extra Klotho protects mice with symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease from cognitive decline. “Their thinking, in every way that we could measure them, was preserved,” said Dr. Dubal. She and her colleagues also bred healthy mice to make extra Klotho. They did better than their fellow rodents on learning mazes and other cognitive tests. Klotho didn’t just protect their brains, the researchers concluded — it enhanced them. Experiments on more mice turned up similar results. “I just couldn’t believe it — was it true, or was it just a false positive?” Dr. Dubal recalled. “But here it is. It enhances of cognition even in a young mouse. It makes them smarter.” Five years have passed since Dr. Dubal and her colleagues began publishing these extraordinary results. Other researchers have discovered tantalizing findings of their own, suggesting that Klotho may protect against other neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Alzheimers
Link ID: 26105 - Posted: 04.02.2019

By Rachel Aviv Laura Delano recognized that she was “excellent at everything, but it didn’t mean anything,” her doctor wrote. She grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the wealthiest communities in the country. Her father is related to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and her mother was introduced to society at a débutante ball at the Waldorf-Astoria. In eighth grade, in 1996, Laura was the class president—she ran on a platform of planting daffodils on the school’s grounds—and among the best squash players in the country. She was one of those rare proportional adolescents with a thriving social life. But she doubted whether she had a “real self underneath.” The oldest of three sisters, Laura felt as if she were living two separate lives, one onstage and the other in the audience, reacting to an exhausting performance. She snapped at her mother, locked herself in her room, and talked about wanting to die. She had friends at school who cut themselves with razors, and she was intrigued by what seemed to be an act of defiance. She tried it, too. “The pain felt so real and raw and mine,” she said. Her parents took her to a family therapist, who, after several months, referred her to a psychiatrist. Laura was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and prescribed Depakote, a mood stabilizer that, the previous year, had been approved for treating bipolar patients. She hid the pills in a jewelry box in her closet and then washed them down the sink. © 2019 Condé Nast

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 26104 - Posted: 04.02.2019

Almost 71m prescriptions for antidepressants were given out in England last year – not including drugs dispensed in hospitals outside the NHS. This is a vast number of pills – more than twice the number of prescriptions given for antibiotics; 20m more than for cholesterol-lowering statins. In a decade, the number of antidepressant prescriptions has doubled; it has risen by 3m in a year. Around 7 million adults (16% of the English adult population) are now taking this medicine, and around 330,000 children. The new data can’t say whether more people are depressed than previously – only that more are being medicated. The most recent official survey, in 2016, revealed an increase in rates of the most common mental health conditions among women, particularly teenage girls. Recent reports from a commission assembled by the Lancet medical journal, and the World Health Organization, have warned of a growing global mental health crisis, and called on policymakers and professionals worldwide to make this a priority. While people being ill is bad news, reports of people being treated for illness should, so long as the treatment is appropriate, be welcomed. Some researchers believe mental disorders remain under-treated because they are poorly understood, because doctors and patients share doubts about the remedies, and because of the social stigma that makes people reluctant to report symptoms or seek a diagnosis. But even granting that some people may be taking antidepressants who previously went untreated, there is a debate about whether pills are being overprescribed. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 26103 - Posted: 04.02.2019