WASHINGTON - Your 9-year-old's eyes hurt during homework? Your teen's a slow reader plagued with headaches? They may have a common yet often missed vision problem: Eyes that don't turn together properly to read. As many as one of every 20 students have some degree of what eye doctors call "convergence insufficiency," or CI, where eye muscles must work harder to focus up-close. And those standard vision screenings administered by schools and pediatricians won't catch it — they stress distance vision. When symptoms such as eye strain, headaches, double vision or reading problems trigger the right diagnosis, doctors prescribe any of a hodgepodge of exercises designed to strengthen eye coordination. Now a major government study finally offers evidence for the best approach: Eye training performed in a doctor's office for 12 weeks. The right treatment can make a profound difference, says Adele Andrews of Rydal, Pa., whose son Thomas participated in the study when he was 10 — and improved enough to at last start reading for fun. His mother knew something wasn't right early on: Reading seemed to require a physical struggle of Thomas that his three older siblings never experienced. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 12182 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nelson Hernandez On her back in a dark tube, Blair Smith held still as a scanner combed her brain with magnetic waves. Words flashed by her eyes: tack, vase, hope, glow, vague, cade. The 11-year-old had been told to press the button in her right hand if the word was real, the button in her left if it was nonsense. The answer itself was less important than the map the scanner would make of which areas of Blair's brain lighted up when she struggled with a word. The aim of the study, said Laurie E. Cutting, director of the Education and Brain Research Program at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, is to understand the neurological differences among students who are skilled readers, those who have difficulties and those with diagnosed learning disabilities. If neuroscientists can pinpoint which parts of the brain are activated when a reader puzzles over an unknown word, they may eventually help teachers tailor reading instruction for individuals. That is only the beginning. Many educators hunger for scientific data to help them structure their lessons, and neuroscience is beginning to offer them broad guidance about what works best. One of the most startling recent revelations in neuroscience has been that the brain's structure is much more flexible (a concept called neuroplasticity) than was previously thought; this understanding may help teachers find ways to train the brain to better solve math problems or understand a book. © Copyright 1996-2008 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 12181 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By C. CLAIBORNE RAY A. “In both humans and other mammals, as the body became more complex and reacted to environmental stressors, the brain developed in response to that,” said Dr. Philip E. Stieg, chief of neurosurgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell. “We do not know what specific stimulus changed or caused a species that has a single brain lobe to evolve to have two hemispheres. It was probably a series of stimuli.” All animals that show complex responses have two hemispheres, Dr. Stieg said. A worm, for example, reacts to simple sensory input with a simple set of motor responses, he said. But the human brain deals with not just complex sensory input, but more diverse and complex motor responses mixed with an array of emotional and cognitive interplays. The result, he said, is that parts of the different hemispheres of the cerebral cortex, the top part of the brain, developed specialties. For just a few examples, he said, “the dominant side of the temporal lobes (the left in 97 percent of us) have speech and visual pathways; the parietal lobes, straight up from the ear, are intermixed on the dominant side, with the left handling speech; and the sensory function of one side of the body is handled by the other side, so that if the brain is bruised on the right side of the parietal lobe, and I hit you on the left side of the body, you might not pay attention to it.” Patients can have half their brain cut out to treat severe seizures and still function, but not at the same cognitive level, Dr. Stieg said. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Laterality
Link ID: 12180 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Larry Lindner "For the first time in my life I felt like a normal person," says Josh Thayer, who dropped from 367 pounds to 230 within a year of undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 1998. No longer did he always have to buy the aisle seat at the theater because "you feel guilty hanging over the person sitting next to you." No longer did he have to endure humiliations such as breaking a chair at his brother's wedding. The best part, says Thayer, a Boston area professor, was not having to "think about food for the first time in my life. It was fantastic. I ate when I was hungry, stopped when I was full. I didn't feel like I was fighting an uphill battle." Until five years later, when the weight started creeping back on. When the 6-foot Thayer edged up to 310 earlier this year at age 45, he decided to go for a second operation: adjustable banding, more commonly known as lap-band surgery, which allows for repeated stomach-tightening and thereby offers a new opportunity for reining in appetite. Reactions to his decision vary, he says. While some people close to him worry about his going under the knife again, others have asked, "What the hell did you do wrong?" Second surgeries to combat obesity are on the rise. The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery doesn't keep statistics on repeat customers, but obesity surgeons are reporting upticks. Dennis Halmi, a member of the Bluepoint Surgical Group in Woodbridge, says that in 2002 "we did a handful" of second operations on obesity patients, "maybe five, six. This year we are doing probably 30." Scott Shikora of Tufts Medical Center in Boston says that until recently he hadn't performed a second obesity operation on anybody but is already up to about a half-dozen patients. Thayer was one of them. © Copyright 1996-2008 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 12179 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By AP / MARIA CHENG (LONDON) — Want to lose weight? Try eating. That's one of the strategies being developed by scientists experimenting with foods that trick the body into feeling full. At the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, England, food expert Peter Wilde and colleagues are developing foods that slow down the digestive system, which then triggers a signal to the brain that suppresses appetite. "That fools you into thinking you've eaten far too much when you really haven't," said Wilde. From his studies on fat digestion, he said it should be possible to make foods, from bread to yogurts, that make it easier to diet. While the research is preliminary, Wilde's approach to curbing appetite is one that some doctors say could be key in combating the obesity epidemic. "Being able to switch off appetite would be a big help for people having trouble losing weight," said Steve Bloom, a professor of investigative medicine at London's Imperial College, who is not connected to Wilde's research. Scientists in North America and elsewhere in Europe are also trying to control appetite, including through chemical injections or implantable devices that interfere with the digestive system. © 2008 Time Inc. All rights reserved

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 12178 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NATALIE ANGIER If you want to glimpse the handiwork of one of your body’s unsung sensory heroes, try this little experiment. Hold your index finger a few inches in front of your face and sweep it back and forth at a rate of maybe once or twice a second. What do you see? A blurry finger. Now hold your finger steady and instead shake your head back and forth at the same half-second pace. This time, no blur, no Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase” effect. The finger stays in focus even as your head vigorously pantomimes its denial. And it’s a good thing, too. If the brain couldn’t distinguish between movements of the viewer and movements of the view, if every time you turned around or walked across the room the scenery appeared to smear or the walls to lurch your way, you soon might cease to move at all, uncertain of external threats, unaided by any internal compass marked You. Essential to a fully embodied sense of self is the vestibular system, a paired set of tiny sensory organs tucked deep into the temporal bone on either side of the head, right near the cochlea of the inner ear. The vestibular system isn’t a high-profile, elitist sense like the famed five of vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell. It’s more of a Joe Sixth-Sense, laboring in anonymity and frequently misunderstood. Even its name is a blooper encapsulated, the result of early anatomists thinking the organ merely served as an entrance, or vestibule, to the inner ear. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 12177 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Lou Dzierzak What's scarier, a deadly snake slithering across your path during a hike or watching a 1,000-point drop in the stock market? Although both may instill fear, researchers disagree over the nature and cause of this very powerful emotion. "When you see the stock market fall 1,000 points, that's the same as seeing a snake," says Joseph LeDoux, professor of neuroscience and psychology the Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety based at New York University. "Fear is the response to the immediate stimuli. The empty feeling in your gut, the racing of your heart, palms sweating, the nervousness—that's your brain responding in a preprogrammed way to a very specific threat." LeDoux adds: "Since our brains are programmed to be similar in structure, we can assume that what I experience when I'm threatened is something similar to what you experience." Fear even affects different species in similar ways. "We come into the world knowing how to be afraid, because our brains have evolved to deal with nature," LeDoux says, noting that the brains of rats and humans respond in similar ways to threats, even though the threat itself might be completely different. Other researchers find fear to be a vastly personal experience. Whereas some people become terrified watching a scary film, others may be more afraid to walk back to their cars in a dark parking lot after the movie ends. © 1996-2008 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 12176 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Michael Price People with muscular dystrophy tire after even light exercise. Now a study suggests that the exhaustion is caused by an enzyme that is missing from the muscle cell membrane, and the results point to a possible treatment for the condition: Viagra. Every year, about 500 boys in the United States are born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the disease's most common form. All forms of muscular dystrophy, which cause skeletal muscles to gradually weaken, result from mutations that overload the body with the enzyme creatine kinase, which breaks down muscle tissue. Researchers have long known that even in milder types of the disease, such as Becker's muscular dystrophy, and in the early stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, patients tend to fatigue after relatively minor activities. The briefest walk can leave them far more worn out than would be expected from just having weak muscles. These effects show up in mouse models of the disease, too. About 3 years ago, Kevin Campbell, a biophysicist at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, showed a video of the tired muscular dystrophy mice in his lab at a conference. A chance comment inspired a possible solution. "One of the physicians in the audience said, 'That looks just like my Becker's [muscular dystrophy] patients,' " Campbell recalls. One of the hallmarks of Becker's muscular dystrophy is the loss of an enzyme, neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS), from muscle cell membranes. Campbell wondered whether the deficiency of nNOS might be the source of fatigue. © 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Muscles
Link ID: 12175 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Germany's constitution guarantees its citizens the freedom to conduct research — but local authorities in the northern city of Bremen are forcing a leading neuroscientist to halt his primate experiments. A court will probably now have to decide whether the controversial ruling violates federal law. Andreas Kreiter at the University of Bremen uses 24 macaques to study cognitive processes in the mammalian brain. Germany's largest animal-protection group, the Animal Welfare Association, has for years campaigned against the experiments, claiming that they are intolerably painful and have no short-term therapeutic use. Local politicians have become increasingly sympathetic to that view. Last year, in a move criticized by scientists as a grab for votes, Bremen's parliament called on the state government to ban Kreiter's primate research (see Nature 446, 955; 2007). After regional elections in May 2007, the newly formed Social Democrat–Green coalition government agreed not to reapprove his experiments when his current licence expires later this year. On 15 October, Kreiter was officially informed by the senate of health — the local authority in charge of approving animal experiments — that his licence will not be renewed. Referring to "changed societal values", the authority argued that the experiments were "ethically unjustified" because they address long-term scientific questions rather than help develop specific medical therapies. © 2008 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 12174 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Australian researchers have identified a significant link between a gene involved in testosterone action and male-to-female transsexualism. DNA analysis from 112 male-to-female transsexual volunteers showed they were more likely to have a longer version of the androgen receptor gene. The genetic difference may cause weaker testosterone signals, the team reported in Biological Psychiatry. However, other genes are also likely to play a part, they stressed. Increasingly, biological factors are being implicated in gender identity. One study has shown that certain brain structures in male-to-female transsexual people are more "female like". In the latest study, researchers looked for potential differences in three genes known to be involved in sex development - coding for the androgen receptor, the oestrogen receptor and an enzyme which converts testosterone to oestrogen. Comparison of the DNA from the male to female transsexual participants with 258 controls showed a significant link with a long version of the androgen receptor gene and transsexualism. It is known that longer versions of the androgen receptor gene are associated with less efficient testosterone signalling. This reduced action of the male sex hormone may have an effect on gender development in the womb, the researchers speculated. "We think that these genetic differences might reduce testosterone action and under masculinise the brain during foetal development," said researcher Lauren Hare from Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research. Co-author Professor Vincent Harley added: "There is a social stigma that transsexualism is simply a lifestyle choice, however our findings support a biological basis of how gender identity develops." (C) BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 12173 - Posted: 10.27.2008

The brains of people who commit suicide are chemically different to those who die from other causes, a Canadian study has suggested. Researchers analysed brain tissue from 20 dead people and, in those who killed themselves, they found a higher rate of a process that affects behaviour. Writing in Biological Psychology, they said it appeared environmental factors played a part in the changes. And they said the discovery opened up a new avenue of research. The researchers, from the University of Western Ontario, Carleton University and University of Ottawa, analysed tissue from 10 people who had a serious depressive disorder and had committed suicide and 10 who had died suddenly from other causes, such as a heart attack. They found that the DNA in the suicide group was being chemically modified by a process normally involved in regulating cell development, called methylation. It is methylation which shuts down the unwanted genes in a cell - so the necessary genes are expressed to make a cell a skin cell rather than, for example, a heart cell. The rate of methylation in the suicide brains was almost 10 times that of the other group, and the gene that was being shut down was a chemical message receptor that plays a major role in regulating behaviour. In the paper, the researchers suggest this reprogramming could contribute to the "protracted and recurrent nature of major depressive disorder". Previous research has suggested that changes to the methylation process can be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors called epigenetics. Dr Michael Poulter, who led the research, said: "The whole idea that the genome is so malleable in the brain is surprising, because brain cells don't divide. You get dealt your neurons at the start of life, so the idea that there are still epigenetic mechanisms going on is pretty unusual." (C)BBC

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 12172 - Posted: 10.27.2008

By Claudia Kalb Paul Offit—salt-and-pepper hair, wire-rimmed glasses, Phillies fan—hardly seems like the kind of guy who'd receive a death threat. He's a father who likes to hang out with his teenage kids, a doctor who wears khakis until they're frayed. But Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the nation's most outspoken advocate for childhood immunizations, is at the center of a white-hot medical controversy. He believes passionately in the safety of vaccines; his enemies, many of them parents who blame these shots for their children's autism, do not. Offit says he's been harassed in public, and received threatening letters, e-mails and phone calls. One August morning, his wife, Bonnie, sent him a message before he spoke at a New York press conference promoting vaccination. Worried that protesters rallying outside the event might turn violent, she warned: "Be careful." Immunologists were hardly the target of such wrath when Offit, 57, entered the field almost 30 years ago. But today, frustrations and fears about a mysterious brain disorder that strikes up to one in 150 kids have given rise to the most angry and divisive debate in medicine: do vaccines trigger autism? Offit, a vaccine inventor, says "no." His critics, who vilify him routinely on autism Web sites, say the question is still very much open. They think he's arrogant and a mouthpiece for Big Pharma. One recent post: "Offit should be prosecuted for crimes against our children." After the death threat—a man wrote, "I will hang you by your neck until you are dead"—an armed guard followed Offit to lunch during meetings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. © 2008 Newsweek, Inc.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 12171 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Dominic Koole People are well used to seeing performance enhancing drugs in the world of sport, but now chemical enhancement is spreading to the world of academia as students go to extreme lengths to get the right grades. EPO. Nandrolone. THG. Ephedrine. Anybody who follows sport will have heard of these performance enhancing drugs, usually accompanied by the word "cheat". Now students are taking the same route, using illicit drugs to gain an advantage over their peers in the exams that will shape their lives. Students have long used plentiful cups of coffee, as well as caffeine in pill form, to stay up revising late into the night. But now some are going a step further and taking "study drugs". At the top of the list of study drugs are Ritalin, a drug prescribed to children who suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), and Modafinil, a narcolepsy drug. If not prescribed, Ritalin is a class B drug in the UK, meaning possession can lead to a five-year prison sentence and dealing could put you behind bars for 14 years. Modafinil is also not available over the counter. So why are students taking them? Modafinil and Ritalin are drugs that stimulate the brain. They make people feel more awake and alert, and help control the behaviour and concentration of children with ADHD. "It helps me stay awake and stimulates my mind," says Linda - not her real name - who graduated from Manchester University in June. The 22-year-old psychology graduate took Modafinil with a group of friends several times while working on her dissertation. She used the drug to help her "pull all-nighters" and said that it allowed her to focus on her work for hours at a time. (C)BBC

Keyword: ADHD; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 12170 - Posted: 10.27.2008

The European drugs watchdog is recommending doctors do not prescribe the anti-obesity drug rimonabant, also known as Acomplia. The European Medicines Agency has said the risk of serious psychiatric problems and even suicide are too high. The EMEA says since at-risk patients cannot be identified, marketing of the drug should be suspended. Patients taking the drug should consult their doctor, but do not need to immediately stop taking the medication. Around 97,000 people in the UK who are obese or overweight have been prescribed rimonabant, which is used in conjunction with diet and exercise. And approximately 20,000 are currently taking the drug. It was approved for use by the NHS watchdog in England and Wales in June this year. There have always been concerns over the risks of depression and suicide associated with the drug, and in July last year, the EMEA warned it may be unsafe for patients also taking anti-depressants. Doctors were also told not to give it to patients with a history of major depression, and to be alert for new symptoms of depression in patients taking the drug. But data from more recent studies, and from Sanofi-Aventis itself, has shown there is around double the risk of psychiatric disorders in obese or overweight patients taking rimonabant compared to those taking dummy pills. And between June and August 2008, there were five suicides among patients taking part in a trial who were on the drug, compared with one among those taking the dummy version. (C)BBC

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 12169 - Posted: 10.25.2008

By GARDINER HARRIS Half of all American doctors responding to a nationwide survey say they regularly prescribe placebos to patients. The results trouble medical ethicists, who say more research is needed to determine whether doctors must deceive patients in order for placebos to work. The study involved 679 internists and rheumatologists chosen randomly from a national list of such doctors. In response to three questions included as part of the larger survey, about half reported recommending placebos regularly. Surveys in Denmark, Israel, Britain, Sweden and New Zealand have found similar results. The most common placebos the American doctors reported using were headache pills and vitamins, but a significant number also reported prescribing antibiotics and sedatives. Although these drugs, contrary to the usual definition of placebos, are not inert, doctors reported using them for their effect on patients’ psyches, not their bodies. In most cases, doctors who recommended placebos described them to patients as “a medicine not typically used for your condition but might benefit you,” the survey found. Only 5 percent described the treatment to patients as “a placebo.” The study is being published in BMJ, formerly The British Medical Journal. One of the authors, Franklin G. Miller, was among the medical ethicists who said they were troubled by the results. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 12168 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Carl Zimmer In Robert Plomin’s line of work, patience is essential. Plomin, a behavioral geneticist at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, wants to understand the nature of intelligence. As part of his research, he has been watching thousands of children grow up. Plomin asks the children questions such as “What do water and milk have in common?” and “In what direction does the sun set?” At first he and his colleagues quizzed the children in person or over the telephone. Today many of those children are in their early teens, and they take their tests on the Internet. In one sense, the research has been a rousing success. The children who take the tests are all twins, and throughout the study identical twins have tended to get scores closer to each other than those of nonidentical twins, who in turn have closer scores than unrelated children. These results—along with similar ones from other studies—make clear to the scientists that genes have an important influence on how children score on intelligence tests. But Plomin wants to know more. He wants to find the specific genes that are doing the influencing. And now he has a tool for pinpointing genes that he could not have even dreamed of when he began quizzing children. Plomin and his colleagues have been scanning the genes of his subjects with a device called a microarray, a small chip that can recognize half a million distinctive snippets of DNA. The combination of this powerful tool with a huge number of children to study meant that he could detect genes that had only a tiny effect on the variation in scores. © 1996-2008 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Intelligence; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 12167 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sandy Fritz Anyone with normal hearing can distinguish between the musical tones in a scale: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. We take this ability for granted, but among most mammals the feat is unparalleled. This finding is one of many insights into the remarkable acuity of human hearing garnered by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, reported in January in the journal Nature. Izhak Fried of U.C.L.A. and his colleagues worked with epileptic patients who had electrodes implanted in their brain to pinpoint the source of their seizures. Some of the probes linked to the auditory cortex, providing the researchers with a detailed window into sound processing. The study revealed that groups of exquisitely sensitive neurons exist along the auditory nerve on its way from the ear to the auditory cortex. In these neurons natural sounds, such as the human voice, elicit a completely different and far more complex set of responses than do artificial noises such as pure tones. In this mixed environ­ment humans can easily detect frequencies as fine as one twelfth of an octave—a half step in musical terminology. © 1996-2008 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Hearing; Language
Link ID: 12166 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Greg Miller By tweaking genes and administering drugs, scientists have devised a way to selectively erase memories in mice. In the distant future, such work might lead to treatments for soldiers plagued by recurring flashbacks of wartime trauma, the researchers say. But in the meantime, the findings offer insight into the molecular mechanisms of memory storage in the brain. Several studies in recent years have raised the possibility that even relatively long-lasting memories can be weakened or eliminated with drugs (Science, 2 April 2004, p. 34). Some researchers hypothesize that memories become vulnerable whenever they are recalled and have identified drugs that erode memories when given during recall (ScienceNOW, 25 October 2004). Others have demonstrated memory-erasing effects by blocking an enzyme called PKM-ζ that appears to be necessary for sustaining memories (Science, 17 August 2007, p. 883). The new study adds a third approach to the mix. Neuroscientist Joe Tsien of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and his colleagues used genetic engineering and a drug to manipulate levels of an enzyme called αCaMKII in mice. They created a strain of mice with an extra copy of the gene for αCaMKII, one of a family of enzymes with important roles in neural signaling. Left alone, these engineered mice produced an overabundance of αCaMKII, but the researchers could eliminate the excess with a specially designed inhibitor drug that could be injected or delivered in the mice's drinking water. © 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 12165 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Matt Kaplan Birds that come from the earlier eggs in a brood are more likely to be better singers, scientists have found. In most bird species, song is used by males to demonstrate their fitness to potential mates, and many studies have shown that the healthiest males tend to sing the longest, loudest and most complex songs. Masayo Soma — who researches biolinguistics at the Riken Brain Science Institute, in Wako, Japan — and her colleagues wanted to find out if the order in which birds hatch affects their song. "I expected to detect age hierarchy in song, because older siblings are stressed less and obtain more resources growing up," says Soma. To test the idea, her team cross-fostered Bengalese finches (Lonchura striata domestica) so that the age hierarchies formed in fostered broods were independent of the order in which the eggs were laid. Nine pairs of finches raised a total of 16 clutches of four chicks. Nine more adult males were also introduced to breeding cages at time of fledging so the young heard more than one bird's song. When the fostered finches had matured, the researchers recorded their songs. As they report in Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology1, their initial hypothesis was wrong: hatching order and nest hierarchy had no noticeable impact on the songs. © 2008 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 12164 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Laura Beil First, let’s clear the air: Nicotine invites addiction, and it employs a delivery device that’s been killing people for centuries. But let’s also be honest: Nicotine has some attractive qualities. Smokers use it to calm jitters or perk themselves up. It’s a common (if ill-advised) tool for weight control. Nicotine lowers the risk and eases the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Patients with mental illness have high rates of tobacco use, partly because nicotine helps quiet the mind. Because of these talents—along with nicotine’s intense grip on the brain—scientists have sought compounds that can deliver the good without the harm. Now, almost 20 years after the quest began, the research has come a long way, baby. A number of experimental drugs—molecules reduced to mere shadows of nicotine—show signs of being able to exploit nicotine’s power to compensate for the defects in an ailing brain. Such drugs may offer new therapies for diseases that now have few treatment options—boosting cognition in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, calming hyperactivity, relieving pain or treating mental illness. Similar drugs are also in early testing for Parkinson’s disease, inflammation and even obesity. “We’re very blessed that nature gave us nicotine,” says Donald deBethizy, chief executive officer of North Carolina–based Targacept Inc., which broke off from tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds in 2000. Few other compounds, deBethizy says, affect the brain at such a basic neurological level, with so much power to control chemicals that ferry signals from one brain cell to another. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2008

Keyword: Alzheimers; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 12163 - Posted: 06.24.2010