By David Shultz Mice supposedly don't speak, so they can't stutter. But by tinkering with a gene that appears to be involved in human speech, researchers have created transgenic mice whose pups produce altered vocalizations in a way that is similar to stuttering in humans. The mice could make a good model for understanding stuttering; they could also shed more light on how mutations in the gene, called Gnptab, cause the speech disorder. Stuttering is one of the most common speech disorders in the world, affecting nearly one out of 100 adults in the United States. But the cause of the stammering, fragmented speech patterns remains unclear. Several years ago, researchers discovered that stutterers often have mutations in a gene called Gnptab. Like a dispatcher directing garbage trucks, Gnptab encodes a protein that helps to direct enzymes into the lysosome—a compartment in animal cells that breaks down waste and recycles old cellular machinery. Mutations to other genes in this system are known to lead to the buildup of cellular waste products and often result in debilitating diseases, such as Tay-Sachs. How mutations in Gnptab causes stuttered speech remains a mystery, however. To get to the bottom of things, neuroscientist Terra Barnes and her team at Washington University in St. Louis in Missouri produced mice with mutation in the Gnptab gene and studied whether it affected the ultrasonic vocalizations that newly born mouse pups emit when separated from their mothers. Determining whether a mouse is stuttering is no easy task; as Barnes points out, it can even be difficult to tell whether people are stuttering if they’re speaking a foreign language. So the team designed a computer program that listens for stuttering vocalization patterns independent of language. © 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 22110 - Posted: 04.16.2016

By Matthew Hutson Bad news for believers in clairvoyance. Our brains appear to rewrite history so that the choices we make after an event seem to precede it. In other words, we add loops to our mental timeline that let us feel we can predict things that in reality have already happened. Adam Bear and Paul Bloom at Yale University conducted some simple tests on volunteers. In one experiment, subjects looked at white circles and silently guessed which one would turn red. Once one circle had changed colour, they reported whether or not they had predicted correctly. Over many trials, their reported accuracy was significantly better than the 20 per cent expected by chance, indicating that the volunteers either had psychic abilities or had unwittingly played a mental trick on themselves. The researchers’ study design helped explain what was really going on. They placed different delays between the white circles’ appearance and one of the circles turning red, ranging from 50 milliseconds to one second. Participants’ reported accuracy was highest – surpassing 30 per cent – when the delays were shortest. That’s what you would expect if the appearance of the red circle was actually influencing decisions still in progress. This suggests it’s unlikely that the subjects were merely lying about their predictive abilities to impress the researchers. The mechanism behind this behaviour is still unclear. It’s possible, the researchers suggest, that we perceive the order of events correctly – one circle changes colour before we have actually made our prediction – but then we subconsciously swap the sequence in our memories so the prediction seems to come first. Such a switcheroo could be motivated by a desire to feel in control of our lives. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Consciousness
Link ID: 22109 - Posted: 04.16.2016

Ian Sample Science editor The risks of heavy cannabis for mental health are serious enough to warrant global public health campaigns, according to international drugs experts who said young people were particularly vulnerable. The warning from scientists in the UK, US, Europe and Australia reflects a growing consensus that frequent use of the drug can increase the risk of psychosis in vulnerable people, and comes as the UN prepares to convene a special session on the global drugs problem for the first time since 1998. The meeting in New York next week aims to unify countries in their efforts to tackle issues around illicit drug use. While the vast majority of people who smoke cannabis will not develop psychotic disorders, those who do can have their lives ruined. Psychosis is defined by hallucinations, delusions and irrational behaviour, and while most patients recover from the episodes, some go on to develop schizophrenia. The risk is higher among patients who continue with heavy cannabis use. Public health warnings over cannabis have been extremely limited because the drug is illegal in most countries, and there are uncertainties over whether it really contributes to mental illness. But many researchers now believe the evidence for harm is strong enough to issue clear warnings. “It’s not sensible to wait for absolute proof that cannabis is a component cause of psychosis,” said Sir Robin Murray, professor of psychiatric research at King’s College London. © 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 22108 - Posted: 04.16.2016

By Robin Wylie Bottlenose dolphins have been observed chattering while cooperating to solve a tricky puzzle – a feat that suggests they have a type of vocalisation dedicated to cooperating on problem solving. Holli Eskelinen of Dolphins Plus research institute in Florida and her colleagues at the University of Southern Mississippi presented a group of six captive dolphins with a locked canister filled with food. The canister could only be opened by simultaneously pulling on a rope at either end. The team conducted 24 canister trials, during which all six dolphins were present. Only two of the dolphins ever managed to crack the puzzle and get to the food. The successful pair was prolific, though: in 20 of the trials, the same two adult males worked together to open the food canister in a matter of few minutes. In the other four trials, one of the dolphins managed to solve the problem on its own, but this was much trickier and took longer to execute. But the real surprise came from recordings of the vocalisations the dolphins made during the experiment. The team found that when the dolphins worked together to open the canister, they made around three times more vocalisations than they did while opening the canister on their own or when there was either no canister present or no interaction with the canister in the pool. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 22107 - Posted: 04.16.2016

By BENEDICT CAREY Five years ago, a college freshman named Ian Burkhart dived into a wave at a beach off the Outer Banks in North Carolina and, in a freakish accident, broke his neck on the sandy floor, permanently losing the feeling in his hands and legs. On Wednesday, doctors reported that Mr. Burkhart, 24, had regained control over his right hand and fingers, using technology that transmits his thoughts directly to his hand muscles and bypasses his spinal injury. The doctors’ study, published by the journal Nature, is the first account of limb reanimation, as it is known, in a person with quadriplegia. Doctors implanted a chip in Mr. Burkhart’s brain two years ago. Seated in a lab with the implant connected through a computer to a sleeve on his arm, he was able to learn by repetition and arduous practice to focus his thoughts to make his hand pour from a bottle, and to pick up a straw and stir. He was even able to play a guitar video game. “It’s crazy because I had lost sensation in my hands, and I had to watch my hand to know whether I was squeezing or extending the fingers,” Mr. Burkhart, a business student who lives in Dublin, Ohio, said in an interview. His injury had left him paralyzed from the chest down; he still has some movement in his shoulders and biceps. The new technology is not a cure for paralysis. Mr. Burkhart could use his hand only when connected to computers in the lab, and the researchers said there was much work to do before the system could provide significant mobile independence. But the field of neural engineering is advancing quickly. Using brain implants, scientists can decode brain signals and match them to specific movements. Previously, people have learned to guide a cursor on a screen with their thoughts, monkeys have learned to skillfully use a robotic arm through neural signals and scientists have taught monkeys who were partly paralyzed to use an arm with a bypass system. This new study demonstrates that the bypass approach can restore critical skills to limbs no longer directly connected to the brain. © 2016 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 22106 - Posted: 04.14.2016

By Simon Makin Everyone's brain is different. Until recently neuroscience has tended to gloss this over by averaging results from many brain scans in trying to elicit general truths about how the organ works. But in a major development within the field researchers have begun documenting how brain activity differs between individuals. Such differences had been largely thought of as transient and uninteresting but studies are starting to show that they are innate properties of people's brains, and that knowing them better might ultimately help treat neurological disorders. The latest study, published April 8 in Science, found that the brain activity of individuals who were just biding their time in a brain scanner contained enough information to predict how their brains would function during a range of ordinary activities. The researchers used these at-rest signatures to predict which regions would light up—which groups of brain cells would switch on—during gambling, reading and other tasks they were asked to perform in the scanner. The technique might be used one day to assess whether certain areas of the brains of people who are paralyzed or in a comatose state are still functional, the authors say. The study capitalizes on a relatively new method of brain imaging that looks at what is going on when a person essentially does nothing. The technique stems from the mid-1990s work of biomedical engineer Bharat Biswal, now at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Biswal noticed that scans he had taken while participants were resting in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner displayed orderly, low-frequency oscillations. He had been looking for ways to remove background noise from fMRI signals but quickly realized these oscillations were not noise. His work paved the way for a new approach known as resting-state fMRI. © 2016 Scientific American

Keyword: Brain imaging; Consciousness
Link ID: 22105 - Posted: 04.14.2016

By Amy Ellis Nutt I saw it all: The beginning of Time and the end of Time. Creation and annihilation. Somehow I’d slipped through a seam in the space-time continuum, and from my privileged mental perch I'd peered into the center of the universe. I was exhilarated and drew diagrams of my visions, trying to figure out what it all meant. But when I shared those visions with friends, they were confused and concerned. I was manic, they said, and making no sense. We were at an impasse. Was I sick – or simply in search of myself? Those questions from my own past hovered in the background while I watched two very different documentaries recently. Both explore bipolar illness -- a diagnosis I received more than 25 years ago and one that 5.5 million Americans share. But the films come from very different perspectives. The first, "Ride the Tiger: A Guide Through the Bipolar Brain," was produced by Detroit Public TV and airs on PBS Wednesday. It chronicles the latest in cutting-edge research into bipolar disorder and in doing so firmly plants its flag in the biological camp: The disorder is about misfiring brain circuits, genetic mutations, neurochemical disruptions and other neurological processes not yet delineated. The result is dramatic swings in mood and behavior that affect a person's ability to think clearly. "Ride the Tiger" features appearances by former congressman Patrick Kennedy and the late actress Patty Duke, both of whom talk about their own experiences. The second documentary, "Bipolarized: Re-Thinking Mental Illness," questions the very reality of the disorder -- at least for one former psychiatric patient.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 22104 - Posted: 04.14.2016

Eleanor Ainge Roy in Dunedin An octopus has made a brazen escape from the national aquarium in New Zealand by breaking out of its tank, slithering down a 50-metre drainpipe and disappearing into the sea. In scenes reminiscent of Finding Nemo, Inky – a common New Zealand octopus – made his dash for freedom after the lid of his tank was accidentally left slightly ajar. Staff believe that in the middle of the night, while the aquarium was deserted, Inky clambered to the top of his cage, down the side of the tank and travelled across the floor of the aquarium. Rob Yarrell, national manager of the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier, said: “Octopuses are famous escape artists. “But Inky really tested the waters here. I don’t think he was unhappy with us, or lonely, as octopus are solitary creatures. But he is such a curious boy. He would want to know what’s happening on the outside. That’s just his personality.” One theory is that Inky slid across the aquarium floor – a journey of three or four metres – and then, sensing freedom was at hand, into a drainpipe that lead directly to the sea. The drainpipe was 50 metres long, and opened on to the waters of Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. Another possible escape route could have involved Inky squeezing into an open pipe at the top of his tank, which led under the floor to the drain. © 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 22103 - Posted: 04.14.2016

By Frank McGurty More than 40 percent of retired NFL players tested with advanced scanning technology showed signs of traumatic brain injury, a much higher rate than in the general population, according to a new study of the long-term risks of playing American football. The research, presented at an American Academy of Neurology meeting that began in Vancouver on Monday, is one of the first to provide "objective evidence" of traumatic brain injury in a large sample of National Football League veterans while they are living, said Dr. Francis X. Conidi, one of the study's authors. Conidi, a neurologist at the Florida Center for Headache and Sports Neurology and a faculty member at the Florida State University College of Medicine, said traumatic brain injury was often a "precursor" to CTE, a degenerative brain disease. "What we do know is that players with traumatic brain injury have a high incidence of going on to develop neurological degenerative disease later on in life," Conidi told Reuters. CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, has been found in dozens of the NFL's top players after they died. At present, a CTE diagnosis is only possible after death. The brain tissue of 59 or 62 deceased former NFL players examined by Boston University's CTE Center have tested positive for CTE, according to its website. The disease, which can lead to aggression and dementia, may have led to the suicides of several NFL athletes, including Hall of Famer Junior Seau. In the new study, the largest of its kind, 40 living former players were given sensitive brain scans, known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), as well as thinking and memory tests. © 2016 Scientific American,

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Brain imaging
Link ID: 22102 - Posted: 04.13.2016

By Gareth Cook What are the most intelligent creatures on the planet? Humans come first. (Though there are days when we have to wonder.) After Homo sapiens, most people might answer chimpanzees, and then maybe dogs and dolphins. But what of birds? The science writer Jennifer Ackerman offers a lyrical testimony to the wonders of avian intelligence in her new book, “The Genius of Birds.” There have long been hints of bird smarts, but it’s become an active field of scientific inquiry, and Ackerman serves as tour guide. She answered questions from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. What drew you to birds? I’ve watched birds for most of my life. I admire all the usual things about them. Their plumage and song. Their intense way of living. Their flight. I also admire their resourcefulness and pluck. I’ve always been intrigued by their apparently smart behavior, whether learned or innate. I grew up in Washington, D.C. — the second youngest in a gaggle of five girls. My parents had precious little time for one-on-one. Especially my dad, who had a demanding government job. So when he asked me if I wanted to go birdwatching with him one spring morning when I was seven or eight, I jumped at the chance. It was magical, going out in the dark woods along the C&O canal and listening for bird song. My father had learned his calls and songs in Boy Scout camp from an expert, an elderly Greek man named Apollo, so he was pretty good at identifying birds, even the shy woodland species. Eventually he gave me my own copy of Peterson’s Field Guide, along with a small pair of binoculars. I’ve loved birds ever since. My first run in with a clever bird was on our dining room table. We had a pet parakeet, a budgerigar named Gre-Gre, who was allowed to fly around the dining room and perch on our head or shoulders. He had a kind of social genius. He made you love him. But at breakfast, it was impossible to eat your cereal without his constant harassment. He liked to perch on the edge of my bowl and peck at the cereal, flapping his wings frantically to keep his balance, splashing my milk. I’d build a barricade of boxes around my place setting, but he always found a way in, moving a box or popping over the top. He was a good problem-solver. © 2016 Scientific American

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 22101 - Posted: 04.13.2016

By Virginia Morell Moths have an almost fatal attraction to lights—so much so that we say people are drawn to bad ends “like moths to a flame.” But in this age of global light pollution, that saying has a new poignancy: Moths, which are typically nocturnal insects, are dying in droves at artificial lights. The high levels of mortality should have evolutionary consequences, leading to moths that avoid lights, biologists say. To find out, two scientists tested the flight-to-light behavior of 1048 adult ermine moths (Yponomeuta cagnagella, shown above) in Europe. The researchers collected the insects in 2007 as larvae that had just completed their first molt. Three hundred and twenty came from populations that lived where the skies were largely dark; 728 were gathered in light polluted areas. They were raised in a lab with 16 hours of daylight and 8 hours of darkness daily while they completed their life stages. Two to 3 days after emerging as moths, they were released in a flight cage with a fluorescent tube at one side. Moths from high light pollution areas were significantly less attracted to the light than those from the darker zones, the scientists report in today’s issue of Biology Letters. Overall, moths from the light-polluted populations had a 30% reduction in the flight-to-light behavior, indicating that this species is evolving, as predicted, to stay away from artificial lights. That change should increase these city moths’ reproductive success. But their success comes at a cost: To avoid the lights, the moths are likely flying less, say the scientists, so they aren’t pollinating as many flowers or feeding as many spiders and bats. © 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 22100 - Posted: 04.13.2016

Zoe Cormier Researchers have published the first images showing the effects of LSD on the human brain, as part of a series of studies to examine how the drug causes its characteristic hallucinogenic effects1. David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London who has previously examined the neural effects of mind-altering drugs such as the hallucinogen psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms, was one of the study's leaders. He tells Nature what the research revealed, and how he hopes LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) might ultimately be useful in therapies. Why study the effects of LSD on the brain? For brain researchers, studying how psychedelic drugs such as LSD alter the ‘normal’ brain state is a way to study the biological phenomenon that is consciousness. We ultimately would also like to see LSD deployed as a therapeutic tool. The idea has old roots. In the 1950s and 60s thousands of people took LSD for alcoholism; in 2012, a retrospective analysis of some of these studies suggested that it helped cut down on drinking. Since the 1970s there have been lots of studies with LSD on animals, but not on the human brain. We need that data to validate the trial of this drug as a potential therapy for addiction or depression. Why hasn’t anyone done brain scans before? Before the 1960s, LSD was studied for its potential therapeutic uses, as were other hallucinogens. But the drug was heavily restricted in the UK, the United States and around the world after 1967 — in my view, due to unfounded hysteria over its potential dangers. The restrictions vary worldwide, but in general, countries have insisted that LSD has ‘no medical value’, making it tremendously difficult to work with. © 2016 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Brain imaging
Link ID: 22099 - Posted: 04.12.2016

Ian Dunt There is a remarkable lack of research into a drug that some scientists initially considered to be a key tool in understanding consciousness, and that has since been shown to help people deal with anxiety and depression. The new study on the impact of LSD on the brain is the first in the UK since the drug was banned in 1966. Incredibly, it’s also the first anywhere to use brain scans taken while a person is under the influence of the drug. Nowadays, we associate LSD with hippies murmuring about the nature of reality, but it wasn’t always this way. Between the invention of the drug in 1952 and its banning in the UK, around a thousand papers on it were published. Then LSD was made illegal. The UK Home Office promised to allow scientists to continue experiments with the drug, and it’s true that they remain legal. But they are also effectively impossible. The obstacles against research – regulatory, financial, professional and political – are just too high for any sensible person to cope with. Research using outlawed drugs with no accepted medical value requires a “schedule 1” licence from the Home Office. It takes about a year to get and involves a barrage of criminal record checks. All told, its price tag comes in at about £5000, with a costly annual top-up assessment to follow. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Brain imaging
Link ID: 22098 - Posted: 04.12.2016

By Lisa Sanders, M.D. On Thursday we challenged Well readers to take on the case of a 59-year-old woman who had not been able to stop gaining weight. I presented the case as it was presented to the doctor who made the diagnosis and asked for the final piece of data provided by the patient as well as the correct cause of her symptoms. I thought the tough part of this case was something that few of my readers would have to contend with – that her complaints and past medical history were quite ordinary. Like many of us, she was overweight and she came to the doctor because she had difficulty losing weight. In the background she also had high blood pressure, obstructive sleep apnea and low back pain, knee pain and leg swelling. These are some of the most common reasons patients seek medical attention. Although her problems were run of the mill, the cause was not. And many of you had no difficulty spotting this zebra. The correct diagnosis was… Acromegaly The last piece of data, provided by the patient, was a photograph taken several years before. It was only by seeing the changes in the patient’s face that had occurred over the past few years that the doctor recognized that this patient’s problem was unusual. The first person to make this diagnosis was Dr. Clare O’Connor, a physician in the second year of her training in internal medicine. She plans to subspecialize in endocrinology. She says it was the swollen legs that didn’t compress that gave her the first clue. Well done. Acromegaly is a rare disease caused by an excess of growth hormone, usually due to a tumor in the pituitary gland of the brain. The disease’s name, from the Greek, serves as a fitting description of the most obvious symptoms: great (mega) extremity (akron). The tumor secretes a protein called growth hormone that signals the liver to produce a substance called insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF 1, which in turn tells cells throughout the body to start proliferating. © 2016 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Obesity
Link ID: 22097 - Posted: 04.12.2016

Scott O. Lilienfeld1*, Katheryn C. Sauvigné2, Steven Jay Lynn3, Robin L. Cautin4, Robert D. Latzman2 and Irwin D. Waldman1 The goal of this article is to promote clear thinking and clear writing among students and teachers of psychological science by curbing terminological misinformation and confusion. To this end, we present a provisional list of 50 commonly used terms in psychology, psychiatry, and allied fields that should be avoided, or at most used sparingly and with explicit caveats. We provide corrective information for students, instructors, and researchers regarding these terms, which we organize for expository purposes into five categories: inaccurate or misleading terms, frequently misused terms, ambiguous terms, oxymorons, and pleonasms. For each term, we (a) explain why it is problematic, (b) delineate one or more examples of its misuse, and (c) when pertinent, offer recommendations for preferable terms. By being more judicious in their use of terminology, psychologists and psychiatrists can foster clearer thinking in their students and the field at large regarding mental phenomena. Scientific thinking necessitates clarity, including clarity in writing (Pinker, 2014). In turn, clarity hinges on accuracy in the use of specialized terminology. Clarity is especially critical in such disciplines as psychology and psychiatry, where most phenomena, such as emotions, personality traits, and mental disorders, are “open concepts.” Open concepts are characterized by fuzzy boundaries, an indefinitely extendable indicator list, and an unclear inner essence (Pap, 1958; Meehl, 1986). © 2007 - 2015 Frontiers Media S.A

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 22096 - Posted: 04.12.2016

Scientists have outwitted the crafty rat with a stimulating new formula that puts sex on the brain. A team at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., has developed a rat trap that combines synthetic sex pheromones, food scents and baby rat sounds to lure rodents to their deaths. The bait has proven 10 times more powerful than traditional traps and could be commercialized in about two years, said principal investigator Gerhard Gries. "Rats are really intelligent, and in order to manipulate them you have to be intelligent as well, and do that in a way that addresses their needs," said Gries, a communication ecologist in the department of biological sciences. "It smells delicious, it smells like rat and it sounds like rat." Research outlining the pheromone component of the control tactic was published last week in the international edition of the German peer-reviewed online journal Angewandte Chemie, which translates to "Applied Chemistry." The research on the use of baby rat sounds was published recently in the journal Pest Management Science. Gries worked for several years with research associates Stephen Takacs and Regine Gries, his wife, to develop the three-pronged extermination technique. Humans have waged war against the pests for more than 10,000 years, said Gerhard Gries, noting they spread disease, reduce agricultural crop yields and threaten endangered animal species. But rats are quick learners that have evolved to avoid traps, a behaviour called "neophobia," he said. ©2016 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 22095 - Posted: 04.12.2016

Dr. Perri Klass First of all, nobody takes a small child on an airplane for the fun of it. I have been there and I know. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no airplane saint; you won’t generally catch me offering to hold someone else’s kid, or making friends around the seatback. I don’t usually admit to being a pediatrician, for fear of hearing a medical saga. But I have put in my time on airplanes with my own infants and toddlers and small children, and I certainly know how it feels. Probably the best thing that can be said for traveling with young children is that it teaches you to appreciate traveling without them, however puzzling the inflight announcements, however long the delays, however tightly spaced the seats. I did enough economy-class traveling with children while my own were young that my reflexive reaction to all flight cancellations, turbulence or the moment when the person in front of me reclines the seat very suddenly, knocking my laptop closed, is now: At least I don’t have a small child with me – thank heavens. Babies do not cry on airplanes for the fun of it either. Nor do they cry, by and large, to let you know that their parents are neglectful or callous. They cry for infant versions of the same reasons that adults snap at one another about reclining seats, or elbow each other with quiet savagery over the armrest. They cry because their ears hurt and they’re being made to stay in a certain position when they don’t want to or the air smells strange and the noises are loud, or their stomachs feel upset or the day has been too long and they still aren’t there yet or they’re just plain cranky. As are we all. Crying is an evolutionary strategy to summon adult aid; over millennia, crying has probably evolved to be hard to ignore. I don’t know if it’s any comfort, but when you’re the parent with the crying baby, it doesn’t particularly help to be an expert. “I remember one flight where my daughter screamed the whole way and kept trying to get out of her seatbelt,” said my old friend, Dr. Elizabeth Barnett, a professor of pediatrics at Boston University and a travel medicine specialist. “As a parent, you feel two things — you’re in distress because you’re trying to comfort your child and not succeeding, so you feel bad for your child, and you also feel guilty because you know your child is disturbing everybody else.” © 2016 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 22094 - Posted: 04.12.2016

Sam Doernberg and Joe DiPietro It’s the first day of class, and we—a couple of instructors from Cornell—sit around a table with a few of our students as the rest trickle in. Anderson, one of the students seated across from us, smiles and says, “I’m going to get an A+ in your class.” “No,” VanAntwerp retorts, “I’m getting the A+.” You might think that this scene is typical of classes at a school like Cornell University, where driven students compete for top marks. But this didn’t happen on a college campus: It took place in a maximum-security prison. To the outside world, they are inmates, but in the classroom, they are students enrolled in the Cornell Prison Education Program, or “CPEP.” Per New York State Department of Corrections rules, we have permission to use the inmates’ last names only—which is also often how we know them best. Those who graduate from the program—taught by Cornell instructors—will receive an associate’s degree from Cayuga Community College. Before teaching neuroscience to prison inmates, we taught it to Cornell undergraduates as part of the teaching staff for Cornell’s Introduction to Neuroscience course. Most Cornell neuroscience students are high-achieving biology majors and premeds, who are well prepared to succeed in a demanding course. They generally have gone from one academic success to another, and it is no secret that they expect a similar level of success in a neuroscience class. © 2016 by The Atlantic Monthly Group

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 22093 - Posted: 04.12.2016

By Nicholas Bakalar Hormone therapy for prostate cancer may increase the risk for depression, a new analysis has found. Hormone therapy, or androgen deprivation therapy, a widely used prostate cancer treatment, aims to reduce levels of testosterone and other male hormones, which helps limit the spread of prostate cancer cells. From 1992 to 2006, researchers studied 78,552 prostate cancer patients older than 65, of whom 33,382 had hormone therapy. Compared with those treated with other therapies, men who received androgen deprivation therapy were 23 percent more likely to receive a diagnosis of depression, and they had a 29 percent increased risk of having inpatient psychiatric treatment. Longer hormone treatment increased the risk: Researchers found a 12 percent increased relative risk with six or fewer months of treatment, a 26 percent increased risk with seven to 11 months, and a 37 percent increased risk with a year or more. The study, in The Journal of Clinical Oncology, is observational, and does not prove causation. The senior author, Dr. Paul L. Nguyen, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said that research is finding “almost an avalanche of side effects” with hormone therapy. Still, for some patients, especially those with severe disease, it can be a life saver. “You have to know what the potential upside is. For some guys it will still be worth it, but for some not.” © 2016 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 22092 - Posted: 04.12.2016

By FRANS de WAAL TICKLING a juvenile chimpanzee is a lot like tickling a child. The ape has the same sensitive spots: under the armpits, on the side, in the belly. He opens his mouth wide, lips relaxed, panting audibly in the same “huh-huh-huh” rhythm of inhalation and exhalation as human laughter. The similarity makes it hard not to giggle yourself. The ape also shows the same ambivalence as a child. He pushes your tickling fingers away and tries to escape, but as soon as you stop he comes back for more, putting his belly right in front of you. At this point, you need only to point to a tickling spot, not even touching it, and he will throw another fit of laughter. Laughter? Now wait a minute! A real scientist should avoid any and all anthropomorphism, which is why hard-nosed colleagues often ask us to change our terminology. Why not call the ape’s reaction something neutral, like, say, vocalized panting? That way we avoid confusion between the human and the animal. The term anthropomorphism, which means “human form,” comes from the Greek philosopher Xenophanes, who protested in the fifth century B.C. against Homer’s poetry because it described the gods as though they looked human. Xenophanes mocked this assumption, reportedly saying that if horses had hands they would “draw their gods like horses.” Nowadays the term has a broader meaning. It is typically used to censure the attribution of humanlike traits and experiences to other species. Animals don’t have “sex,” but engage in breeding behavior. They don’t have “friends,” but favorite affiliation partners. Given how partial our species is to intellectual distinctions, we apply such linguistic castrations even more vigorously in the cognitive domain. By explaining the smartness of animals either as a product of instinct or simple learning, we have kept human cognition on its pedestal under the guise of being scientific. Everything boiled down to genes and reinforcement. To think otherwise opened you up to ridicule, which is what happened to Wolfgang Köhler, the German psychologist who, a century ago, was the first to demonstrate flashes of insight in chimpanzees. © 2016 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Emotions
Link ID: 22091 - Posted: 04.11.2016