by Laura Dattaro Some genomic areas that help determine cerebellar size are associated with autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to a new study. But heritable genetic variants across the genome that also influence cerebellar size are not. The cerebellum sits at the base of the skull, below and behind the much larger cerebrum. It coordinates movement and may also play roles in social cognition and autism, according to previous research. The new work analyzed genetic information and structural brain scans from more than 33,000 people in the UK Biobank, a biomedical and genetic database of adults aged 40 to 69 living in the United Kingdom. A total of 33 genetic sequence variants, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), were associated with differences in cerebellar volume. Only one SNP overlapped with those linked to autism, but the association should be explored further in other cohorts, says lead investigator Richard Anney, senior lecturer in bioinformatics at Cardiff University in Wales. “There’s lots of caveats to say why it might be worth following up on,” Anney says. “But from this data alone, it’s not telling us there’s a major link between [autism] and cerebellar volume.” So far, cognitive neuroscientists have largely ignored the cerebellum, says Jesse Gomez, assistant professor of neuroscience at Princeton University, who was not involved in the work. The new study represents a first step in better understanding genetic influences on the brain region and its role in neurodevelopmental conditions, he says. “It’s a fun paper,” Gomez says. “It’s the beginning of what’s an exciting revolution in the field.” Of the 33 inherited variants Anney’s team found, 5 had not previously been significantly associated with cerebellar volume. They estimated that the 33 variants account for about 50 percent of the differences in cerebellar volume seen across participants. © 2022 Simons Foundation

Keyword: Autism; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 28215 - Posted: 02.23.2022

By Ellen Barry A new book by Dr. Thomas P. Insel, who for 13 years ran the United States’ foremost mental health research institution, begins with a sort of confession. During his tenure as the “nation’s psychiatrist,” he helped allocate $20 billion in federal funds and sharply shifted the focus of the National Institute of Mental Health away from behavioral research and toward neuroscience and genetics. “I should have been able to help us bend the curves for death and disability,” Dr. Insel writes. “But I didn’t.” Dr. Insel, 70, who left N.I.M.H. in 2015, calls the advances in neuroscience of the last 20 years “spectacular” — but in the very first pages of his new book, he says that, for the most part, they haven’t yet benefited patients. His book, “Healing: Our Path From Mental Illness to Mental Health,” is not an indictment of the science to which he devoted much of his adult life. Instead, it chronicles failures in virtually every other element of our mental health system, including the ineffective delivery of care, the gutting of community health services and the reliance on police and jails for crisis services. It also calls out a paradox: that the United States, a country that leads the world in spending on medical research, also stands out for its dismal outcomes in people with mental illnesses. Indeed, over the last three decades, even as the government invested billions of dollars in better understanding the brain, by some measures, those outcomes have deteriorated. The country’s long spell without breakthrough treatments can be attributed, in part, to the complexity of the brain. Dr. Insel rose through the ranks at a time of optimism that advances in neurobiology would lead to new treatments, and as head of N.I.M.H., as he put it, he “bet big on genomics.” But 20 years later, he said the role that genes play in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder has proven to be extraordinarily complex. “Each of those variants that have been discovered just account for a tiny, tiny amount of risk, so in aggregate, they’re probably significant, but you have to put a hundred of them together,” he said. “So we started doing bigger and bigger studies to find smaller and smaller effects.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 28214 - Posted: 02.23.2022

By Matt Richtel During the pandemic, emergency rooms across the country reported an increase in visits from teenage girls dealing with eating and other disorders, including anxiety, depression and stress, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report provides new detail about the kinds of mental health issues affecting a generation of adolescents. Mental health experts hypothesize that the pandemic prompted some youth to feel isolated, lonely and out-of-control. Some coped by seeking to have control over their own behavior, said Emily Pluhar, a pediatric psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School. “You take a very vulnerable group and put on a global pandemic,” she said. “The eating disorders are out of control.” In the C.D.C. study, the agency said that the proportion of eating disorder visits doubled among teenage girls, set off by pandemic-related risk factors, like the “lack of structure in daily routine, emotional distress and changes in food availability.” The agency said that the increase in tic disorders was “atypical,” as these disorders often present earlier, and are more common in boys. But the C.D.C., reinforcing speculation from other clinicians and researchers, said that some teenage girls may be developing tics after seeing the phenomenon spread widely on social media, notably on TikTok. “Stress of the pandemic or exposure to severe tics, highlighted on social media platforms, might be associated with increases in visits with tics and tic-like behavior among adolescent females,” the C.D.C. wrote. In a related report, the C.D.C. also said on Friday that the increase in visits for mental health issues occurred as emergency rooms reported sharp declines overall in visits during the pandemic. As compared with 2019, overall visits fell by 51 percent in 2020 and by 22 percent in 2021, declines that the agency attributed in part to families delaying care, and a drop in physical injuries from activities like swimming and running. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia; Stress
Link ID: 28213 - Posted: 02.19.2022

Jon Hamilton When Michael Schneider's anxiety and PTSD flare up, he reaches for the ukulele he keeps next to his computer. "I can't actually play a song," says Schneider, who suffered two serious brain injuries during nearly 22 years in the Marines. "But I can play chords to take my stress level down." It's a technique Schneider learned through Creative Forces, an arts therapy initiative sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. It's also an example of how arts therapies are increasingly being used to treat brain conditions including PTSD, depression, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. But most of these treatments, ranging from music to poetry to visual arts, still have not undergone rigorous scientific testing. So artists and brain scientists have launched an initiative called the NeuroArts Blueprint to change that. A brain circuit tied to emotion may lead to better treatments for Parkinson's disease Shots - Health News A brain circuit tied to emotion may lead to better treatments for Parkinson's disease The initiative is the result of a partnership between the Johns Hopkins International Arts + Mind Lab Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics and the Aspen Institute's Health, Medicine and Society Program. Its leadership includes soprano Renée Fleming, actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, and Dr. Eric Nestler, who directs the Friedman Brain Institute at Mt. Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine. One goal of the NeuroArts initiative is to measure how arts therapies change the brains of people like Schneider. "I had a traumatic brain injury when I was involved in a helicopter incident on board a U.S. Naval vessel," he explains. That was in 2005. Article continues after sponsor message Later that same year, he experienced sudden decompression – the aviator's version of the bends — while training for high-altitude flights. The result was like a stroke. © 2022 npr

Keyword: Stress; Hearing
Link ID: 28212 - Posted: 02.19.2022

By Pam Belluck Social isolation, economic stress, loss of loved ones and other struggles during the pandemic have contributed to rising mental health issues like anxiety and depression. But can having Covid itself increase the risk of developing mental health problems? A large new study suggests it can. The study, published Wednesday in the journal The BMJ, analyzed records of nearly 154,000 Covid patients in the Veterans Health Administration system and compared their experience in the year after they recovered from their initial infection with that of a similar group of people who did not contract the virus. The study included only patients who had no mental health diagnoses or treatment for at least two years before becoming infected with the coronavirus, allowing researchers to focus on psychiatric diagnoses and treatment that occurred after coronavirus infection. People who had Covid were 39 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression and 35 percent more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety over the months following infection than people without Covid during the same period, the study found. Covid patients were 38 percent more likely to be diagnosed with stress and adjustment disorders and 41 percent more likely to be diagnosed with sleep disorders than uninfected people. “There appears to be a clear excess of mental health diagnoses in the months after Covid,” said Dr. Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the study. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 28211 - Posted: 02.19.2022

Linda Geddes A simple test could end years of uncertainty for people with relatively common neurological conditions, new research has found. Historically, obtaining a definitive diagnosis for conditions including Huntingdon’s disease and some forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has been difficult, because, although the cause of the symptoms is genetic, knowing which test to carry out has resulted in delays of many years. Now, a new study suggests that whole genome sequencing (WGS) can quickly and accurately detect the most common inherited neurological disorders, and could be implemented in routine clinical practice with immediate effect. “It is very exciting because it opens up the vista of a test that could end the diagnostic odyssey for many patients,” said Prof Sir Mark Caulfield from Queen Mary University of London and former chief scientist at Genomics England. “This work paves the way for this to be implemented immediately within the NHS.” WGS is already offered to people in England with rare disorders or childhood cancers through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service. However, the technique wasn’t thought to work on people with ‘repeat expansion disorders’ caused by the insertion of short repetitive chunks of DNA into the genetic code – in some cases, stretching across long distances – because they can be difficult to quantify. Such disorders are relatively common, affecting around one in 3,000 people, and include neurodegenerative and movement disorders such as Fragile X syndrome, Huntington’s disease, Friedreich’s ataxia, and some forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or frontal lobe dementia. © 2022 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Huntingtons; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 28210 - Posted: 02.19.2022

By Christina Caron When Chris Lawson began dating Alexandra Salamis, the woman who would eventually become his partner, he was “Mr. Super Attentive Dude,” he said, the type of guy who enjoyed buying cards and flowers for no reason other than to show how much he loved her. But after they moved in together in 2015, things changed. He became more distracted and forgetful. Whether it was chores, planning social events or anything deadline-driven — like renewing a driver’s license — Ms. Salamis, 60, had to continually prod Mr. Lawson to get things done. Invariably, she just ended up doing them herself. “I was responsible for nothing,” Mr. Lawson, 55, admitted. Ms. Salamis, who is not one to mince words, described that period of their relationship as “like living with a child,” later adding, “I hated him, frankly.” But when she brought up her frustrations, Mr. Lawson would become defensive. And as she continued to nag, she started to feel more like a parent than a partner, something they both resented. Then in 2019, at a friend’s suggestion, the pair read an article about how attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., can affect romantic relationships. “We both kind of looked at each other and our jaws dropped,” Ms. Salamis said. The couple, who live in Ottawa, had discovered something millions of others have realized, often after years of conflict: One of them — in this case, Mr. Lawson — most likely had A.D.H.D., a neurodevelopmental disorder often characterized by inattention, disorganization, hyperactivity and impulsivity. When one or both members of a couple have A.D.H.D., the relationship typically has unique challenges, which are usually exacerbated when the disorder goes undiagnosed, experts say. Studies suggest that people with A.D.H.D. have higher levels of interpersonal problems than their peers do, and marriages that include adults with A.D.H.D. are more likely to be unsatisfying. Forums like the one found on the popular website A.D.H.D. and Marriage are often filled with stories of frazzled, emotionally spent spouses stuck in unhealthy, yearslong patterns. But if a couple makes a strong effort to learn more about the disorder, manage its symptoms and find more effective ways to communicate, they can revitalize their relationship. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 28209 - Posted: 02.19.2022

By Conor Feehly There's a paradox in our ability to pay attention. When we are hyper-focused on our surroundings, our senses become more acutely aware of the signals they pick up. But sometimes when we are paying attention, we miss things in our sensory field that are so glaringly obvious, on a second look we can’t help but question the legitimacy of our perception. Back in 1999, the psychologist Daniel Simons created a clever scenario that poignantly demonstrates this phenomenon. (Test it yourself in less than two minutes by watching Simons’ video here, which we recommend before the spoiler below.) In the scenario, there are two teams, each consisting of three players, with one team dressed in black and the other in white. The viewer is asked to count how many passes the team in white makes throughout the course of the video. Sure enough, as the video ends, most people are able to accurately guess the number of passes. Then the narrator asks: But did you see the gorilla? As it turns out, someone in a gorilla suit slowly walks into the scene, in plain sight. Most people who watch the video for the first time and focus on counting passes completely overlook the out-of-place primate. It seems strange, given the viewer’s intent observation of the small field of view where the scene unfolds. Predictive Processing Neuroscientist Anil Seth offers an interesting explanation of this phenomenon in his book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Seth’s description draws from one of neuroscience’s leading theories of cognition and perception. © 2022 Kalmbach Media Co.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 28208 - Posted: 02.19.2022

By Jan Hoffman The federal government on Thursday proposed new guidelines for prescribing opioid painkillers that remove its previous recommended ceilings on doses for chronic pain patients and instead encourage doctors to use their best judgment. But the overall thrust of the recommendations was that doctors should first turn to “nonopioid therapies” for both chronic and acute pain, including prescription medications like gabapentin and over-the-counter ones like ibuprofen, as well as physical therapy, massage and acupuncture. Though still in draft form, the 12 recommendations, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are the first comprehensive revisions of the agency’s opioid prescribing guidelines since 2016. They walk a fine line between embracing the need for doctors to prescribe opioids to alleviate some cases of severe pain while guarding against exposing patients to the well-documented perils of opioids. Dr. Samer Narouze, president of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, an association of clinicians, praised the tone, level of detail and focus of the project. “It’s a total change in the culture from the 2016 guidelines,” he said, characterizing the earlier edition as ordering doctors to “just cut down on opioids — period.” By contrast, the new proposal “has a much more caring voice than a policing one, and it’s left room to preserve the physician-patient relationship,” added Dr. Narouze, chairman of the Center for Pain Medicine at Western Reserve Hospital in Cuyahoga Falls, OH. The 229-page document warns of addiction, depressed breathing, altered mental status and other dangers associated with opioids, but it also notes that the drugs serve an important medical purpose, especially for easing the immediate agony from traumatic injuries such as burns and crushed bones. In those instances when opioids seem the way to go, the recommendations said, doctors should start with the lowest effective dose and prescribe immediate-release pills rather than long-acting ones. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 28207 - Posted: 02.16.2022

By Emma Yasinski By the time kids diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder meet with clinical psychologist Mary O’Connor, they have often been taking multiple medications or unusually high doses of stimulants like Ritalin. “They may have had a trial of stimulants that worked initially,” she says, but when the effect waned, their physicians prescribed higher doses, sometimes to the point of toxicity. O’Connor researches fetal alcohol spectrum disorders at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she has provided both diagnosis and treatment to children exposed to alcohol in the womb. At one end of the spectrum sits fetal alcohol syndrome, characterized by facial abnormalities, growth problems, and intellectual disabilities. The other end of the spectrum is characterized by subtler symptoms, including poor judgement and impulsivity — in other words, what looks to many like ADHD. But experts say standard ADHD treatments often don’t work as well for children exposed to alcohol in-utero. And lack of awareness, a shortage of specialists, and social stigma have combined to limit families’ ability to receive an accurate diagnosis and support for FASD, a condition that is underdiagnosed in the United States and could affect between 1 and 5 percent of this country’s children. The lack of diagnoses, scientists say, stifles research on treatments and may even cloud data on therapies for other disorders.

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 28206 - Posted: 02.16.2022

by Angie Voyles Askham Mice chemically coaxed to produce high levels of an autism-linked gut molecule have anxiety-like behavior and unusual patterns of brain connectivity, according to a study published today in Nature. The findings present a direct mechanism by which the gut could send signals to the brain and alter development, the researchers say. “It’s a true mechanistic paper, [like] the field has been asking for,” says Jane Foster, professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, who was not involved in the study. Although it’s not clear that this exact signaling pathway is happening in people, she says, “this is the sort of work that’s going to get us that answer.” The molecule, 4-ethylphenol (4EP), is produced by gut microbes in mice and people. An enzyme in the colon and liver converts 4EP to 4-ethylphenyl sulfate (4EPS), which then circulates in the blood. Mice exposed to a maternal immune response in the womb have atypically high blood levels of 4EPS, as do some autistic people, previous research shows. And injecting mice with the molecule increases behaviors indicative of anxiety. But it wasn’t clear how the molecule could contribute to those traits. In the new work, researchers show that 4EPS can enter the brain and that its presence is associated with altered brain connectivity and a decrease in myelin — the insulation around axons that helps conduct electrical signals. Boosting the function of myelin-producing cells, the team found, eases the animals’ anxiety. “This is one of the first — maybe, arguably, the first — demonstrations of a specific microbe molecule that has such a profound impact on a complex behavior,” says lead researcher Sarkis Mazmanian, professor of microbiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “How it’s doing it, we still need to understand.” without the engineered enzymes, they showed increased anxiety-like behaviors, © 2022 Simons Foundation

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 28205 - Posted: 02.16.2022

By Lisa Sanders, M.D. “OK, I give up,” said the 74-year-old man. “I’ll go to the hospital.” His wife of 46 years gave an inner sigh of relief. Her husband was stubborn, a seventh-​generation Mainer, not given to complaining. But a few weeks earlier, she noticed that he was parking his tractor next to the back porch so he could get on it without pulling himself up. Then he needed help getting out of his big chair. Now he could barely walk. It happened so suddenly it scared her. She eased the car right next to the porch. He needed both hands on the railing to get down, grunting with each step. His legs moved awkwardly, as if they had somehow forgotten what to do. At the LincolnHealth-Miles Campus Hospital in nearby Damariscotta, it was clear to the E.R. doctors that the patient wasn’t weak but ataxic, lacking not strength but coordination. Virtually every movement the body makes requires several muscles working together — a collaboration that occurs in the cerebellum. The uncertain and awkward way the patient moved made doctors at LincolnHealth worry that something — maybe a stroke, maybe a tumor — had injured that part of the brain. But two CT scans and an M.R.I. were unrevealing. When his doctors weren’t sure what to do next, the patient decided it was time to go home. His wife was supportive but worried. How could she help him get around? He was a big guy and outweighed her by 50 pounds. And they still needed to figure out what was wrong with him. Couldn’t they try another hospital? Maybe, he said, but first he wanted to go home. So that’s where she took him. Once there, it took only a day for the man to recognize, again, that he couldn’t just tough it out at home. There was another hospital, a larger one a couple of towns over in Brunswick: Mid Coast Hospital. His wife was happy to take him there. Those few steps he took from porch to car, supported by his wife, were the last he would take for weeks. © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 28204 - Posted: 02.16.2022

By Linda Searing Health-care workers and others who are exposed on the job to formaldehyde, even in low amounts, face a 17 percent increased likelihood of developing memory and thinking problems later on, according to research published in the journal Neurology. The finding adds cognitive impairment to already established health risks associated with formaldehyde. As the level of exposure increases, those risks range from eye, nose and throat irritation to skin rashes and breathing problems. At high levels of exposure, the chemical is considered a carcinogen, linked to leukemia and some types of nose and throat cancer. A strong-smelling gas, formaldehyde is used in making building materials and plastics and often as a component of disinfectants and preservatives. Materials containing formaldehyde can release it into the air as a vapor that can be inhaled, which is the main way people are exposed to it. The study, which included data from more than 75,000 people, found that the majority of those exposed were workers in the health-care sector — nurses, caregivers, medical technicians and those working in labs and funeral homes. Other study participants who had been exposed to formaldehyde included workers in textile, chemistry and metal industries; carpenters; and cleaners. At highest risk were those whose work had exposed them to formaldehyde for 22 years or more, giving them a 21 percent higher risk for cognitive problems than those who had not been exposed. Using a battery of standardized tests, the researchers found that formaldehyde exposure created higher risk for every type of cognitive function that was tested, including memory, attention, reasoning, word recall and other thinking skills.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 28203 - Posted: 02.16.2022

Jordana Cepelewicz We often think of memory as a rerun of the past — a mental duplication of events and sensations that we’ve experienced. In the brain, that would be akin to the same patterns of neural activity getting expressed again: Remembering a person’s face, for instance, might activate the same neural patterns as the ones for seeing their face. And indeed, in some memory processes, something like this does occur. But in recent years, researchers have repeatedly found subtle yet significant differences between visual and memory representations, with the latter showing up consistently in slightly different locations in the brain. Scientists weren’t sure what to make of this transformation: What function did it serve, and what did it mean for the nature of memory itself? Now, they may have found an answer — in research focused on language rather than memory. A team of neuroscientists created a semantic map of the brain that showed in remarkable detail which areas of the cortex respond to linguistic information about a wide range of concepts, from faces and places to social relationships and weather phenomena. When they compared that map to one they made showing where the brain represents categories of visual information, they observed meaningful differences between the patterns. And those differences looked exactly like the ones reported in the studies on vision and memory. The finding, published last October in Nature Neuroscience, suggests that in many cases, a memory isn’t a facsimile of past perceptions that gets replayed. Instead, it is more like a reconstruction of the original experience, based on its semantic content. All Rights Reserved © 2022

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Language
Link ID: 28202 - Posted: 02.12.2022

By Benjamin Mueller It appeared to be an ordinary fall: Bob Saget, the actor and comedian, knocked his head on something and, perhaps thinking nothing of it, went to sleep, his family said on Wednesday. But the chilling consequences — Mr. Saget, 65, died some hours later on Jan. 9 from blunt head trauma, a medical examiner ruled — have underscored the dangers of traumatic brain injuries, even those that do not initially seem to be causes for alarm. Some 61,000 deaths in 2019 were related to traumatic brain injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and nearly half of head trauma-related hospitalizations result from falls. Brain injury experts said on Thursday that Mr. Saget’s case was relatively uncommon: People with serious head trauma would be expected to have noticeable symptoms, like a headache, nausea or confusion. And they can generally be saved by surgeons opening up their skull and relieving pressure on the brain from bleeding. But certain situations put people at higher risk for the sort of deterioration that Mr. Saget experienced, doctors said. As serious a risk factor as any, doctors said, is simply being alone. Someone with a head injury can lose touch with their usual decision-making capacities and become confused, agitated or unusually sleepy. Those symptoms, in turn, can stand in the way of getting help. And while there was no indication that Mr. Saget was taking blood thinners, experts said the medications can greatly accelerate the type of bleeding after a head injury that forces the brain downward and compresses the centers that regulate breathing and other vital functions. More Americans are being prescribed these drugs as the population ages. Mr. Saget had been in an Orlando hotel room during a weekend of stand-up comedy acts when he was found unresponsive. The local medical examiner’s office announced on Wednesday that his death resulted from “blunt head trauma,” and said that “his injuries were most likely incurred from an unwitnessed fall.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 28201 - Posted: 02.12.2022

ByKelly Servick In 1997, Laura Gould put her 15-month-old daughter, Maria, down for a nap and returned to find her unresponsive. She had died suddenly, with no clues to explain the tragedy besides a fever the night before. When her daughter’s body was sent to the medical examiner’s office, “I thought they’d call me in an hour and tell me what happened … like on TV,” Gould says. Months later, neither that office nor independent pathologists had an explanation. “I hated ending it with ‘the autopsy was inconclusive, go on and live your life now,’” she says. “It just didn’t really feel like that was an option.” Gould co-founded a nonprofit foundation to support grieving parents, raise research funds, and increase awareness of sudden unexplained death in childhood (SUDC), a term used for children older than 12 months. In the United States, roughly 400 deaths fall into this category each year—about one-quarter as many as are labeled sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Two recent genetic analyses, one funded in part by Gould’s SUDC Foundation, now suggest potential causes for at least a small fraction of cases: mutations in genes associated with epilepsy, heart arrhythmias, and neurodevelopmental disorders. “Having this data is important,” says Marco Hefti, a neuropathologist at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine who was not involved in the new studies. SUDC is not a single disease, but “a grab bag of different things—and the more of those different things you can pull out, the better for everybody.” Neither study can say with certainty that a mutation is responsible for a child’s death. But the findings provide a basis for animal studies that could reveal how the genetic changes interfere with vital functions. They might also inform future child death investigations and potentially even screening programs to prevent deaths. Research on SUDC has lagged that on the more common and better known SIDS. Yet, biologically, SIDS and SUDC “may be part of a spectrum,” says Ingrid Holm, a medical geneticist at Boston Children’s Hospital. In both, death often occurs during sleep, and researchers suspect contributors including undetected heart defects, metabolic disorders, and central nervous system abnormalities. The children who die are roughly 10 times more likely than the average child to have a history of febrile seizures—convulsions that come with fevers in young children, notes neurologist Orrin Devinsky of New York University (NYU) Langone Health. © 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sleep; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 28200 - Posted: 02.12.2022

Natalia Mesa More than a decade ago, scientists developed optogenetics, a method to turn cells on and off with light. The technique allows scientists to spur or suppress cells' electrical activity with just the flip of a switch to tease apart the roles of specific cell types. But because light doesn’t penetrate deep into tissues, scientists need to surgically implant light sources to illuminate cells below the surface of the skin or skull. In a new study published today (February 9) in Nature Communications, researchers report they’ve found a way to use ultrasound to noninvasively activate mouse neurons, both in culture and in the brains of living animals. The technique, which the authors call sonogenetics, elicits electrical activity in a subset of brain cells that have been genetically engineered to respond to sound waves. “We know that ultrasound is safe,” study coauthor Sreekanth Chalasani, a neuroscientist in Salk’s Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, tells The Scientist. “The potential for neuronal control is huge. It has applications for pacemakers, insulin pumps, and other therapies that we’re not even thinking about. Jamie Tyler, a biomedical engineer at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who was not involved in the study but has previously collaborated with some of its authors, tells The Scientist that the work represents “more than just a step forward” in being able to use ultrasound to control neural activity: “It shows that sonogenetics is a viable technique in mammalian cells.” © 1986–2022 The Scientist.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 28199 - Posted: 02.12.2022

ByTess Joosse Bite into a lemon and you’ll likely experience a clashing rush of sensations: crushing sharpness, mouth-watering tanginess, and pleasant brightness. But despite its assertiveness—and its role as one of the five main taste profiles (along with sweet, salty, savory, and bitter)—scientists don’t know much about how our acidic taste evolved. Enter Rob Dunn. The North Carolina State University ecologist and his collaborators have spent years scanning the scientific literature in search of an answer. In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the team reports some clues. Science chatted with Dunn about how, and why, humans like to pucker up. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Rob Dunn Ecologist Rob DunnAmanda Ward Q: Do other animals like sour foods? A: With almost all the other tastes, species have lost them through evolution. Dolphins appear to have no taste receptors other than salty, and cats don’t have sweet taste receptors. That’s what we expected to see with sour. What we see instead is all the species that have been tested [about 60 so far] are able to detect acidity in their food. Of those animals, pigs and primates seem to really like acidic foods. For example, wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are really attracted to fermented corn, and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) have shown a preference for acidic fruits in the ginger family. Q: Sweet taste gives us a reward for energy, and bitter alerts us to potential poisons. Why might we have evolved a taste for sour? A: Sour taste was likely present in ancient fish—they’re the earliest vertebrate animals that we know can sense sour. The origin in fish was likely not to taste food with their mouths, but to sense acidity in the ocean—basically fish “tasting” with the outside of their body. Variations in dissolved carbon dioxide can create acidity gradients in the water, which can be dangerous for fish. Being able to sense acidity would have been important. © 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Evolution
Link ID: 28198 - Posted: 02.12.2022

Ian Sample Science editor People who develop Alzheimer’s disease can experience sleep disturbances years before the condition takes hold, but whether one causes the other, or something more complex is afoot, has always proved hard for scientists to determine. Now, researchers in the US have shed light on the mystery, in work that raises hopes for new therapies, and how “good sleep hygiene” could help to tackle the disease and its symptoms. The findings show that humans’ 24-hour circadian clock controls the brain’s ability to mop up wayward proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease. If the scientists are right, the work would explain, at least in part, how disruption to circadian rhythms and sleep disturbances might feed into the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease, and how preventing such disruption might stave off the condition. “Circadian disruption is correlated with Alzheimer’s diagnosis and it has been suggested that sleep disruptions could be an early warning sign of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr Jennifer Hurley, who led the research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in New York. Alzheimer’s takes hold when connections are lost between nerve cells in the brain. The disease is progressive and linked to abnormal plaques and tangles of proteins that steadily build up in the brain. The disease is the most common cause of dementia and affects more than half a million people in the UK, a figure that is set to rise. To keep the brain healthy, immune cells called microglia seek out and destroy troublesome proteins that threaten to accumulate in the brain. One type of protein targeted by the cells is called amyloid beta, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. © 2022 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Alzheimers; Sleep
Link ID: 28197 - Posted: 02.12.2022

By Elizabeth Landau My grandmother was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease when she died in 2007, not long after I graduated from journalism school. As a budding health reporter, I tried to learn everything I could about Alzheimer’s and wrote about new research on preventions and treatments that everyone wanted to believe had potential. It is demoralizing and infuriating to think about how, nearly 15 years later, no breakthrough cure or proven prevention strategy has panned out. But neurologist Sara Manning Peskin argues in “A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain” that we could be on the brink of a revolution in confronting diseases like this because scientists have a better handle on how molecules work in the brain. Molecular research has transformed our understanding and treatment of cancer in recent years, and now it is beginning to do the same for brain diseases. In fact, it has already been key to solving several mysteries of why seemingly healthy people appear to suddenly fall into a mental inferno. While the shadow of Alzheimer’s looms over the book, representing an intractable condition that Peskin routinely confronts in her clinical practice, “A Molecule Away from Madness” is a fascinating tour of different kinds of ways that the brain can lead to the breakdown of mental life. The book is organized according to how different molecules interact with our brains to wreak havoc — Peskin calls them “mutants, rebels, invaders, and evaders.” Some have helped scientists solve longstanding puzzles, while others, like the molecules associated with Alzheimer’s, continue to leave millions of people waiting for a cure.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 28196 - Posted: 02.12.2022