By Elizabeth Preston Ryan Grant was in his 20s and serving in the military when he learned that the numbness and tingling in his hands and feet, as well as his unshakeable fatigue, were symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Like nearly a million other people with MS in the United States, Grant had been feeling his immune system attack his central nervous system. The insulation around his nerves was crumbling, weakening the signals between his brain and body. The disease can have a wide range of symptoms and outcomes. Now 43, Grant has lost the ability to walk, and he has moved into a veterans’ home in Oregon, so that his wife and children don’t have to be his caretakers. He’s all too familiar with the course of the illness and can name risk factors he did and didn’t share with other MS patients, three-quarters of whom are female. But until recently, he hadn’t heard that many scientists now believe the most important factor behind MS is a virus.  For decades, researchers suspected that Epstein-Barr virus, a common childhood infection, is linked to multiple sclerosis. In January, the journal Science pushed that connection into headlines when it published the results of a two-decade study of people who, like Grant, have served in the military. The study’s researchers concluded that EBV infection is “the leading cause” of MS.  Bruce Bebo, executive vice president of research at the nonprofit National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which helped fund the study, said he believes the findings fall just short of proving causation. They do, however, provide “probably the strongest evidence to date of that link between EBV and MS,” he said. Epstein-Barr virus has infected about 95 percent of adults. Yet only a tiny fraction of them will develop multiple sclerosis. Other factors are also known to affect a person’s MS risk, including genetics, low vitamin D, smoking, and childhood obesity. If this virus that infects nearly everyone on Earth causes multiple sclerosis, it does so in concert with other actors in a choreography that scientists don’t yet understand.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 28565 - Posted: 11.23.2022

By Virginia Hughes CRANSTON, R.I. — Audrey Pirri, 16, had been terrified of vomiting since she was a toddler. She worried every time she shared a meal with family or friends, restricting herself to “safe” foods like pretzels and salad that wouldn’t upset her stomach, if she ate at all. She was afraid to ride in the car with her brother, who often got carsick. She fretted for hours about an upcoming visit to a carnival or stadium — anywhere with lots of people and their germs. But on a Tuesday evening in August, in her first intensive session of a treatment called exposure therapy, Audrey was determined to confront one of the most potent triggers of her fear: a set of rainbow polka dot sheets. For eight years she had avoided touching the sheets, ever since the morning when she woke up with a stomach bug and vomited on them. Now, surrounded by her parents, a psychologist and a coach in her pale pink bedroom, she pulled the stiff linens from her dresser, gingerly slid them over the mattress and sat down on top. “You ready to repeat after me?” said Abbe Garcia, the psychologist. “I guess,” Audrey replied softly. “‘I am going to sleep on these sheets tonight,’” Dr. Garcia began. Audrey repeated the phrase. “‘And I might throw up,’” Dr. Garcia said. Audrey paused for several long seconds, her feet twitching and eyes welling with tears, as she imagined herself vomiting. She inhaled deeply and hurried out the words: “And I might throw up.” One in 11 American children has an anxiety disorder, and that figure has been growing steadily for the past two decades. The social isolation, family stress and relentless news of tragedy during the pandemic have only exacerbated the problem. But Audrey is one of the relatively few children to have tried exposure therapy. The decades-old treatment, which is considered a gold-standard approach for tackling anxiety, phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder, encourages patients to intentionally face the objects or situations that cause them the most distress. A type of cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure often works within months and has minimal side effects. But financial barriers and a lack of providers have kept the treatment out of reach for many. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stress; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 28564 - Posted: 11.23.2022

By Diana Kwon Crows are some of the smartest creatures in the animal kingdom. They are capable of making rule-guided decisions and of creating and using tools. They also appear to show an innate sense of what numbers are. Researchers now report that these clever birds are able to understand recursion—the process of embedding structures in other, similar structures—which was long thought to be a uniquely human ability. Recursion is a key feature of language. It enables us to build elaborate sentences from simple ones. Take the sentence “The mouse the cat chased ran.” Here the clause “the cat chased” is enclosed within the clause “the mouse ran.” For decades, psychologists thought that recursion was a trait of humans alone. Some considered it the key feature that set human language apart from other forms of communication between animals. But questions about that assumption persisted. “There’s always been interest in whether or not nonhuman animals can also grasp recursive sequences,” says Diana Liao, a postdoctoral researcher at the lab of Andreas Nieder, a professor of animal physiology at the University of Tübingen in Germany. In a study of monkeys and human adults and children published in 2020, a group of researchers reported that the ability to produce recursive sequences may not actually be unique to our species after all. Both humans and monkeys were shown a display with two pairs of bracket symbols that appeared in a random order. The subjects were trained to touch them in the order of a “center-embedded” recursive sequence such as { ( ) } or ( { } ). After giving the right answer, humans received verbal feedback, and monkeys were given a small amount of food or juice as a reward. Afterward the researchers presented their subjects with a completely new set of brackets and observed how often they arranged them in a recursive manner. Two of the three monkeys in the experiment generated recursive sequences more often than nonrecursive sequences such as { ( } ), although they needed an additional training session to do so. One of the animals generated recursive sequences in around half of the trials. Three- to four-year-old children, by comparison, formed recursive sequences in approximately 40 percent of the trials. © 2022 Scientific American,

Keyword: Evolution; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 28563 - Posted: 11.23.2022

Ian Sample Science editor At the end of November, thousands of researchers from around the world will descend on San Francisco for the annual Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease meeting. The conference is a mainstay of the dementia research calendar, the place where the latest progress – and all too often, setbacks – in the quest for Alzheimer’s treatments are made public for the first time. This year’s meeting is poised to be a landmark event. After more than a century of research into Alzheimer’s, scientists expect to hear details of the first treatment that can unambiguously alter the course of the disease. Until now, nothing has reversed, halted or even slowed the grim deterioration of patients’ brains. Given that dementia and Alzheimer’s are the No 1 killer in the UK, and the seventh largest killer worldwide, there is talk of a historic moment. The optimism comes from a press statement released in September from Eisai, a Japanese pharmaceutical firm, and Biogen, a US biotech. It gave top-line results from a major clinical trial of an antibody treatment, lecanemab, given to nearly 2,000 people with early Alzheimer’s disease. The therapy slowed cognitive decline, the statement said, raising hopes that a drug might finally apply the brakes to Alzheimer’s and provide “a clinically meaningful impact on cognition and function”. The announcement was greeted, broadly, with delight and relief from researchers who have endured failure after failure in the long search for Alzheimer’s drugs. But even the most enthusiastic conceded that significant questions remained. With only a press release to go on, it was hard to be sure the claims stood up. The answer will come on 29 November when researchers leading the trial, named Clarity AD, present their results at the San Francisco meeting. © 2022 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 28562 - Posted: 11.23.2022

By Ken Belson SHICKLEY, Neb. — Chris Eitzmann seemed to excel at everything until he didn’t. He parlayed a Harvard football captaincy into an invite in 2000 to Patriots training camp. After bouncing around the N.F.L., Eitzmann retired from pro football in 2002, got an M.B.A. from Dartmouth and worked at several big financial firms in Boston, where he and his wife, Mikaela, had four children. By 2015, however, Chris began a descent that has become familiar to former football players afflicted with C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease associated with repeated blows to the head. Chris had loved mountain biking, running and lifting weights, but he quit exercising and drank to excess. After a move to Mikaela’s family farm back in their home state of Nebraska two years later, Chris’s behavior became more alarming. He would disappear for long stretches of the day and neglect his work. His drinking got worse, and she said he would sometimes drive drunk. In December 2021, Chris Eitzmann was found dead in his Boston apartment of alcohol poisoning at 44. Almost a year later, doctors at Boston University found that he had C.T.E., a disease that can still only be diagnosed posthumously. Mikaela said that knowing whether her husband had the disease while he was alive would have markedly changed the final years of his life. “If he had known that it really was something, and not just this endless vacuum of not knowing, if he had an idea that he could have grabbed on to, that clarity and understanding would have been so valuable,” she said. Without treatment options, a C.T.E. diagnosis could provide only clarity for former players such as Eitzmann who have reason to believe they may be affected. But it could eventually help current players make risk assessments about when to give up tackle football and help former players seek treatment. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 28561 - Posted: 11.19.2022

By Laurie McGinley Few illnesses instill as much fear as Alzheimer’s, a fatal neurodegenerative disease that destroys memory and identity. The dread is compounded by the uncertainty that often surrounds the diagnosis of the most common form of dementia. Brain autopsies remain the only way to know for sure whether someone had the disease, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates affects 6.5 million people in the United States. Over the past several years, sophisticated tests such as spinal taps and specialized PET scans have become available — but they are invasive and costly and not routinely used. As a result, Alzheimer’s is frequently misdiagnosed, especially in the early stages. Other illnesses, including depression, can have similar symptoms and require other treatments. But simple blood tests designed to help doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s now are on the market. More are on the way. The tests are seen as an important scientific advance, but have ignited debate about how and when they should be used. Some experts say much more research is needed before the new tests can be widely deployed, especially in primary-care settings. Others say there already is sufficient information on the accuracy of some tests. All agree that no single test is perfect and physicians still should perform a complete clinical assessment. Widespread use of the tests may be some time off in the future — after insurance coverage improves and even more accurate next-generation tests become available. For now, none is covered by Medicare, and private insurance coverage is patchy. In the past few years, scientific and technological advances have made it possible to detect in the blood tiny fragments of brain proteins implicated in Alzheimer’s. That has prompted experts in academia and industry to develop blood tests for the disease. Some of the tests detect a sticky protein called amyloid beta, while others look for another protein called tau. Some search for both or other markers of disease. The abnormal accretions of amyloid plaques and tau tangles are the defining characteristics of Alzheimer’s. washingtonpost.com © 1996-2022

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 28560 - Posted: 11.19.2022

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have successfully identified differences in gene activity in the brains of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The study, led by scientists at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of NIH, found that individuals diagnosed with ADHD had differences in genes that code for known chemicals that brain cells use to communicate. The results of the findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry(link is external), show how genomic differences might contribute to symptoms. To date, this is the first study to use postmortem human brain tissue to investigate ADHD. Other approaches to studying mental health conditions include non-invasively scanning the brain, which allows researchers to examine the structure and activation of brain areas. However, these studies lack information at the level of genes and how they might influence cell function and give rise to symptoms. The researchers used a genomic technique called RNA sequencing to probe how specific genes are turned on or off, also known as gene expression. They studied two connected brain regions associated with ADHD: the caudate and the frontal cortex. These regions are known to be critical in controlling a person’s attention. Previous research found differences in the structure and activity of these brain regions in individuals with ADHD. As one of the most common mental health conditions, ADHD affects about 1 in 10 children in the United States. Diagnosis often occurs during childhood, and symptoms may persist into adulthood. Individuals with ADHD may be hyperactive and have difficulty concentrating and controlling impulses, which may affect their ability to complete daily tasks and their ability to focus at school or work. With technological advances, researchers have been able to identify genes associated with ADHD, but they had not been able to determine how genomic differences in these genes act in the brain to contribute to symptoms until now.

Keyword: ADHD; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 28559 - Posted: 11.19.2022

By Elie Dolgin, No gene variant is a bigger risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease than one called APOE4. But exactly how the gene spurs brain damage has been a mystery. A study has now linked APOE4 with faulty cholesterol processing in the brain, which in turn leads to defects in the insulating sheaths that surround nerve fibres and facilitate their electrical activity. Preliminary results hint that these changes could cause memory and learning deficits. And the work suggests that drugs that restore the brain’s cholesterol processing could treat the disease. “This fits in with the picture that cholesterol needs to be in the right place,” says Gregory Thatcher, a chemical biologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Inheriting a single copy of APOE4 raises the risk of developing Alzheimer’s around 3-fold; having two copies boosts the chances 8- to 12-fold. Interactions between the protein encoded by APOE4 and sticky plaques of amyloid—a substance tied to brain cell death—in the brain partially explain the connection. But those interactions are not the whole story. As neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and her colleagues report today in Nature, APOE4 triggers insulation-making brain cells known as oligodendrocytes to accumulate the fatty molecule cholesterol—a type of lipid—in all the wrong places. This interferes with the cells’ ability to cover nerve fibres in a protective wrapper made of a lipid-rich material called myelin. Electrical signalling in the brain then slows, and cognition usually suffers. Tsai’s team had previously linked lipid changes to malfunctions in other cell types, including some that offer structural support to neurons and others that provide immune protection for the brain. The latest findings add oligodendrocytes and their essential myelin function to the mix. © 2022 Scientific American

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 28558 - Posted: 11.19.2022

By Joanna Thompson Two recent papers have shown that during a critical early period of brain development, the gut’s microbiome — the assortment of bacteria that grow within in it — helps to mold a brain system that’s important for social skills later in life. Scientists found this influence in fish, but molecular and neurological evidence plausibly suggests that some form of it could also occur in mammals, including humans. In a paper published in early November in PLOS Biology, researchers found that zebra fish who grew up lacking a gut microbiome were far less social than their peers with colonized colons, and the structure of their brains reflected the difference. In a related article in BMC Genomics in late September, they described molecular characteristics of the neurons affected by the gut bacteria. Equivalents of those neurons appear in rodents, and scientists can now look for them in other species, including humans. In recent decades, scientists have come to understand that the gut and the brain have powerful mutual influences. Certain types of intestinal ulcers, for example, have been linked to worsening symptoms in people with Parkinson’s disease. And clinicians have long known that gastrointestinal disorders are more common in people who also have neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorder. “Not only does the brain have an impact on the gut, but the gut can also profoundly affect the brain,” said Kara Margolis, a pediatric gastroenterologist at New York University’s Langone Health, who was not involved in the new research. How these anatomically separate organs exert their effects, however, is far less clear. Philip Washbourne, a molecular biologist at the University of Oregon and one of the principal co-authors of the new studies, has been studying genes implicated in autism and the development of social behaviors for over two decades. But he and his lab were looking for a new model organism, one that displayed social behavior but was quicker and easier to breed than their go-to, mice. “Can we do this in fish?” he recalls thinking, and then: “Let’s get really quantitative about it and see if we can measure how friendly the fish get.” All Rights Reserved © 2022

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Obesity
Link ID: 28557 - Posted: 11.16.2022

By Laura Sanders SAN DIEGO — Scientists have devised ways to “read” words directly from brains. Brain implants can translate internal speech into external signals, permitting communication from people with paralysis or other diseases that steal their ability to talk or type. New results from two studies, presented November 13 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, “provide additional evidence of the extraordinary potential” that brain implants have for restoring lost communication, says neuroscientist and neurocritical care physician Leigh Hochberg. Some people who need help communicating can currently use devices that require small movements, such as eye gaze changes. Those tasks aren’t possible for everyone. So the new studies targeted internal speech, which requires a person to do nothing more than think. “Our device predicts internal speech directly, allowing the patient to just focus on saying a word inside their head and transform it into text,” says Sarah Wandelt, a neuroscientist at Caltech. Internal speech “could be much simpler and more intuitive than requiring the patient to spell out words or mouth them.” Neural signals associated with words are detected by electrodes implanted in the brain. The signals can then be translated into text, which can be made audible by computer programs that generate speech. That approach is “really exciting, and reinforces the power of bringing together fundamental neuroscience, neuroengineering and machine learning approaches for the restoration of communication and mobility,” says Hochberg, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and Brown University in Providence, R.I. © Society for Science & the Public 2000–2022.

Keyword: Brain imaging; Language
Link ID: 28556 - Posted: 11.16.2022

By Megan Twohey and Christina Jewett The medical guidance was direct. Eleven-year-old Emma Basques had identified as a girl since toddlerhood. Now, as she worried about male puberty starting, a Phoenix pediatrician advised: Take a drug to stop it. At 13, Jacy Chavira felt increasingly uncomfortable with her maturing body and was beginning to believe she was a boy. Use the drug, her endocrinologist in Southern California recommended, and puberty would be suspended. An 11-year-old in New York with deepening depression expressed a desire to no longer be a girl. A therapist told the family the drug was the preteen’s best option, and a local doctor agreed. “‘Puberty blockers really help kids like this,’” the child’s mother recalled the therapist saying. “It was presented as a tourniquet that would stop the hemorrhaging.” As the number of adolescents who identify as transgender grows, drugs known as puberty blockers have become the first line of intervention for the youngest ones seeking medical treatment. Their use is typically framed as a safe — and reversible — way to buy time to weigh a medical transition and avoid the anguish of growing into a body that feels wrong. Transgender adolescents suffer from disproportionately high rates of depression and other mental health issues. Studies show that the drugs have eased some patients’ gender dysphoria — a distress over the mismatch of their birth sex and gender identity. “Anxiety drains away,” said Dr. Norman Spack, who pioneered the use of puberty blockers for trans youth in the United States and is one of many physicians who believe the drugs can be lifesaving. “You can see these kids being so relieved.” But as an increasing number of adolescents identify as transgender — in the United States, an estimated 300,000 ages 13 to 17 and an untold number who are younger — concerns are growing among some medical professionals about the consequences of the drugs, a New York Times examination found. The questions are fueling government reviews in Europe, prompting a push for more research and leading some prominent specialists to reconsider at what age to prescribe them and for how long. A small number of doctors won’t recommend them at all. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 28555 - Posted: 11.16.2022

By Laurie McGinley An experimental Alzheimer’s drug designed to slow cognitive decline failed to meet the goals of two closely watched clinical trials, a discouraging development that underscores the challenges of developing treatments for the memory-robbing disease. Genentech, a division of health-care giant Roche, said in a news release Monday that the treatment, called gantenerumab, slowed the pace of decline in patients with early-stage disease but not enough to be statistically significant. The therapy was tested in identical late-stage trials, each with 1,000 participants. Half received placebos and half got the treatment. The studies lasted 27 months. The drug, a monoclonal antibody, is designed to remove from the brain clumps of an abnormal version of a protein called amyloid beta, a hallmark of the disease. The company said Monday that the treatment removed less amyloid beta than expected. Some scientists have thought for years that amyloid-busting medicines could slow the fatal neurodegenerative disease, but there have been multiple failures, and just a few encouraging signs, involving amyloid-busting drugs. “So many of our families have been directly affected by Alzheimer’s, so this news is very disappointing to deliver,” Levi Garraway, Roche’s chief medical officer and head of global product development, said in a statement. He said the company looks forward to sharing more information about the results “as we continue to search for new treatments for this complex disease.” Genentech said that 25 percent of the patients who received gantenerumab experienced a side effect that can cause brain swelling and bleeding but that most did not have symptoms and few needed to stop taking the drug. The company said it planned to present more data from the trials at an Alzheimer’s conference this month. The company assessed the drug by measuring trial participants’ performance on an 18-point measure of memory and cognition, called the Clinical Dementia Rating scale — Sum of Boxes. The news on gantenerumab is a disappointment for patients, physicians and researchers desperate for effective treatments for a disease that affects 6.5 million Americans.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 28554 - Posted: 11.16.2022

By Alejandro Portilla Navarro Dawn breaks in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. The city is still asleep, but the early risers are greeted by a beautiful symphony: Hummingbirds, corn-eaters, yigüirros (clay-colored thrushes), yellow-breasted grosbeaks, blue tanagers, house wrens, warblers and other birds announce that a new day has arrived. Soon the incessant noise of vehicles and their horns, construction, street vendors and more take over, shaping the soundscape of the frenetic routine of hundreds of thousands of people who travel and live in this city. Then, the birds’ songs will slip into the background. “The act of birdsong has two main functions in males: It is to attract females and also to defend their territory from other males,” says Luis Andrés Sandoval Vargas, an ornithologist at the University of Costa Rica. For females in the tropics, he adds, the primary role of their song is to defend territory. Thus, in order to communicate in cities, to keep their territory safe and find mates, birds must find ways to counteract the effects of anthropogenic noise — that is, the noise produced by humans. “The main effect of urban development on song is that many birds sing at higher frequencies,” says Sandoval Vargas. Studies over the past 15 years have found, for example, that blackbirds (Turdus merula), great tits (Parus major) and rufous-collared sparrows (Zonotrichia capensis) sing at higher pitches, with higher minimum frequencies, in urban environments than in rural ones. But the birds’ response to anthropogenic noise may be more complex than that, as Sandoval Vargas found when studying house wrens (Troglodytes aedon). House wrens are small, brown birds — about 10 centimeters tall and weighing 12 grams — that feed on insects and tend to live near humans. In Costa Rica, they are found almost everywhere, but are especially abundant in the cities. “Males sing almost year-round and sing for many hours during the day, and much of their behavior is mediated by vocalizations,” explains Sandoval Vargas. But what makes them ideal for studying adaptations to urban environments is that most of the components of their song are within the same frequency range as the noise that we humans produce. © 2022 Annual Reviews

Keyword: Animal Communication; Evolution
Link ID: 28553 - Posted: 11.16.2022

By Jim Davies Living for the moment gets a bad rap. If you’re smart, people say, you should work toward a good future, sacrificing fun and pleasure in the present. Yet there are good reasons to discount the future, which is why economists tend to do it when making predictions. Would you rather find $5 when you’re in elementary school, or in your second marriage? People tend to get richer as they age. Five dollars simply means more to you when you’re 9 than when you’re 49. Also, the future is uncertain. We can’t always trust there’ll be one. It’s likely some kids in Walter Mischel’s famous “marshmallow experiment”—which asked kids to wait to eat a marshmallow to get another one—didn’t actually believe that the experimenter would come through with the second marshmallow, and so ate the first marshmallow right away. Saving for retirement makes no sense if in five years a massive meteor cuts human civilization short. Economists call this the “catastrophe” or “hazard” rate. For Sangil “Arthur” Lee, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, where he’s a postdoc, a hazard rate makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. “You might not survive until next winter, so there is some inherent trade off that you need to make, which is not only specific for humans, but also for animals,” he said. While an undergraduate, Lee experimented with delay-discounting tasks using pigeons. The pigeons would peck one button to get a small amount of pellets now, or peck a different button to get large amounts of pellets later. “What we know,” Lee said, “is that across pigeons, monkeys, rats, and various animals, they also discount future rewards in pretty much a similar way that humans do, which is this sort of hyperbolic fashion.” We discount future rewards by a lot very quickly, more so than we would be if discounting the future exponentially, but the hyperbolic discount rate eases after a bit. What makes us discount the future? Lee, in a new study with his colleagues, pins it at least partly on our powers of imagination.1 When we think about what hasn’t yet happened, it tends to be abstract. Things right now, on the other hand, we think of in more tangible terms. Several behavioral studies have supported the idea that what we cannot clearly imagine, we value less. © 2022 NautilusThink Inc, All rights reserved.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 28552 - Posted: 11.16.2022

By Christina Jewett By 2015, Philips Respironics knew its breathing devices had a problem: Foam inside the CPAP machines, which help people with sleep apnea breathe at night, was breaking off into black flecks and blowing into the mouths and noses of users. The company did nothing at the time. Years went by as complaints mounted, and the company made cursory efforts to examine the problem, according to an investigation conducted later by the Food and Drug Administration. But it was not until April of last year, the company has claimed, that it realized the flaking foam contained potentially cancer-causing particles, setting off the largest and most disruptive medical device recall in more than a decade. Nearly a year and a half after the recall that involved more than five million devices worldwide, millions of American have endured a long wait for a device. Many have been forced to find alternative methods to ensure they can breathe at night without becoming deprived of oxygen or risking a heart attack. Others have been outraged by unexpected illness, suspicious that a device meant to help them actually caused harm. The U.S. Justice Department is now negotiating the terms of a consent decree with Philips, underscoring the deep concern about what the company knew — or should have known — before millions of people received devices that many believe caused devastating illnesses. A decree would likely require the company to document the steps it would take to prevent such a failure in the future. Doug Shiffler, a retired tech executive in Utah, is one of hundreds of people suing the company. His wife began using the device in 2018, when there were no public warnings of possible problems with the machines, and developed a persistent cough. By mid-2020, Joleen Shiffler was diagnosed with an aggressive lung cancer that baffled her doctors, although a direct link between her disease and the Philips device had not been established. Ms. Shiffler, 60, died within the year. “Why weren’t we informed that there was an issue?” Mr. Shiffler asked. If they had known, “I might be standing right beside Joleen instead of mourning her loss.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 28551 - Posted: 11.16.2022

Linda Geddes Science correspondent Lead exposure during childhood may lead to reduced cognitive abilities in later life, meaning people experience symptoms of dementia sooner, data suggest. The study, one of the first to investigate the decades-long consequences of lead poisoning, suggests countries could face an explosion of people seeking support for dementia as individuals who were exposed to high lead levels during early life progress into old age. “In the US, and I would imagine the UK, the prime years when children were exposed to the most lead was in the 1960s and 70s. That’s when the most leaded gasoline was getting used, lead paint was still common, and municipal water systems hadn’t done much to clean up their lead,” said Prof John Robert Warren at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who was involved in the research. “Those children who are now in their 40s, 50s and early 60s, will soon be entering the time of life when cognitive impairment and dementia are really common. So there’s this coming wave, potentially, of problems for the people who were most exposed.” Although scientists have long known that children and adults who are exposed to lead have poorer cognitive and educational outcomes, few studies have investigated the longer-term consequences. Warren and his colleagues combined data from the US-based longitudinal Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which has followed the brain health of thousands of adults over several decades, with census records to pinpoint where 1,089 of these individuals lived as children. They also mapped the locations of towns and cities that used lead pipes and had acidic or alkaline water – a proxy for high lead exposure. The research, published in Science Advances, revealed that people who lived in cities with lead-contaminated water as children had worse baseline cognitive functioning – a measure of their ability to learn, process information, and reason – at age 72, compared with those who did not. The difference was equivalent to being roughly eight years older. © 2022 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Neurotoxins; Alzheimers
Link ID: 28550 - Posted: 11.13.2022

Emma Marris For the first time, octopuses have been spotted throwing things — at each other1. Octopuses are known for their solitary nature, but in Jervis Bay, Australia, the gloomy octopus (Octopus tetricus) lives at very high densities. A team of cephalopod researchers decided to film the creatures with underwater cameras to see whether — and how — they interact. Once the researchers pulled the cameras out of the water, they sat down to watch more than 20 hours of footage. “I call it octopus TV,” laughs co-author David Scheel, a behavioural ecologist at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage. One behaviour stood out: instances in which the eight-limbed creatures gathered shells, silt or algae with their arms — and then hurled them away, propelling them with water jetted from their siphon. And although some of the time it seemed that they were just throwing away debris or food leftovers, it did sometimes appear that they were throwing things at each other. The team found clues that the octopuses were deliberately targeting one another. Throws that made contact with another octopus were relatively strong and often occurred when the thrower was displaying a uniform dark or medium body colour. Another clue: sometimes the octopuses on the receiving end ducked. Throws that made octo-contact were also more likely to be accomplished with a specific set of arms, and the projectile was more likely to be silt. “We weren’t able to try and assess what the reasons might be,” Scheel cautions. But throwing, he says, “might help these animals deal with the fact that there are so many octopuses around”. In other words, it is probably social. © 2022 Springer Nature Limited

Keyword: Evolution; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 28549 - Posted: 11.13.2022

Laurel Wamsley Perhaps the real law of the jungle is that it's good to have friends — especially those who know where to find the the free food. Case in point: It turns out chimpanzees and gorillas can be pals, evidently with advantages for all. That finding is from a new paper in the journal iScience that analyzes social interactions between the primate species over two decades at the Nouabalé-Ndoki Park in the Republic of Congo. Over that 20-year period, researchers saw gorillas follow the sound of chimps to a canopy full of ripe figs, and then co-feed at the same tree. They witnessed young individuals of both species playing and wrestling with each other – interactions that can foster their development. And when bands of the two species encountered each other, researchers saw gorillas and chimps scan the others and then approach the ones they knew. They even saw chimpanzees beating their chests – a behavior associated with gorillas. Researchers had theorized that associations between the species could perhaps be to avoid predators such as leopards or snakes. But the apes' behavior didn't show that to be a major factor in their interactions. "Predation is certainly a threat in this region, as we have cases in which chimpanzees have been killed by leopards," Washington University primatologist Crickette Sanz, who led the research, said in a news release. "However, the number of chimpanzees in daily subgroups remains relatively small, and gorillas within groups venture far from the silverback who is thought to be a protector from predation." Instead, better foraging seemed to be a key upside for both species – sometimes eating at the same tree, sometimes dining nearby on different foods. Not every interaction was warm and friendly. "Interspecific aggression was bidirectional and most frequently consisted of threats," the study notes – but it never rose to the level of lethal aggression that has occurred between chimps and gorillas in Gabon. © 2022 npr

Keyword: Evolution; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 28548 - Posted: 11.13.2022

Hannah Devlin Science correspondent Music makes you lose control, Missy Elliott once sang on a hit that is almost impossible to hear without bopping along. Now scientists have discovered that rats also find rhythmic beats irresistible, showing how they instinctively move in time to music. This ability was previously thought to be uniquely human and scientists say the discovery provides insights into the animal mind and the origins of music and dance. “Rats displayed innate – that is, without any training or prior exposure to music – beat synchronisation,” said Dr Hirokazu Takahashi of the University of Tokyo. “Music exerts a strong appeal to the brain and has profound effects on emotion and cognition,” he added. While there have been previous demonstrations of animals dancing along to music – TikTok has a wealth of examples – the study is one of the first scientific investigations of the phenomenon. In the study, published in the journal Science Advances, 10 rats were fitted with wireless, miniature accelerometers to measure the slightest head movements. They were then played one-minute excerpts from Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, at four different tempos: 75%, 100%, 200% and 400% of the original speed. Twenty human volunteers also participated. The scientists thought it possible that rats would prefer faster music as their bodies, including heartbeat, work at a faster pace. By contrast, the time constant of the brain is surprisingly similar across species. © 2022 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 28547 - Posted: 11.13.2022

Dyani Lewis Neuroscientists have identified the nerve cells responsible for helping paralysed people to walk again, opening up the possibility of targeted therapies that could benefit a wider range of people with spinal-cord injuries1. Severe spinal-cord injuries can disrupt the connection between the brain and the networks of nerve cells in the lower spine that control walking. In 2018, neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and his colleagues showed that delivering electrical pulses to those lower-spine nerves — a technique known as epidural electrical stimulation (EES) — could, when combined with intensive training, get people with this kind of spinal-cord injury walking again2. All three participants in a trial went from having severe or complete motor paralysis and minimal sensation in their legs to being able to take steps on their own, or with a walker or crutches. Two other teams showed similar results that year3,4. Courtine’s team has now extended the work, showing that the system works in people who have lost all sensation in their legs. The group reports in Nature today that nine participants in the same trial — three of whom had complete paralysis and no sensation in their legs — regained the ability to walk after training paired with EES delivered by devices implanted in their spines. Five months into the trial, all participants could bear their own weight and take steps, using a walker for stability. Four no longer need the EES to be switched on to walk. This sustained recovery suggests that the stimulation triggers remodelling of the spinal neurons to bring the locomotion network back on line. “The amount of hope that it gives to people with spinal-cord injury is incredible,” says Marc Ruitenberg, a neurologist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, who studies spinal-cord injury. © 2022 Springer Nature Limited

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 28546 - Posted: 11.13.2022