Laura Sanders People tend to think of memories as deeply personal, ephemeral possessions — snippets of emotions, words, colors and smells stitched into our unique neural tapestries as life goes on. But a strange series of experiments conducted decades ago offered a different, more tangible perspective. The mind-bending results have gained unexpected support from recent studies. In 1959, James Vernon McConnell, a psychologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, painstakingly trained small flatworms called planarians to associate a shock with a light. The worms remembered this lesson, later contracting their bodies in response to the light. One weird and wonderful thing about planarians is that they can regenerate their bodies — including their brains. When the trained flatworms were cut in half, they regrew either a head or a tail, depending on which piece had been lost. Not surprisingly, worms that kept their heads and regrew tails retained the memory of the shock, McConnell found. Astonishingly, so did the worms that grew replacement heads and brains. Somehow, these fully operational, complex arrangements of brand-spanking-new nerve cells had acquired the memory of the painful shock, McConnell reported. In subsequent experiments, McConnell went even further, attempting to transfer memory from one worm to another. He tried grafting the head of a trained worm onto the tail of an untrained worm, but he couldn’t get the head to stick. He injected trained planarian slurry into untrained worms, but the recipients often exploded. Finally, he ground up bits of the trained planarians and fed them to untrained worms. Sure enough, after their meal, the untrained worms seemed to have traces of the memory — the cannibals recoiled at the light. The implications were bizarre, and potentially profound: Lurking in that pungent planarian puree must be a substance that allowed animals to literally eat one another’s memories. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2017.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 24569 - Posted: 01.25.2018

By Lenny Bernstein Advanced brain imaging technology may give doctors an additional 10 hours or more to respond to some strokes, researchers said Wednesday, a development that may soon bring major changes to the way hospitals treat one of the leading causes of disability and death. The research is upending doctors’ long-held belief that they have just six hours to save threatened brain tissue from lack of blood flow when a major vessel to the brain is blocked. The new findings suggest they may have as long as 16 hours in many cases; a study published three weeks ago with a different group of stroke victims put the outer limit at 24 hours for some. Both studies showed such dramatic results that they were cut short to speed up reporting of the information to physicians. In response to the studies, new stroke treatment guidelines were released Wednesday. “The big news is that we were all wrong in how we were thinking about how strokes evolve,” said Gregory W. Albers, a professor of neurology at Stanford University Medical Center and lead author of the new paper. While some brain tissue dies quickly after a stroke begins, in most patients, collateral blood vessels usually take over feeding a larger area of the brain that is also starved for blood and oxygen, giving doctors many more hours to save that tissue than they previously believed, Albers said. So the age-old medical belief that “time is brain” — that millions of neurons die each minute after a stroke — must be reconsidered, he said. “We are quadrupling the stroke treatment window today,” Albers said. “It’s going to have a massive impact on how stroke is triaged and assessed.” © 1996-2018 The Washington Post

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 24568 - Posted: 01.25.2018

By Bret Stetka Fossil records can tell us a lot about our evolutionary past: what our ancestors looked like, how they walked, what they ate. But what bits of bone don’t typically reveal is why humans evolved the way we did—why, compared with all other known species, we wound up capable of such complex thought, emotion and behavior. A team of researchers has now used a novel technique to form a hypothesis on the origins of our rich cognitive abilities. They did so by profiling the chemicals buzzing around our brains. These compounds, known as neurotransmitters, are the signaling molecules responsible for key brain functions. Their research reveals that in comparison with other higher primates, our brains have unique neurotransmitter profiles that probably resulted in our enhanced cognition. The authors of the new study—a multicenter effort led by Kent State University anthropologists C. Owen Lovejoy and Mary Ann Raghanti and published January 22 in PNAS—began by measuring neurotransmitter levels in brain samples from humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, baboons and monkeys, all of whom had died of natural causes. Specifically, they tested levels in the striatum, a brain region involved in social behaviors and interactions. Compared with the other species tested, humans had markedly increased striatal dopamine activity. Among other functions, dopamine helps drive reward activity and social behaviors. In the striatum in particular it contributes to uniquely human abilities and behaviors like complicated social group formation and, in part, speech and language. © 2018 Scientific American,

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 24567 - Posted: 01.25.2018

Bruce Bower Big brains outpaced well-rounded brains in human evolution. Around the time of the origins of our species 300,000 years ago, the brains of Homo sapiens had about the same relatively large size as they do today, new research suggests. But rounder noggins rising well above the forehead — considered a hallmark of human anatomy — didn’t appear until between about 100,000 and 35,000 years ago, say physical anthropologist Simon Neubauer and his colleagues. Using CT scans of ancient and modern human skulls, the researchers created digital brain reconstructions, based on the shape of the inner surface of each skull’s braincase. Human brains gradually evolved from a relatively flatter and elongated shape — more like that of Neandertals’ — to a globe shape thanks to a series of genetic tweaks to brain development early in life, the researchers propose January 24 in Science Advances. A gradual transition to round brains may have stimulated considerable neural reorganization by around 50,000 years ago. That cognitive reworking could have enabled a blossoming of artwork and other forms of symbolic behavior among Stone Age humans, the team suspects. Other researchers have argued, however, that abstract and symbolic thinking flourished even before H. sapiens emerged (SN: 12/27/14, p. 6). Ancient DNA studies indicate that genes involved in brain development changed in H. sapiens following a split from Neandertals more than 600,000 years ago (SN Online: 3/14/16). “Those genetic changes might be responsible for differences in neural wiring and brain growth that led to brain [rounding] in modern humans, but not in Neandertals,” says Neubauer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2017

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 24566 - Posted: 01.25.2018

By Diana Kwon Search for “pheromones products” on the internet, and dozens of sprays and perfume additives will appear—many claiming to be able to increase your attractiveness to the opposite sex. Some companies, such as the Athena Institute, which, according to its founder, Winnifred Cutler, published its 108th consecutive ad in The Atlantic this month, assert that scientific studies back up their claims. While there have been several experiments examining the effects of compounds extracted from people’s armpits, much of the data on sex-related behaviors, The Scientist has found, go back more than a decade and were met then—and still now—with skepticism from pheromone researchers. “I am not compelled by any studies that are out there that say there is an active steroid component from the underarm that causes [sexual attraction],” says George Preti, an organic chemist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia who conducted some of the early human pheromone trials. Within the scientific community, pheromones are broadly defined as chemical signals released by an animal that induce specific effects on other members of the same species. Although these substances are typically associated with sexual attraction, researchers have found they can have a broader range of influence, such as prompting aggression or modifying parental behaviors. © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 24565 - Posted: 01.25.2018

Dean Burnett Doctors Warn That Anti-Depressants Can Lead To SuicideMIAMI, FL - MARCH 23: A bottle of antidepressant pills named Effexor is shown March 23, 2004 photographed in Miami, Florida. The Food and Drug Administration asked makers of popular antidepressants to add or strengthen suicide-related warnings on their labels as well as the possibility of worsening depression especially at the beginning of treatment or when the doses are increased or decreased. (Photo Illustration by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Please, do not just abandon your medication. If you’ve been prescribed drugs to treat an illness, suddenly dropping it altogether – for whatever reason – is invariably a very bad move. And this is as true for things like antidepressants as it is for insulin or antibiotics. Antidepressant withdrawal syndrome is a real problem. It doesn’t effect everyone equally, but that’s always been the case with antidepressants. The effects can be really profound and debilitating though, including a spike in anxiety, alarming “brain zaps”, and more. For better or worse, if you’ve been taking antidepressants for a number of weeks, your brain has slowly adapted to the new chemical levels and balance that they have brought about. A sudden cessation will rapidly alter this again, potentially causing all manner of problems, and possibly cause the underlying issue (ie depression) they’re supposed to be treating to return with a vengeance. This is why the specific dose and schedule of antidepressants is very carefully considered. If you do genuinely want to come off your antidepressants, please speak to your GP or medical expert, work out a system for gradual reduction and cessation and make plans and preparations for what could happen, as it could leave you unable to function normally. If you’re going to do it, please do it carefully, and thoroughly. © 2018 Guardian News and Media Limit

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 24564 - Posted: 01.25.2018

By Alex Therrien Health reporter, BBC News Smokers need to quit cigarettes rather than cut back on them to significantly lower their risk of heart disease and stroke, a large BMJ study suggests. People who smoked even one cigarette a day were still about 50% more likely to develop heart disease and 30% more likely to have a stroke than people who had never smoked, researchers said. They said it showed there was no safe level of smoking for such diseases. But an expert said people who cut down were more likely to stop. Cardiovascular disease, not cancer, is the greatest mortality risk for smoking, causing about 48% of smoking-related premature deaths. While the percentage of adults in the UK who smoked had been falling, the proportion of people who smoked one to five cigarettes a day had been rising steadily, researchers said. Their analysis of 141 studies, published in the BMJ, indicates a 20-a-day habit would cause seven heart attacks or strokes in a group of 100 middle-aged people. But if they drastically cut back to one a day it would still cause three heart attacks, the research suggests. The researchers said men who smoked one cigarette a day had about a 48% higher risk of developing coronary heart disease and were 25% more likely to have a stroke than those who had never smoked. For women, it was higher - 57% for heart disease and 31% for stroke. Prof Allan Hackshaw at the UCL Cancer Institute at University College London, who led the study, told the BBC: "There's been a trend in quite a few countries for heavy smokers to cut down, thinking that's perfectly fine, which is the case for things like cancer. "But for these two common disorders, which they're probably more likely to get than cancer, it's not the case. They've got to stop completely." © 2018 BBC.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24563 - Posted: 01.25.2018

Ian Sample Science editor In work that could open a new front in the war on Parkinson’s disease, and even ageing itself, scientists have shown that they can stave off some of the effects of the neurodegenerative disease by flushing “zombie cells” from the brain. The research in mice raises hopes for a fresh approach to treating the most common forms of Parkinson’s disease, which typically arise through a complex interplay of genetics, lifestyle and potentially toxic substances in the environment. But the approach may have benefits far beyond Parkinson’s, with other neurodegenerative diseases – and the ageing process more broadly – all being linked to the ill effects of these “senescent” cells, which linger in tissues after entering a state of suspended animation in the body. “It’s a completely new way of looking at neurodegenerative disease and finding potential drugs,” said Marco Demaria, a molecular biologist on the team at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. “For most of these conditions, we don’t have any way to counteract them.” Parkinson’s disease affects about 10 million people worldwide, and usually takes hold when certain types of neurons in the brain become impaired or die off completely. The neurons in question produce a substance called dopamine, which is crucial for enabling the brain to produce smooth and coordinated physical movements. © 2018 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 24562 - Posted: 01.24.2018

Patti Neighmond Kids who vape and use other forms of e-cigarettes are likely to try more harmful tobacco products like regular cigarettes, but e-cigarettes do hold some promise for helping adults quit. That's according to the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, which published a comprehensive public health review of more than 800 studies on e-cigarettes on Tuesday. "There is conclusive evidence that most products emit a variety of potentially toxic substances. However the number and intensity is highly variable," says David Eaton, who heads the committee that wrote the report. He is also the dean and vice provost of the graduate school of the University of Washington, Seattle. "In some circumstances, such as their use by nonsmoking adolescents and young adults, their adverse effects clearly warrant concern. In other cases, such as when adult smokers use them to quit smoking, they offer an opportunity to reduce smoking-related illness." In fact, 15 of the studies NAS reviewed found that when teens and young adults use e-cigarettes, they are more likely to try regular tobacco within a year. "We found that kids who tried e-cigarettes, hookah, or smokeless tobacco or cigars — any non-cigarette tobacco product — were all twice as likely to try cigarettes a year later, compared to kids who hadn't used any of those other tobacco products," says Shannon Lea Watkins, a public policy researcher at University of California, San Francisco. Watkins and her colleagues also found that the effects of using non-cigarette products compound: "Kids using two or more non-cigarette products were four times as likely to report using cigarettes a year later." © 2018 npr

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24561 - Posted: 01.24.2018

By Giorgia Guglielmi ENIGMA, the world’s largest brain mapping project, was “born out of frustration,” says neuroscientist Paul Thompson of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 2009, he and geneticist Nicholas Martin of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, were chafing at the limits of brain imaging studies. The cost of MRI scans limited most efforts to a few dozen subjects—too few to draw robust connections about how brain structure is linked to genetic variations and disease. The answer, they realized over a meal at a Los Angeles shopping mall, was to pool images and genetic data from multiple studies across the world. After a slow start, the consortium has brought together nearly 900 researchers across 39 countries to analyze brain scans and genetic data on more than 30,000 people. In an accelerating series of publications, ENIGMA’s crowdsourcing approach is opening windows on how genes and structure relate in the normal brain—and in disease. This week, for example, an ENIGMA study published in the journal Brain compared scans from nearly 4000 people across Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australia to pinpoint unexpected brain abnormalities associated with common epilepsies. ENIGMA is “an outstanding effort. We should all be doing more of this,” says Mohammed Milad, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois in Chicago who is not a member of the consortium. ENIGMA’s founders crafted the consortium’s name—Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis—so that its acronym would honor U.K. mathematician Alan Turing’s code-breaking effort targeting Germany’s Enigma cipher machines during World War II. Like Turing’s project, ENIGMA aims to crack a mystery. Small brain-scanning studies of twins or close relatives done in the 2000s showed that differences in some cognitive and structural brain measures have a genetic basis. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Brain imaging; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 24560 - Posted: 01.24.2018

By Benjamin W. Nelson, Heidemarie Laurent, Nick Allen, An estimated 1 in 9 women experience symptoms of postpartum depression. These symptoms—including mood swings, fatigue and reduced interest in activities—can make it difficult for mothers to bond with their newborns. Early relationships between mothers and their infants can influence health across the lifespan, for better or worse. For example, adults who report more household dysfunction and abuse during their childhood are more likely to suffer disease as adults. Those with healthy and supportive relationships during early life are better at handling stress and regulating their emotions. Advertisement However, scientists do not completely understand how these environments get “under the skin” to shape health. Our latest paper, published in November, shows a possible link between increasing depression symptoms in mothers and cellular damage in their infants. How does stress affect our cells? One area of burgeoning research focuses on telomeres. Telomeres are caps at the end of our DNA that protect chromosomes. They’re analogous to the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces that keep laces from unraveling. In essence, these plastic caps keep laces functional. The same can be said of your telomeres. Since the length of telomeres is affected by our genetics and age, they’re sometimes thought of as part of a “biological clock” that reflects the age of our cells. As telomeres shorten over time, people are more likely to experience a host of negative health outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes, cancer, obesity and even death. © 2018 Scientific American

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 24559 - Posted: 01.24.2018

By LIZZ SCHUMER It happens every year, and every year, it’s a shock to the system. Nature throws itself one last party, festooning every tree in a crisp blaze of glory. After we’ve digested the last of the spiced cider, after the pumpkins have gone soft, the long, dark days of winter descend. In much of the Northern Hemisphere, December through March brings blustery cold that makes dreary days feel as if we’ve been banished to Siberia. Sound dramatic? Probably not to the roughly 6 percent of Americans suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal and his colleagues first put a name to the disorder in 1984. Today, it’s characterized as a seasonal pattern of major depressive episodes, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. SAD ranges widely in severity, from the doldrums Dr. Rosenthal calls the “winter blues” to disabling ennui. Its cyclical nature differentiates SAD from major depressive disorder. “We have a tendency to want to blame everything on psychological causes,” Dr. Rosenthal explained. “We overlook the obvious, which is that it’s dark as pea soup outside. That’s why I think [SAD] goes unrecognized — it’s right in front of our noses.” While SAD should be diagnosed and treated by a licensed medical professional, several treatment options have emerged in the decades since it was first recognized. Here are a few ways for patients and their doctors to address the disorder, ranging from most to least widely used. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 24558 - Posted: 01.24.2018

By Abby Olena Studying scorpions comes with its share of danger, as biologist Bryan Fry of the University of Queensland knows all too well. On a 2009 trip to the Brazilian Amazon, Fry was stung while trying to collect the lethal Brazilian yellow scorpion (Tityus serrulatus), and for eight hours he says it felt as though his finger was in a candle flame. Meanwhile, his heart flipped between racing and stopping for up to five seconds at a time. “At least the insane levels of pain helped keep my mind off my failing heart,” Fry writes in an email to The Scientist. His symptoms were caused by an arsenal of toxins in the animal’s sting, which contribute to one of the most painful attacks in the animal kingdom. But at least one mammal—the southern grasshopper mouse (Onychomys torridus)—regularly chows down on Arizona bark scorpions (Centruroides sculpturatus) and doesn’t seem to experience pain, despite receiving plenty of stings. In 2013, Ashlee Rowe, now of Michigan State University, and colleagues showed that bark scorpion venom interacts with the NaV1.8 voltage-gated sodium channel in grasshopper mice, in addition to activating the NaV1.7 channel as it does in other mammals (Science, 342:441-46). Rowe’s team showed that grasshopper mice have evolved amino acid changes in NaV1.8 that allow it to bind scorpion venom components, and in turn prevent the channel’s activation. Because NaV1.8 is responsible for transmitting pain signals to the central nervous system following NaV1.7 binding, blocking its activation prevents the sensation of pain. In other mammals, scorpion venom has no effect on NaV1.8. © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 24557 - Posted: 01.24.2018

By Jocelyn Kaiser Scientists who conduct basic behavioral research are bracing for a policy kicking in this week that will impose new rules on their federally funded studies, many of which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, will now consider clinical trials. Although many researchers maintain that the policy makes no sense and will hinder their work, recent revisions by NIH officials have eased some fears. “There’s still a problem, but the problem is less dire than the original set of concerns that we had,” says cognitive psychologist Jeremy Wolfe of the Harvard University–affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who is also the immediate past president of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS) in Washington, D.C. The changes, which take effect for proposals with due dates of 25 January or later, are part of a new clinical trials definition that NIH released in 2014 but only began implementing last year. That was when scientists who use tools such as MRI scans to explore how the normal brain works realized that their studies, which they never thought of as clinical trials because they don’t test drugs or other treatments, fell under the new definition. The change imposed several new requirements on researchers, such as submitting proposals in response to a formal funding opportunity for clinical trials and registering the studies in clinicaltrials.gov, the federal trials database. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 24556 - Posted: 01.24.2018

By Ann Gibbons Humans are the ultimate social animals, with the ability to bond with mates, communicate through language, and make small talk with strangers on a packed bus. (Put chimpanzees in the same situation and most wouldn’t make it off the bus alive.) A new study suggests that the evolution of our unique social intelligence may have initially begun as a simple matter of brain chemistry. Neuroanatomists have been trying for decades to find major differences between the brains of humans and other primates, aside from the obvious brain size. The human brain must have reorganized its chemistry and wiring as early human ancestors began to walk upright, use tools, and develop more complex social networks 6 million to 2 million years ago—well before the brain began to enlarge 1.8 million years ago, according to a hypothesis proposed in the 1960s by physical anthropologist Ralph Holloway of Columbia University. But neurotransmitters aren’t preserved in ancient skulls, so how to spot those changes? One way is to search for key differences in neurochemistry between humans and other primates living today. Mary Ann Raghanti, a biological anthropologist at Kent State University in Ohio, and colleagues got tissue samples from brain banks and zoos of 38 individuals from six species who had died of natural causes: humans, tufted capuchins, pig-tailed macaques, olive baboons, gorillas, and chimpanzees. They sliced sections of basal ganglia—clusters of nerve cells and fibers in a region at the base of the brain known as the striatum, which is a sort of clearinghouse that relays signals from different parts of the brain for movement, learning, and social behavior. They stained these slices with chemicals that react to different types of neurotransmitters, including dopamine, serotonin, and neuropeptide Y—which are associated with sensitivity to social cues and cooperative behavior. Then, they analyzed the slices to measure different levels of neurotransmitters that had been released when the primates were alive. © 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Aggression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24555 - Posted: 01.23.2018

Harriet Dempsey-Jones Nobody really believes that the shape of our heads are a window into our personalities anymore. This idea, known as “phrenonolgy”, was developed by the German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796 and was hugely popular in the 19th century. Today it is often remembered for its dark history – being misused in its later days to back racist and sexist stereoptypes, and its links with Nazi “eugenics”. But despite the fact that it has fallen into disrepute, phrenology as a science has never really been subjected to rigorous, neuroscientific testing. That is, until now. Researchers at the University of Oxford have hacked their own brain scanning software to explore – for the first time – whether there truly is any correspondence between the bumps and contours of your head and aspects of your personality. The results have recently been published in an open science archive, but have also been submitted to the journal Cortex. But why did phrenologists think that bumps on your head might be so informative? Their enigmatic claims were based around a few general principles. Phrenologists believed the brain was comprised of separate “organs” responsible for different aspects of the mind, such as for self-esteem, cautiousness and benevolence. They also thought of the brain like a muscle – the more you used a particular organ the more it would grow in size (hypertrophy), and less used faculties would shrink. The skull would then mould to accommodate these peaks and troughs in the brain’s surface – providing an indirect reflection of the brain, and thus, the dominant features of an person’s character. © 2010–2018, The Conversation US, Inc.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 24554 - Posted: 01.23.2018

Nicola Davis Whether stalking down the stairs or tiptoeing into the litter box, cats have a preference for which paw they put forward, according to new research, with females favouring their right paw and males their left. Scientists say that while such preferences are a matter of individual inclination, males generally prefer stepping out with their left foot, while females typically favour their right. The team say understanding paw preference could offer insights into an animal’s vulnerability to stress. “Left-limbed animals, which rely more heavily on their right hemisphere for processing information, tend to show stronger fear responses, aggressive outbursts, and cope more poorly with stressful situations than animals that are right-limbed and rely more heavily on their left hemisphere for processing,” said Dr Deborah Wells, co-author of the research from Queen’s University, Belfast, adding that the right hemisphere is more responsible for processing of negative emotions. The study was conducted in owners’ homes and focused on spontaneous behaviour. In total, the team analysed data from 44 cats, 20 of which were female, collected by owners tracking which paw their cat used for taking the first step down stairs and stepping into the litter box, and which side their feline preferred to recline on. Over the course of three months owners recorded 50 instances of each behaviour. © 2018 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Laterality; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 24553 - Posted: 01.23.2018

Michael Seto Mr. Smith was a 27-year-old man referred for psychological treatment after sexually offending against a 13-year-old boy. He initially denied the charge, but eventually admitted to sexually abusing multiple youth. He later admitted he’d been attracted to boys since his own adolescence. Mr. Smith is actually a case composite from my first book on pedophilia. But the description is representative of stories I’ve heard from the hundreds of individuals I’ve talked with as a psychologist and researcher over the past 25 years. Most men are sexually attracted to sexually mature young adults. But a small minority of men are sexually attracted to other age groups, from infants to the elderly. These age-based attractions are called chronophilias. My research focuses on chronophilias and sexual offending against children. Recently, I’ve started to think about these age-specific attractions as sexual orientations for age, similar to how we understand sexual orientation for gender. This is quite different from the traditional way that psychologists view chronophilias, as sexual preferences that are distinct from someone’s identity. This idea – that chronophilias can be understood as sexual orientations for age – is provocative, because it raises ethical, legal and scientific questions about how we think about sexual orientation, the etiology of sexual preferences and how we respond to sexual offenses against minors. © 2010–2018, The Conversation US, Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 24552 - Posted: 01.23.2018

By ALAN BURDICK In his first year in office President Trump gave himself credit for numerous accomplishments that he had little or nothing to do with: the passage of the Republican tax bill; Walmart’s creating 10,000 jobs in the United States; the invention of the phrase “prime the pump”; and the fact that in his brief tenure, nobody died in a commercial aviation accident. (The last fatal crash on a domestic commercial airline in the United States was in 2009.) But one thing that Mr. Trump almost certainly managed to do, without effort or notice, is alter our perception of time. We’re all aware that our experience of time is fungible: Days fly by, conversations drag on, that weeklong vacation seems to last forever until suddenly it doesn’t. As long ago as 1890 the psychologist William James noted that our feelings of time “harmonize with different mental moods.” There now exists a large body of scientific literature demonstrating that emotions play a large part in generating these temporal flexions. For instance, when viewing faces on a computer monitor, lab subjects report that happy faces seem to last longer onscreen than nonexpressive ones, and angry faces seem to last longer still. Fear, alarm and stress are factors too. Forty-five seconds with a live spider seems to last far longer to people who are afraid of spiders. Watching three minutes of video clips of the Sept. 11 attacks feels longer than watching a three-minute clip from “The Wizard of Oz.” Now consider that Mr. Trump’s first year in office must rank as the most chaotic and tumultuous in modern presidential history. Virtually every week served up a new drama: the firing of the national security adviser Michael Flynn; the firing of the F.B.I. director James Comey; the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel; Mr. Trump’s announcement, via Twitter, banning transgender people from the military; his bungled phone call to the widow of a soldier killed in Niger; his support of the Senate candidacy of Roy Moore; his pardon of the former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio; his mockery of the television host Mika Brzezinski; his failure to immediately denounce the white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville, Va.; his rants about the peaceful protests of professional football players; his taunting of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with his bigger “nuclear button.” It has been a 12-month-long emotional roller coaster, even for Mr. Trump’s supporters. © 2018 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 24551 - Posted: 01.22.2018

By Jenny Rood Opioid drugs are well-established double-edged swords. Extremely effective at analgesia, they cause an array of harmful side effects throughout the body, including itching, constipation, and respiratory depression—the slowed breathing that ultimately causes death in overdose cases. What’s more, the body’s interaction with opioids is dynamic: our receptors for these compounds become desensitized to the drugs’ activity over time, requiring ever larger doses to suppress pain and eventually provoking severe dependence and protracted withdrawal. In the past few years, these side effects have plagued growing numbers of US citizens, plunging the country into the throes of a devastating opioid crisis in which nearly 100 people die from overdoses every day. Even so, opioids are still among the most effective pain-relief options available. “Over hundreds of years, [opioid receptors] have remained a target,” says Laura Bohn, a biochemist at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida. “Therapeutically, it works.” Since the early 2000s, intriguing evidence has emerged suggesting that opioids’ useful properties could be separated from their harmful attributes. (See “Pain and Progress,” The Scientist, February 2014.) In 2005, Bohn, then at the Ohio State University College of Medicine, and colleagues showed that shutting down one of the signaling pathways downstream of the opioid receptor targeted by morphine not only amped up the drug’s painkilling effects in mice, but also reduced constipation and respiratory depression (J Pharmacol Exp Ther, 314:1195-201). © 1986-2018 The Scientist

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24550 - Posted: 01.22.2018