By Mitch Leslie If these sweltering summer days prompt you to reach for a cold drink, you can thank your hypothalamus, a region of the brain that helps us regulate body temperature and other internal conditions. But the region may fail us when we get older. A new study in mice suggests that the hypothalamus promotes aging, hastening physical and mental decline as its stem cells die off. “It’s a pretty stunning paper,” says Charles Mobbs, a neuroendocrinologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. The new aging mechanism “is totally novel and quite unexpected,” adds neuroendocrinologist Marianna Sadagurski of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Tucked away deep in the brain, the hypothalamus monitors and maintains our blood concentration, our body temperature, and other physiological variables. Researchers have also suspected that it plays a role in aging. The hypothalamus becomes inflamed as we get older, and 4 years ago a team led by neurodendocrinologist Dongsheng Cai of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City showed that quelling this inflammation delays physical deterioration and boosts life span in mice. In the new study, the team turned its attention to the hypothalamus’s stem cells, which in young animals divide to produce replacements for dead and damaged cells. As mice get older, the scientists found, the number of stem cells in the hypothalamus plunges. By later ages they are “basically all gone,” Cai says. © 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Stem Cells
Link ID: 23886 - Posted: 07.27.2017

Sara Reardon Mice aged more slowly when injected with stem cells from the brains of newborns. Stem cells in the brain could be the key to extending life and slowing ageing. These cells — which are located in the hypothalamus, a region that produces hormones and other signalling molecules — can re­invigorate declining brain function and muscle strength in middle-aged mice, according to a study published on 26 July in Nature1. Previous studies have suggested that the hypothalamus is involved in ageing, but the latest research shows that stem cells in this region can slow the process. That makes sense, because the hypothalamus is involved in many bodily functions, including inflammation and appetite, says Dongsheng Cai, a neuroendocrinologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. In their study, Cai and his colleagues found that stem cells in the hypothalamus disappear as mice grow older. When the researchers injected their mice with viruses that destroy these cells, the animals seemed to grow older faster, experiencing declines in memory, muscle strength, endurance and coordination. They also died sooner than untreated mice of the same age. Next, the team injected stem cells taken from the hypothalami of newborn mice into the brains of middle-aged mice. After four months, these animals had better cognitive and muscular function than untreated mice of the same age. They also lived about 10% longer, on average. © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Stem Cells
Link ID: 23885 - Posted: 07.27.2017

Sarah Zhang In 1958, Robert Monroe floated out of his body for the first time. It began “without any apparent cause,” he wrote. His doctor, finding no physical ailment, prescribed tranquilizers. A psychologist friend, meanwhile, told me him to try leaving his body again. After all, the friend said, “some of the fellows who practice yoga and those Eastern religions claim they can do it whenever they want to.” Monroe did try it again—and again and again. He recalls these experiences in his classic 1971 book Journeys out of the Body, which launched the phrase “out-of-body experiences” into the public conversation. Monroe died in 1995, but the fascination with out-of-body experiences endures. Out-of-body experience can vary person to person, but they often involve the sense of floating above one’s actual body and looking down. For neuroscientists, the phenomenon is a puzzle and an opportunity: Understanding how the brain goes awry can also illuminate how it is supposed to work. Neuroscientists now think that out-of-body experiences involve the vestibular system—made up of canals in the inner ear that track a person’s locations in space—and how that information gets integrated with other senses in the brain. In a recent study from France, Christophe Lopez, a neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université, teamed up with Maya Elzière, a doctor who sees patient with vestibular disorders. Some of these patients complained of dizziness, with physical causes that ranged from fluid leaking out of the inner ear to an infection of a nearby nerve. Of 210 patients who reported dizziness, 14 percent said they have had out-of-body experiences. In contrast, only 5 percent of healthy participants in the study reported such sensations. © 2017 by The Atlantic Monthly Group

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 23884 - Posted: 07.27.2017

By Diana Kwon Like humans, some golden retrievers develop Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a hereditary muscle wasting condition that begins early in life. Using gene therapy, scientists were able to restore muscle function in dogs with the disease, according to a study published today (July 25) in Nature Communications. Researchers injected microdystrophin, a shortened version of the dystrophin gene that individuals with DMD lack, into 12 dogs with the disease. The treatment led to improved muscle function in those animals for more than two years. “This preclinical study demonstrates the safety and efficacy of microdystrophin, and makes it possible to consider developing a clinical trial in patients,” study coauthor Caroline Le Guiner of the Université de Nantes in France, says in a statement. “Indeed, this is the first time that it has been possible to treat the whole body of a large-sized animal with this protein.” Scientists have also used CRISPR to correct the disease-causing mutations in mouse models of DMD and in the cells of a human patient with the condition. “This [study] is very encouraging, as current treatments for muscular dystrophy are merely palliative and patients are under constant medical care throughout their life,” John Counsell, a research associate at University College London who was not involved in the study, in a statement published by the Science Media Center. “Further preclinical trials will be required to show that this treatment can be effective in patients.” © 1986-2017 The Scientist

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Muscles
Link ID: 23883 - Posted: 07.27.2017

Cells within an injured mouse eye can be coaxed into regenerating neurons and those new neurons appear to integrate themselves into the eye’s circuitry, new research shows. The findings potentially open the door to new treatments for eye trauma and retinal disease. The study appears in the July 26 issue of Nature, and was funded in part by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. “The findings are significant because they suggest the feasibility of a novel approach for encouraging regeneration in the mammalian retina, the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye that dies in many blinding diseases,” said Tom Greenwell, Ph.D., program director at NEI. “Importantly, the investigation also demonstrates that newly generated cells in the mouse retina not only look and behave like neurons, they also wire correctly to the existing neural circuitry at the back of the eye.” The study’s lead investigator, Tom Reh, Ph.D., and his team at UW Medicine in Seattle, looked to the zebrafish for clues about how to encourage regeneration in the mouse eye. When a zebrafish injures its eye, cells within the eye naturally regenerate, allowing the fish to maintain vision. Mammals lack this regenerative ability. In studying zebrafish the research team homed in on Müller glia, a type of retinal cell that supports the health and functioning of neighboring neurons, and that also exhibits an innate regenerative ability. Sometimes referred to as the stem cells of the zebrafish eye, Müller glia are the cells from which all other types of retinal cells are regenerated in the fish.

Keyword: Vision; Stem Cells
Link ID: 23882 - Posted: 07.27.2017

By Andrew Wagner Although it’s a far cry from the exosuits of science fiction, researchers have developed a robotic exoskeleton that can help stroke victims regain use of their legs. Nine out of 10 stroke patients are afflicted with partial paralysis, leaving some with an abnormal gait. The exosuit works by pulling cords attached to a shoe insole, providing torque to the ankle and correcting the abnormal walking motion. With the suit providing assistance to their joints, the stroke victims are able to maintain their balance, and walk similarly to the way they had prior to their paralysis, the team reports today in Science Translational Medicine. The exosuit is an adaptation of a previous design developed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Warrior Web program, a Department of Defense plan to develop assistive exosuits for military applications. Although similar mechanical devices have been built in the past to assist in gait therapy, these were bulky and had to be kept tethered to a power source. This new suit is light enough that with a decent battery, it could be used to help patients walk over terrain as well, not just on a treadmill. The researchers say that although the technology needs long-term testing, it could start to decrease the time it takes for stroke patients to recover in the near future. © 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 23881 - Posted: 07.27.2017

By Joe Ward, Josh Williams and Sam Manchester Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist, has examined the brains of 202 deceased football players. A broad survey of her findings was published on Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Of the 202 players, 111 of them played in the N.F.L. — and 110 of those were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head. C.T.E. causes myriad symptoms, including memory loss, confusion, depression and dementia. The problems can arise years after the blows to the head have stopped. The brains here are from players who died as young as 23 and as old as 89. And they are from every position on the field — quarterbacks, running backs and linebackers, and even a place-kicker and a punter. They are from players you have never heard of and players, like Ken Stabler, who are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Some of the brains cannot be publicly identified, per the families’ wishes. The image above is from the brain of Ronnie Caveness, a linebacker for the Houston Oilers and Kansas City Chiefs. In college, he helped the Arkansas Razorbacks go undefeated in 1964. One of his teammates was Jerry Jones, now the owner of the Dallas Cowboys. Jones has rejected the belief that there is a link between football and C.T.E. The image above is from the brain of Ollie Matson, who played 14 seasons in the N.F.L. — after winning two medals on the track at the 1952 Helsinki Games. He died in 2011 at age 80 after being mostly bedridden with dementia, his nephew told The Associated Press, adding that Matson hadn’t spoken in four years. Dr. McKee, chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston Healthcare System and director of the CTE Center at Boston University, has amassed the largest C.T.E. brain bank in the world. But the brains of some other players found to have the disease — like Junior Seau, Mike Webster and Andre Waters — were examined elsewhere. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 23880 - Posted: 07.26.2017

Tom Goldman As the country starts to get back into its most popular professional team sport, there is a reminder of how dangerous football can be. An updated study published Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association on football players and the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy reveals a striking result among NFL players. The study examined the brains of deceased former football players (CTE can only be diagnosed after death) and found that 110 out of 111 brains of those who played in the NFL had CTE. CTE has been linked to repeated blows to the head — the 2015 movie Concussion chronicled the discovery of CTE's connection to football. In the study, researchers examined the brains of 202 deceased former football players at all levels. Nearly 88 percent of all the brains, 177, had CTE. Three of 14 who had played only in high school had CTE, 48 of 53 college players, 9 of 14 semiprofessional players, and 7 of 8 Canadian Football League players. CTE was not found in the brains of two who played football before high school. According to the study's senior author, Dr. Ann McKee, "this is by far the largest [study] of individuals who developed CTE that has ever been described. And it only includes individuals who are exposed to head trauma by participation in football." © 2017 npr

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 23879 - Posted: 07.26.2017

by Tom Siegfried Scientists pour a lot of brainpower into understanding how their experimental equipment works. You don’t want to be fooled into thinking you’ve made a great discovery because of some quirk in the apparatus you didn’t know about. Just the other day, a new paper published online suggested that the instruments used to detect gravitational waves exhibited such a quirk, tricking scientists into claiming the detection of waves that maybe weren’t really there. It appears that gravity wave fans can relax, though. A response to the challenge pretty much establishes that the new criticism doesn’t undermine the wave discoveries. Of course, you never know — supposedly well-established results sometimes do fade away. Often that’s because scientists have neglected to understand the most important part of the entire experimental apparatus — their own brains. It’s the brain, after all, that devises experiments and interprets their results. How the brain perceives, how it makes decisions and judgments, and how those judgments can go awry are at least as important to science as knowing the intricacies of nonbiotic experimental machinery. And as any brain scientist will tell you, there’s still a long way to go before understanding the brain will get crossed off science’s to-do list. But there has been progress. A recent special issue of the journal Neuron offers a convenient set of “perspective” papers exploring the current state of understanding of the brain’s inner workings. Those papers show that a lot is known. But at the same time they emphasize that there’s a lot we don’t know. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2017

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 23878 - Posted: 07.26.2017

By Virginia Morell Frogs, birds, monkeys, and humans make a variety of sounds expressing emotions. And because that ability is shared by every land-dwelling animal with a backbone, Charles Darwin argued that these cries have a common origin. Humans can recognize the emotions in the voices of other mammals, including cats and dogs. To find out whether we can also do this for nonmammals, scientists gathered recordings from nine species, including the hourglass tree frog (above), American alligator, common raven, Barbary macaque, and Tamil-speaking humans in two emotional states: highly and mildly aroused. They played the calls to 75 people—men and women who spoke English, German, or Mandarin—and asked them to judge whether the animal was very excited or subdued. You can try it yourself below: Participants easily passed the tests. Some 90% of listeners distinguished between the excited and calmer sounds of the tree frogs (which were calling for mates), and 87% scored the alligator calls correctly. Sixty-two percent were right about the ravens’ calls of alarm. © 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Animal Communication; Emotions
Link ID: 23877 - Posted: 07.26.2017

By BENEDICT CAREY LONDON — England is in the midst of a unique national experiment, the world’s most ambitious effort to treat depression, anxiety and other common mental illnesses. The rapidly growing initiative, which has gotten little publicity outside the country, offers virtually open-ended talk therapy free of charge at clinics throughout the country: in remote farming villages, industrial suburbs, isolated immigrant communities and high-end enclaves. The goal is to eventually create a system of primary care for mental health not just for England but for all of Britain. At a time when many nations are debating large-scale reforms to mental health care, researchers and policy makers are looking hard at England’s experience, sizing up both its popularity and its limitations. Mental health care systems vary widely across the Western world, but none have gone nearly so far to provide open-ended access to talk therapies backed by hard evidence. Experts say the English program is the first broad real-world test of treatments that have been studied mostly in carefully controlled lab conditions. The demand in the first several years has been so strong it has strained the program’s resources. According to the latest figures, the program now screens nearly a million people a year, and the number of adults in England who have recently received some mental health treatment has jumped to one in three from one in four and is expected to continue to grow. Mental health professionals also say the program has gone a long way to shrink the stigma of psychotherapy in a nation culturally steeped in stoicism. “You now actually hear young people say, ‘I might go and get some therapy for this,’” said Dr. Tim Kendall, the clinical director for mental health for the National Health Service. “You’d never, ever hear people in this country say that out in public before.” A recent widely shared video of three popular royals — Prince William, Prince Harry and Kate, Dutchess of Cambridge — discussing the importance of mental health care and the princes’ struggles after their mother’s death is another sign of the country’s growing openness about treatment. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 23876 - Posted: 07.25.2017

/ By Ed Cara Ariella Cohen had already made nearly a dozen visits in as many months to a Philadelphia emergency room when, in the winter of 2014, she once again grabbed her pre-packed overnight bag and rushed to the hospital with crippling intestinal pain. She didn’t have high expectations: At just 26, she and her family had seen close to 100 doctors and amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills attempting to identify and treat the source of her pain, and she arrived with a long-ago memorized script of the many diagnoses she had received since her childhood. As she sat on a gurney, Cohen recalls calmly explaining her situation to the attending physician. Like so many times before, her body was in mutiny: The assembly line of muscles along her gut had frozen, and she had been constipated for months, with the resulting pain sometimes scorching her insides. That day it had become so horrendous that she collapsed, prompting two of her regular doctors, fearing that the stoppage might tear a hole in her lower intestine, to advise she go to the ER immediately. According to Cohen, the ER physician that day simply dismissed her symptoms without an examination. If anything was wrong, he implied, it was mental, not physical, and he refused to admit her. Later that winter, during a raging snowstorm, her agony came again, but despite calling ahead to the ER and being told she could see another physician, the same doctor came around again as she was being examined and told her to go home. Copyright 2017 Undark

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 23875 - Posted: 07.25.2017

By Daisy Yuhas, When the shy, dark-haired boy met with clinicians for a full psychiatric evaluation two years ago, almost everything about him pointed to autism. W. had not spoken his first words until age 2. He was at least 4 before he could form sentences. As he got older, he was unable to make friends. He struggled to accept changes to his routine and maintain eye contact. And despite having an average intelligence quotient, he was unusually attached to objects; at age 11, he still lugged a bag of stuffed animals with him everywhere he went. But something else was clearly at work, too. “He had these things that he would call day dreams,” recalls Jennifer Foss-Feig, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. When she evaluated W., she noticed that he would often gaze into an empty corner of the room—particularly when he seemed to suspect that she wasn’t paying attention to him. (For privacy reasons, Foss-Feig declined to reveal anything but the child’s first initial.) Occasionally, he would speak to that space, as though someone else were there. His parents, she recalls, were worried. They explained to Foss-Feig that their son had what he called an “imaginary family.” But W.’s invisible playmates weren’t of the usual harmless variety that many children have; they seemed to be a dangerous distraction both at home and at school. On one occasion, he wandered through a busy parking lot, seemingly oblivious to the oncoming traffic. © 2017 Scientific America

Keyword: Autism; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 23874 - Posted: 07.25.2017

By Aylin Woodward Keep your head up. Today, navigating the urban jungle can be challenging, with uneven sidewalks and errant kerbs presenting obstacles to easy walking. So why do we rarely trip up even though we hardly ever give walking our full attention? It seems that all we need is a brief glimpse of what’s coming next on the road in front of us, just one step ahead of time, to keep up upright. Humans have a unique kind of locomotion – we’re bipedal, meaning we move around on two legs rather than four. Scientists are still struggling to unravel the mystery behind our shift to two legs – for instance, some suggest it freed up our hands to carry food. Others point out that our human gait is much more energetically efficient. Our walking style exploits external forces like gravity and inertia to use as little muscular energy as possible so that we actually fall forward onto the lifted foot with each step. Jonathan Samir Matthis at the University of Texas at Austin wanted to know how we aim and control this forward motion – particularly since the way ahead is rarely level and obstacle-free. “We have to be much more careful about where we place our feet than we would if we had four legs on the ground,” he says. “Because if we do it wrong, there’s serious consequences like breaking your leg.” © Copyright New Scientist Ltd.

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Attention
Link ID: 23872 - Posted: 07.25.2017

Ryan Kellman The modern Planet of the Apes reboot begins with a research chimpanzee being raised in an American home. It's a pretty plausible premise — that exact scenario has played out in the real world many times. On June 26, 1931, for example, Luella and Winthrop Kellogg pulled a baby female chimpanzee away from her mother and brought her to live in their home in Orange Park, Fla. The Kelloggs were comparative psychologists. Their plan was to raise the chimpanzee, Gua, alongside their own infant son, Donald, and see if she picked up human language. According to the book they wrote about the experiment, Luella wasn't initially on board: ... the enthusiasm of one of us met with so much resistance from the other that it appeared likely we could never come to an agreement upon whether or not we should even attempt such an undertaking. But attempt it they did. The Kelloggs performed a slew of tests on Donald and Gua. How good were their reflexes? How many words did they recognize? How did they react to the sound of a gunshot? What sound did each infant's skull make when tapped by a spoon? (Donald's produced "a dull thud" while Gua's made the sound of a "mallet upon a wooden croquet ball.") Chimpanzees develop faster than humans, so Gua outshone Donald when it came to most tasks. She even learned to respond to English phrases like "Don't touch!" and "Get down!" But unlike the apes in the movies, Gua never learned to speak. © 2017 npr

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 23871 - Posted: 07.25.2017

By Megan Scudellari Neuropharmacology postdoc Nick DiPatrizio was stumped. His advisor, University of California, Irvine, researcher Daniele Piomelli, had discovered eight years earlier that hungry rats have high levels of endocannabinoids, endogenous molecules that bind to the same receptors as the active ingredient in marijuana. Now, in 2009, DiPatrizio was trying to identify exactly where and how those molecules were controlling food intake in rats. But under specific feeding conditions, he couldn’t locate any changes in endocannabinoid levels in the brain, which is flush with endocannabinoid receptors and the obvious place to look for behavioral signals. Piomelli gently chastised his mentee. “He said, ‘You’re being neurocentric. Remember, there’s a body attached to the head. Look in the other organs of the body,’ ” recalls DiPatrizio. So the young scientist persisted, and eventually discovered that hunger—and the taste of fat—leads to increased endocannabinoid levels in the jejunum, a part of the small intestine. Endocannabinoid signaling in the gut, not the brain, was controlling food intake in the rodents in response to tasting fats.1 The evolution of endocannabinoid research has mirrored DiPatrizio’s early thinking: ever since the first endocannabinoid receptor was identified in the late 1980s, the field has been overwhelmingly focused on the central nervous system. The main endocannabinoid receptor, CB1, was first discovered in a rat brain and is now known to be among the most abundant G protein–coupled receptors in neurons there. Plus, cannabis is well-known for its psychotropic effects. “That has led the research field to be very CNS-oriented,” says Saoirse O’Sullivan, who studies endocannabinoids at the University of Nottingham in the U.K. © 1986-2017 The Scientist

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Obesity
Link ID: 23870 - Posted: 07.25.2017

By Neuroskeptic A number of so-called scientific journals have accepted a Star Wars-themed spoof paper. The manuscript is an absurd mess of factual errors, plagiarism and movie quotes. I know because I wrote it. Inspired by previous publishing “stings”, I wanted to test whether ‘predatory‘ journals would publish an obviously absurd paper. So I created a spoof manuscript about “midi-chlorians” – the fictional entities which live inside cells and give Jedi their powers in Star Wars. I filled it with other references to the galaxy far, far away, and submitted it to nine journals under the names of Dr Lucas McGeorge and Dr Annette Kin. Four journals fell for the sting. The American Journal of Medical and Biological Research (SciEP) accepted the paper, but asked for a $360 fee, which I didn’t pay. Amazingly, three other journals not only accepted but actually published the spoof. Here’s the paper from the International Journal of Molecular Biology: Open Access (MedCrave), Austin Journal of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (Austin) and American Research Journal of Biosciences (ARJ) I hadn’t expected this, as all those journals charge publication fees, but I never paid them a penny. So what did they publish? A travesty, which they should have rejected within about 5 minutes – or 2 minutes if the reviewer was familiar with Star Wars. Some highlights: “Beyond supplying cellular energy, midichloria perform functions such as Force sensitivity…”

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 23869 - Posted: 07.25.2017

By CLAY ROUTLEDGE Are Americans becoming less religious? It depends on what you mean by “religious.” Polls certainly indicate a decline in religious affiliation, practice and belief. Just a couple of decades ago, about 95 percent of Americans reported belonging to a religious group. This number is now around 75 percent. And far fewer are actively religious: The percentage of regular churchgoers may be as low as 15 to 20 percent. As for religious belief, the Pew Research Center found that from 2007 to 2014 the percentage of Americans who reported being absolutely confident God exists dropped from 71 percent to 63 percent. Nonetheless, there is reason to doubt the death of religion, or at least the death of what you might call the “religious mind” — our concern with existential questions and our search for meaning. A growing body of research suggests that the evidence for a decline in traditional religious belief, identity and practice does not reflect a decline in this underlying spiritual inclination. Ask yourself: Why are people religious to begin with? One view is that religion is an ancient way of understanding and organizing the world that persists largely because societies pass it down from generation to generation. This view is related to the idea that the rise of science entails the fall of religion. It also assumes that the strength of religion is best measured by how much doctrine people accept and how observant they are. This view, however, does not capture the fundamental nature of the religious mind — our awareness of, and need to reckon with, the transience and fragility of our existence, and how small and unimportant we seem to be in the grand scheme of things. In short: our quest for significance. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention; Emotions
Link ID: 23868 - Posted: 07.24.2017

By Erin Blakemore What do you see? That question is so complex it may be impossible to answer. But when Vanessa Potter lost her sight because of a rare condition, she became obsessed with describing the experience of both literal and inner vision. Patient H69: The Story of My Second Sight Book by Vanessa Potter Her new book, “Patient H69,” tracks Potter’s progression from advertising producer to patient. But her memoir shows how a medical ordeal also turned her into a scientific detective, advocate and artist. In 2012, Potter suddenly lost her sight. The first half of her book tracks her terrifying loss of vision and illustrates the psychological toll that accompanies the transition from healthy person to patient. Potter’s ailment turned out to be neuromyelitis optica, a disorder also known as Devic’s disease. People with the autoimmune disorder experience inflammation of the optic nerve, temporary blindness and spinal cord inflammation that can cause pain and sensory loss. Determined to regain her sight and understand her illness, Potter collaborated with scientists as her optical nerve healed.Along the way, she documented her experience. Her descriptive powers serve her well as she illustrates what it’s like to experience the development of sight in real time — a progression that, for Potter, included synesthesia (a blending of the senses in which a word may be seen as a certain color, for example), self-hypnosis and plenty of emotion. © 1996-2017 The Washington Post

Keyword: Vision; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 23867 - Posted: 07.24.2017

By JANE E. BRODY Problems with estrogen and testosterone, the body’s main sex hormones, tend to attract widespread public interest. But we might all be better off paying more attention to a far more common endocrine disorder: abnormal levels of thyroid hormone. Thyroid disorders can affect a wide range of bodily functions and cause an array of confusing and often misdiagnosed symptoms. Because the thyroid, a small gland in the neck behind the larynx, regulates energy production and metabolism throughout the body, including the heart, brain, skin, bowels and body temperature, too much or too little of its hormones can have a major impact on health and well-being. Yet in a significant number of people with thyroid deficiencies, routine blood tests fail to detect insufficient thyroid hormone, leaving patients without an accurate explanation for their symptoms. These can include excessive fatigue, depression, hair loss, unexplained weight gain, constipation, sleep problems, mental fogginess and anxiety. Women of childbearing age may have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant. Although thyroid disorders are more common in adults, children, whose cognitive and physical development depend on normal thyroid function, are not necessarily spared. In a review article published last year in JAMA Pediatrics, doctors from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia pressed primary care doctors to recognize childhood thyroid disease and begin treatment as early as the second week of life to ensure normal development. Hypothyroidism — low hormone levels — in particular is often misdiagnosed, its symptoms resembling those of other diseases or mistaken for “normal” effects of aging. Indeed, the risk of hypothyroidism rises with age. Twenty percent of people over 75, most of them women, lack sufficient levels of thyroid hormone that, among other problems, can cause symptoms of confusion commonly mistaken for dementia. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 23866 - Posted: 07.24.2017