Matt Walker Male free-tailed bats sing intricate and complex "love songs" to woo prospective female mates, new research has found. A detailed analysis of the structure of the bats' song has found they use a defined syntax and order of syllables. That makes the bats' songs more similar to those produced by birds than by other mammals such as mice. Among mammals, only whales may produce more complex songs, scientists report in the journal PLoS One. In 2008, a team of researchers including Dr Kirsten Bohn of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, US discovered that Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) sang songs that appeared to contain defined phrases and syllables. "But we only had songs from a few individuals in a captive colony," says Dr Bohn. Now Bohn and her colleagues have examined over 400 songs produced by 33 individual free-tailed bats living in different colonies in two different regions. The researchers found that all the bats produce songs with a common hierarchical structure. BBC © MMIX

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Animal Communication
Link ID: 13219 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Hilmar Schmundt Imagine controlling machines, typing text or juggling balls using nothing but the power of thought. What sounds like far-fetched science fiction is gradually becoming possible, providing hope for disabled patients -- and new gimmicks for the computer gaming industry. My original plan was to write this article with nothing but the power of thought, but the technology of transforming ideas into characters is still crude and prone to error. The first word alone took a few minutes, and even after that the result was still "diz" instead of "this." Still, that little sentence is like a little miracle. The old dream of mind-reading is slowly becoming reality -- though this time around it is the product of machines rather than the minds of fiction writers. "The advances are tremendous," says Christoph Guger, the developer of a brain-reading system. "In the past, you would have had to train for days. Today, entering text takes only a few minutes." Guger is an engineer and a businessman. But with his hair falling past his jacket's collar, he looks the part of a start-up entrepreneur. Still, he is certainly not new to the business. His company, Guger Technologies, which is based in the Austrian city of Graz, has been a supplier to countless brain-research laboratories for years. In addition to scalpels and medications, though, Guger also sells thought-transport technology. © SPIEGEL ONLINE 2009

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 13218 - Posted: 06.24.2010

From The Economist print edition THAT the risk-taking end of the financial industry is dominated by men is unarguable. But does it discriminate against women merely because they are women? Well, it might. But a piece of research just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Paola Sapienza of Northwestern University, near Chicago, suggests an alternative—that it is not a person’s sex, per se, that is the basis for discrimination, but the level of his or her testosterone. Besides being a sex hormone, testosterone also governs appetite for risk. Control for an individual’s testosterone levels and, at least in America, the perceived sexism vanishes. Dr Sapienza and her colleagues worked with aspiring bankers (MBA students from the University of Chicago). They measured the amount of testosterone in their subjects’ saliva. They also estimated the students’ exposure to the hormone before they were born by measuring the ratios of their index fingers to their ring fingers (a long ring finger indicates high testosterone exposure) and by measuring how accurately they could determine human emotions by observing only people’s eyes, which also correlates with prenatal exposure to testosterone. The students were then presented with 15 risky choices. In each they had to decide between a 50:50 chance of getting $200 or a gradually increasing sure payout, which ranged from $50 up to $120. (Some of this money was actually paid over at the end of the experiment, to make the consequences real.) The point at which a participant decided to switch from the gamble to the sure thing was reckoned a reasonable approximation of his appetite for risk. © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009.

Keyword: Emotions; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 13217 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Bruce Bower Gut-wrenching fears of snakes and spiders may start early for many women. Before their first birthdays, girls but not boys adeptly learn to link the sight of these creatures to the frightened reactions of others, a new study suggests. Neither infant girls nor boys link happy faces with snakes and spiders, reports study author David Rakison of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in an upcoming Evolution & Human Behavior. Youngsters of both sexes also don’t tend to associate images of flowers and mushrooms with either fearful or happy faces, he finds. In Rakison’s tests, 11-month-old babies first looked at pairs of images—a happy or fearful cartoon face was paired with a snake, spider, flower or mushroom. After the first brief display, Rakison timed how long each child gazed at new pairs of images. A youngster who learned to associate two images, say a fearful face with a snake, would gaze longer at a violation of what he or she expected to see, such as a happy face with a snake, the researcher reasoned. Only girls associated the snake or spider that they originally saw with a fearful reaction and then acted on that knowledge, looking longer at the unexpected appearance of a happy face with a new snake or spider, Rakison proposes. No other pair of images elicited longer gazes from girls or boys. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2009

Keyword: Emotions; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 13216 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Greg Miller During an epileptic seizure, waves of abnormal electrical activity sweep through the brain. That can create some strange experiences, including hallucinations and feelings of déjà vu. Even stranger is the recently reported case of an epileptic woman who feels that she has become a man during some seizures. In a paper in press at Epilepsy & Behavior, Burkhard Kasper and colleagues at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany report that the 37-year-old woman's momentary gender transformations include the sense that her voice is deeper and her arms have become hairier. On one occasion, she told the researchers, a female friend was in the room as a seizure came on, and she had the sense that her friend had become a male as well. A magnetic resonance imaging scan revealed damage to the woman's right amygdala, probably caused by a small tumor, and EEG electrodes recorded abnormal activity in the surrounding right temporal lobe, suggesting that this region is the source of her seizures. Other than some symptoms of depression and anxiety, which responded well to treatment, the woman had no history of psychiatric illness, and she never experienced the transformation in the absence of seizures. Delusional feelings of gender transformation have been previously reported in people with schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses, the authors write, but not to their knowledge in a person with epilepsy. © 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Epilepsy
Link ID: 13215 - Posted: 06.24.2010

About 50,000 people have been diagnosed with narcolepsy in the U.S, but there may be as many as 2.4 million people unknowingly living with it. Narcolepsy causes excessive daytime sleepiness, fatigue and even sudden muscular weakness, known as cataplexy. Here, six men and women speak about living with narcolepsy. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Narcolepsy; Sleep
Link ID: 13214 - Posted: 08.27.2009

Getting high blood pressure under control could potentially help prevent memory troubles, U.S. researchers say. People aged 45 and older with high diastolic blood pressure — high readings on the bottom number of the blood pressure reading — were more likely to have problems with their memory and thinking skills than those with normal readings, the team reported in Tuesday's issue of the journal Neurology. Every 10-point increase in the reading was associated with seven per cent higher odds of cognitive impairment, which can be a precursor to dementia, the researchers said. "Higher diastolic blood pressure was cross-sectionally and independently associated with impaired cognitive status in this large, geographically dispersed, race- and sex-balanced sample of stroke-free individuals," the researchers concluded in the study. The finding held after researchers accounted for other factors that could affect thinking skills, such as age, education level, smoking and other illnesses such as diabetes. "It's possible that by preventing or treating high blood pressure, we could potentially prevent cognitive impairment, which can be a precursor to dementia," Dr. Georgios Tsivgoulis of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who led the study, said in a statement. © CBC 2009

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Stress
Link ID: 13213 - Posted: 06.24.2010

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor Once upon a time in the long evolution of Homo sapiens, a band of our African ancestors learned to use fire for more than cooking meat, lighting the dark or warding off attacking animals. Those Stone Age people became the world's first engineers - they discovered that the intense heat of a fire's embers could make chunks of stone much easier to flake for making tools, and to make them much sharper too. It was "a breakthrough adaptation in human evolution," reports an international group of archaeologists and anthropologists. And it may have come about because of changes in those early human's brains, other scientists say. What began at least 165,000 years ago became the most common method of stone toolmaking in Africa by about 72,000 years ago. The scientists from Africa, Australia and Arizona analyzed nearly 200 ancient tools found around cave dwellings at a South African coastal site called Pinnacle Point, which earlier excavations had shown were inhabited by people of the Middle Stone Age. The knives, scrapers and hand axes were made of a widely used type of silicate rock called silcrete. Some of the scientists, reporting in the current issue of the journal Science, are themselves skilled at "knapping" - the art of chipping stones by hand to create sharp tools - and their tools demonstrated the clear improvements possible from heat treatment at fire temperatures of 450 Fahrenheit or more. © 2009 Hearst Communications Inc.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 13212 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News -- The remains of a man who could be the world's oldest known paralysis victim have been unearthed by Australian bio-archaeologists in northern Vietnam. Found at the Neolithic cemetery site of Man Bac, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Hanoi, the remains are between 3,500 and 4,000 years old and belong to an adult male who died around age 25. Called Man Bac Burial 9, or simply M9, the young man suffered from paraplegia or possibly quadriplegia due to a rare disorder called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, a condition involving congenital fusion of the spine. The disorder, which can make sufferers look as if they have a short neck, is also often associated with various complications. In the case of M9, posture-related complications forced his head to tilt to his right side, a condition known as torticollis. M9 also likely had problems chewing. spine surgery "Amazingly, this man survived in a subsistence Neolithic economy with total lower body paralysis, and at best minimal upper body mobility for at least a decade prior to death," Lorna Tilley, the Australian National University Ph.D. candidate who excavated the remains with lead researcher Marc Oxenham, told Discovery News. © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC. Inc.

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Evolution
Link ID: 13211 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Larry Greenemeier Huber, Purdue, Moran, Parkinson'sParkinson's disease sufferers typically face a long, difficult battle against the disorder's degenerative effects on their motor skills and speech. While many scientists are studying the potential for drugs, surgery and exercise to slow the disease's impact on the central nervous system—including tremors, stiff muscles and impaired movement—one team of researchers is experimenting with technology designed to help Parkinson's sufferers fend off voice and speech problems. Parkinson's can leave its victims afflicted with speech that tends to be soft, hoarse and monotonous, particularly during the disease's later stages. Jessica Huber, an associate professor of speech, language and hearing sciences at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., is in the early stages of developing a device that could help Parkinson's sufferers articulate their thoughts more audibly by exploiting the Lombard effect, a reflex in which people automatically speak louder in the presence of background sound (for example, at a sporting event, party or restaurant). Huber has created device that includes an earpiece that automatically plays ambient noise, mimicking the din of conversation typically found in a restaurant, whenever a person attempts to speak (this is detected by a sensor placed on the neck). A mask and sensors in elastic bands placed around the rib cage precisely record respiratory, laryngeal and articulatory data as the subject speaks. © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Language
Link ID: 13210 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Robert Epstein and Jennifer Ong Thrill seeking and poor judgment go hand in hand when it comes to teenagers—an inevitable part of human development determined by properties of a growing but immature brain. Right? Not so fast. A study being published tomorrow turns that thinking upside down: The brains of teens who behave dangerously are more like adult brains than are those of their more cautious peers. Psychologists have long believed that the brain's judgment-control systems develop more slowly than emotion-governing systems, not maturing until people are in their mid-20s. Hence, teens end up taking far more risks than adults do. Evidence supporting this idea comes from studies looking at functional and structural properties of gray matter, the important part of the brain that contains the neurons that relay brain signals. At least two observations undermine this theory, however. First, American-style teen turmoil is absent in more than 100 cultures around the world, suggesting that such mayhem is not biologically inevitable. Second, the brain itself changes in response to experiences, raising the question of whether adolescent brain characteristics are the cause of teen tumult or rather the result of lifestyle and experiences. Because brain research is virtually always correlational in design, determining whether brain properties are causes or effects is impossible. Now neuroscientists Gregory S. Berns, Sara Moore and Monica Capra of Emory University suggest that teen risk-taking is associated not with an immature brain but with a mature, adultlike brain—exactly the opposite of conventional wisdom. © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Brain imaging
Link ID: 13209 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Paul W. Andrews and J. Anderson Thomson, Jr. Depression seems to pose an evolutionary paradox. Research in the US and other countries estimates that between 30 to 50 percent of people have met current psychiatric diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder sometime in their lives. But the brain plays crucial roles in promoting survival and reproduction, so the pressures of evolution should have left our brains resistant to such high rates of malfunction. Mental disorders should generally be rare — why isn’t depression? This paradox could be resolved if depression were a problem of growing old. The functioning of all body systems and organs, including the brain, tends to deteriorate with age. This is not a satisfactory explanation for depression, however, as people are most likely to experience their first bout in adolescence and young adulthood. Or, perhaps, depression might be like obesity — a problem that arises because modern conditions are so different from those in which we evolved. Homo sapiens did not evolve with cookies and soda at the fingertips. Yet this is not a satisfactory explanation either. The symptoms of depression have been found in every culture which has been carefully examined, including small-scale societies, such as the Ache of Paraguay and the !Kung of southern Africa — societies where people are thought to live in environments similar to those that prevailed in our evolutionary past. There is another possibility: that, in most instances, depression should not be thought of as a disorder at all. In an article recently published in Psychological Review, we argue that depression is in fact an adaptation, a state of mind which brings real costs, but also brings real benefits. © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Depression; Evolution
Link ID: 13208 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Paul Marks EVERY generation has some form of relationship with the internet, but for the older members of society, boosted computer use may have a surprise benefit: it could provide a warning that they may be experiencing the subtle early signs of dementia. Lisa Vizer and colleagues at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, say the first signs of age-related cognitive problems, or a degenerative condition like Alzheimer's, might be detectable using software that monitors telltale variations in an individual's typing patterns. The researchers say that warnings of a possible cognitive dysfunction could improve diagnosis and treatments in time to minimise or delay serious impairment (International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2009.07.005). But how to do it? The UMBC team knew that an individual's typing rhythm is distinctive and reasonably stable over time, but that it can change when we are under temporary stress. They wanted to find out if the mental stress of a cognitive or physical condition would also be detectable. An individual's typing rhythm is distinctive and reasonably stable over time So they hired 24 volunteers with an average of 12 years' experience of typing. After having them perform a number of keyboard exercises, such as writing emails on any topic they liked, they undertook either mental mathematics tasks to stress them cognitively, or intense physical exercise to stress them physically. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Alzheimers; Stress
Link ID: 13207 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Celeste Biever YOU might expect the brain of someone with a mental disorder to be disorganised. But it's the nature of the disorganisation that's important - a finding that one day could help early diagnosis of different types of dementia. We already know that the different regions of healthy brains are linked in a so-called small-world network, which makes communication very efficient. For people with Alzheimer's or other types of dementia, however, it's a different story. In small-world networks - which also emerge, for example, in social networks - each node is connected to a lot of nearby nodes, but also has a few links to distant ones. Because of this, any node can communicate with almost any other in just a few hops. This may explain the brain's formidable ability to process masses of information rapidly. "A small world, in theoretical terms, is the optimal network," says Willem de Haan of the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. De Haan's team used scalp electrodes to measure the brain activity of resting volunteers, of whom 20 had mild to moderate Alzheimer's, 15 had a rare form of dementia called frontal temporal lobe dementia (FTLD), and 23 were healthy. The researchers figured out the underlying network structure of the volunteers' brains from the electrical activity in different regions over time. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Brain imaging
Link ID: 13206 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael L. Anderson Psychology generally approaches the study of the mind by starting with behavior, and trying to infer the hidden mechanisms that produce it. Neuroscience, in contrast, begins by examining the smallest, deepest parts of the mechanism--genes and neurons--and tries to determine which behaviors these help produce. Ideally, the "outside-in" and "bottom-up" approaches are complementary, but each suffers from some inherent limitations. In psychology, the trouble is that for every piece of observed behavior, there are innumerable mechanisms that could have produced it. Similarly, the neurosciences have been hampered by the dearth of technologies allowing them to observe the brain in action. Knowing how the brain's smallest parts operate isn't the same as knowing how those parts interact to generate behavior. Advanced imaging technologies have long promised to help bridge the gap between psychology and neuroscience by allowing us to peer "inside the box" and observe the living, working brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has been among the most important of these, but since fMRI doesn't measure brain function directly--it detects changes in blood oxygenation levels from which we infer neural activity--it leaves us in roughly the same position as a psychologist observing behavior. But thanks to a new way of using MRI scanners to take a different kind of picture--a technique called Diffusion Tensor Imaging--things have just gotten a lot more interesting. By tracking the motion of water molecules in the brain, DTI allows you to see where nerve fibers lead and to map the fiber bundles wiring together various parts of the cortex. Such a map is called a "connectome." 2009 Forbes.com LLC

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 13205 - Posted: 08.27.2009

By Christian DeBenedetti It's official. Today, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office reported that Michael Jackson died of an overdose of propofol, an anesthetic most often used during major surgery. Why he was using this drug at home is still unanswered, though reports indicate that the pop superstar hadn't properly slept for years, maybe even decades. Is it possible that Jackson's quest for shuteye may have ended his life? The same questions surround Heath Ledger, who died last year of a prescription-drug overdose. At one point, the young actor told The New York Times he was only getting two hours a night. Director Terry Gilliam told Vanity Fair that Ledger was overusing prescription sleep aids in search of rest. "It was a combination of exhaustion, sleeping medication … and perhaps the aftereffects of the flu," said the director, speculating about Ledger's death. "I guess his body just stopped breathing." We've all suffered from a poor night's sleep. According to the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, vast numbers of Americans (30-40 percent) report suffering from one or more nights of insomnia during any given year. But can insomnia get so bad that you actually die from it? There's very little research on what happens to the human body when it goes for extended periods without sleep—after all, no lab in the country would sign off on such experiments. From what we do know, it's highly likely that one's body would eventually just shut down. But what's more common, and troubling, is chronic insomnia, bouts of brief, fitful sleep—an hour here, three hours there—lasting beyond three weeks into months or years at a time. About 10-15 percent of Americans suffer from chronic insomnia, and while this type of condition is not deadly in and of itself, it can lead to a whole host of other disturbing mental and physical effects. © 2009 Newsweek, Inc.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 13204 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Liz Kowalczyk Massachusetts General Hospital is creating one of the first comprehensive programs in the nation to provide specialized medical care to adults with autism, a group whose numbers are poised to surge as tens of thousands of children diagnosed with the developmental disorder grow up. The hospital plans to announce Tuesday that it will receive $29 million, the fourth- largest gift in its history, from Nancy Lurie Marks and her family foundation in Wellesley, in part to add a major adult component to its pediatric autism program. The money will also allow the hospital to expand its services for children with autism, who now wait up to a year for an appointment, conduct extensive research, advocate for patients, and train physicians. Foundation staff and autism specialists said many physicians are hesitant or unsure how to talk to and examine adult autistic patients. Their behavior can include rocking and repeating stock phrases - or not speaking at all - and that can lead to serious gaps in care and an over-reliance on psychiatric medications. Autism “is treated as a childhood disorder but it’s lifelong,’’ said Clarence Schutt, director of the Wellesley foundation, which is a leading funder of autism research and whose grant to Mass. General is its largest ever. Many adults with autismcontinue to see their pediatricians well into their 40s, while others go long periods without a physical or dental exam. Still others are misdiagnosed, with doctors missing complications such as sleep apnea or gastrointestinal pain because the patient cannot communicate the problem, doctors and families said. © 2009 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 13203 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The people who multitask the most are the ones who are worst at it. That is the surprising conclusion of Stanford University researchers, who found multitaskers are more easily distracted and less able to ignore irrelevant information than people who do less multitasking. "The huge finding is, the more media people use, the worse they are at using any media. We were totally shocked," Clifford Nass, a professor in Stanford's communications department, said in a telephone interview. The researchers studied 262 college undergraduates, dividing them into high and low multitasking groups, and comparing such things as memory, ability to switch from one task to another and being able to focus on a task. Their findings are in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When it came to such essential abilities, people who did a lot of multitasking didn't score as well as others, Nass said. Still to be answered is why the folks who are worst at multitasking are the ones doing it the most. Is poor multitasking learned? It's sort of a chicken-or-egg question. "Is multitasking causing them to be lousy at multitasking, or is their lousiness at multitasking causing them to be multitaskers?" Nass wondered. "Is it born or learned?" © CBC 2009

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 13202 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Ian Graham Scientists are to investigate whether human-engineered nanoparticles which are found in sunscreen have any links with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Professor Vyvyan Howard, a pathologist and toxicologist, and Dr Christian Holster, an expert in Alzheimer's, have been awarded £350,000 from the European Union to carry out a three-year research project. Their study at the Biomedical Sciences Institute in Coleraine, Co Londonderry, is part of a worldwide project called NeuroNano, which also involves scientists at Dublin, Cork and Edinburgh universities, among others. The team from the University of Ulster will look specifically at the nanoparticles present in the chemicals found in sunscreens, and in an additive to some diesel fuels – titanium dioxide and cerium oxide – and consider their links to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Professor Howard said yesterday: "There is now firm evidence that some engineered nanoparticles entering intravenously or via lungs can reach the brains of small animals. "Indeed, they lodge in almost all parts of the brain and there are no efficient clearance mechanisms to remove them once there." There were also suggestions that nanoscale particles arising from urban pollution had reached the brains of animals and children living in Mexico City, he added. ©independent.co.uk

Keyword: Alzheimers; Parkinsons
Link ID: 13201 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By C. CLAIBORNE RAY Q. Does loss of hearing with age afflict men and women to the same degree? A. From 20 to 69, men are about twice as likely as women to suffer hearing loss, said Howard J. Hoffman, an epidemiologist with the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. After 70, men continue to have somewhat higher rates of hearing loss, Mr. Hoffman said, but starting at about 80, both men and women have very high, and approximately equal, rates of poor hearing. The figures are based on national studies involving interviews about hearing problems and examinations, he said. “Aging alone is a major risk factor for hearing loss,” Mr. Hoffman said. “We know that other chronic conditions are associated with hearing impairment, such as diabetes and perhaps hypertension, but these do not account for the gender-specific differences.” Men are more than twice as likely to report long-term exposure to loud noise, Mr. Hoffman said, “so this is probably an important reason why men have worse hearing, on average, as working-age adults.” Interestingly, Mr. Hoffman said, among young adults with hearing impairment, more women than men wear hearing aids, but in those over 70, men are about 50 percent more likely to wear hearing aids than women of comparable age with hearing loss. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hearing; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13200 - Posted: 06.24.2010