Small babies have a higher risk of depression and anxiety in later life, say UK researchers. Delays in developmental milestones, such as walking, are also linked to poorer mental health in adulthood, a study of 4,600 people suggests. The team, writing in Biological Psychiatry, said low birth weight was an indicator of stress in the womb, which can adversely effect the foetus. Low birth weight is associated with a range of long-term health problems. The Medical Research Council funded study used data from a group of people born in Great Britain in 1946 who had been assessed for symptoms of depression and anxiety at 13, 15, 36, 43 and 53 years of age. Heavier babies were less likely to suffer symptoms of anxiety and depression. They also found the lower the birth weight, the greater the likelihood for repeated or long-term problems in adulthood. The researchers could not look at premature birth as a factor as this was not recorded at the time but they did take into account social circumstances and stressful events during childhood. People who had worse mental health throughout their lives were also found to have reached developmental milestones - like standing and walking for the first time - later in life than those who had better mental health. Study leader Dr Ian Colman, who was based at the University of Cambridge when the study was done, said even people who had mild or moderate symptoms of depression or anxiety were smaller babies than those who had better mental health. But he stressed that not all small babies will experience poor mental health in the future. "Being born small isn't necessarily a problem," he said. "It is a problem if you were born small because of adverse conditions in the womb - and low birth weight is what we looked at in this study because it is considered a marker of stress in the womb. (C)BBC

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 11050 - Posted: 12.07.2007

By Nikhil Swaminathan As we age, it becomes harder and harder to recall names, dates—even where we put down our keys. Although we may fear the onset of Alzheimer's, chances are, our recollective powers have dulled simply because we're getting older—and our brains, like our bodies, are no longer in tip-top shape. But what is it that actually causes memory and other cognitive abilities to go soft with senescence? Previous research has shown that bundles of axons (tubular projections sent out by neurons to signal other nerve cells) wither over time. These conduits, collectively referred to as white matter, help connect different regions of the brain to allow for proper information processing. Now, researchers have found that these white matter pathways erode as we age, impairing communication or "cross talk'' between different brain areas. "What we were looking at was the communication or cross talk between different regions of the brain," says study co-author Jessica Andrews-Hanna, a Harvard University graduate student. "The degree to which white matter regions are actually stable predicts the degree to which other regions are able to communicate with each other." © 1996-2007 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Alzheimers
Link ID: 11049 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Brown A whiff of a single type of protein from urine is enough to make a male mouse pick a fight, researchers have found. Pheromone scents that elicit aggressive behaviour have long been predicted, but have proven elusive until now. Male mice will attack other mice they see as a threat, such as males that invade their territory, but will generally welcome females and leave juveniles or castrated males alone. When they do attack it can be quite aggressive. "The resident will chase the intruder, bite, kick and wrestle with him," says Lisa Stowers, a biologist at the Scripps Research Institution in La Jolla, California who along with her colleagues has identified a protein that provokes this aggression. Stowers and her colleagues filtered mouse urine by fractionation to sort the molecules by size. They then tested to see which samples — when dabbed on a castrated male — elicited an aggressive response from resident males. The researchers narrowed the search down to a group of molecules called the major urinary proteins (MUPs), whose role in chemical communication has been only suspected until now. © 2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Aggression
Link ID: 11048 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A variant of a gene involved in communication among brain cells has a direct influence on alcohol consumption in mice, according to a new study by scientists supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Army. Scientists do not know yet whether a similar gene variant, with a similar effect on alcohol consumption, exists in humans. Known as Grm7, the gene encodes a receptor subtype that inhibits the release of glutamate and other neurotransmitter molecules that brain cells use to communicate with one another. Researchers identified a gene variant, or polymorphism, that reduces the abundance of Grm7 messenger RNA (mRNA) in brain tissue. mRNA is the molecular intermediate between a gene and its protein product. Mice that possess this gene variant drink more alcohol than do mice with higher brain levels of Grm7 mRNA. A report of the study appears in the December, 2007 issue of Genomics. "This is a noteworthy contribution, particularly since identifying genes that predispose to alcohol-related behaviors is such an arduous task," says NIAAA Director Ting-Kai Li, M.D. Scientists have long known that genes account for a significant proportion of the risk for alcoholism. However, the fact that there are multiple such genes that interact with each other and with multiple environmental factors to influence drinking behavior has hampered studies aimed at isolating individual genes.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 11047 - Posted: 12.06.2007

The image in the background shows that distant regions of the brain show correlated activity in young adults. The foreground image shows that in advanced aging, coordinated activity among regions of the brain decreases (and is associated with cognitive decline). Brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging, which can precisely map increased blood flow in the brain. Increased blood flow (orange and yellow colors) reflects greater activity in regions of the brain that are utilized during mental tasks. A team of Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers has shown that normal aging disrupts communication between different regions of the brain. The new research, which used advanced medical imaging techniques to look at the brain function of 93 healthy individuals from 18 to 93 years old, shows that this decline happens even in the absence of serious pathologies like Alzheimer's disease. Researchers have known for quite some time that normal aging slowly degrades bundles of axons in the central nervous system that transmit critical signals. “Our study now shows that cognitive decline in aging may be linked to disruption of communication between different regions of the brain,” said Buckner, who is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Harvard University. He is also affiliated with the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. © 2007 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Brain imaging
Link ID: 11046 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Melissa Dahl Cheer up, Utah. That state, with West Virginia and Kentucky close behind, were just named the saddest in the country in a new report by Mental Health America. The study ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on rates of depression and suicide. Researchers found that states with easier access to mental health resources had lower suicide rates. "Basically, the story that emerged is that access to care makes a difference," says David Shern, the president and CEO of Mental Health America, a nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Va., that works to raise awareness about mental illnesses. By expanding mental health care resources, he says, states can improve their population's depression levels. Rounding out the top 10 saddest states were Rhode Island, Nevada, Oklahoma, Idaho, Missouri, Ohio and Wyoming. On the bright side, South Dakota is home to some of America’s happiest people, followed by Hawaii, New Jersey, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Louisiana, Illinois, North Dakota and Texas. What is it about living in Utah that’s so depressing — and what’s so great about South Dakota? The states found to have the highest suicide rates had fewer resources for mental health care, and barriers such as cost made it harder for people in those states to access what resources were available. Happier states such as South Dakota had more psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers per capita. In the least depressed states, more people had health insurance and received mental health care treatment. © 2007 MSNBC Interactive

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 11045 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nikhil Swaminathan Alterations in the genetic coding for a nerve cell receptor, which detects a chemical signal that is key to behavioral change, could point the way to designing therapies most effective for patients suffering from schizophrenia, drug addiction and other mental illnesses. "I don't know if what we just published is a viable biomarker," says Wolfgang Sadee, chair of the Department of Pharmacology at The Ohio State University (O.S.U.) College of Medicine and the co-author of a report on the finding published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. "But, I think there's a good chance that this is a biomarker that we will at least test and we will know soon if there is something worthwhile." A team of scientists from O.S.U. examined 68 samples of postmortem tissue from the brains of people without a history of mental illness in search of the profile of messenger RNA (mRNA) transcribed from a particular gene. (mRNA is the intermediate blueprint between gene and protein.) Researchers were specifically hunting for the mRNA created from the two alleles (copies) of the gene DRD2, which codes for a receptor protein for the neurotransmitter dopamine. D2 dopamine receptor malfunction has been linked to drug addiction, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. The team focused its search on the striatum (a midbrain region implicated in planning and movement) and the prefrontal cortex, the brain's central processing area. © 1996-2007 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 11044 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Elizabeth Quill Like babbling babies, songbirds learn to vocalize by mimicking their elders. Now, researchers have found that a gene responsible for clear pronunciation in humans is also critical for proper song development in zebra finches. The study, reported 4 December in PLoS Biology, suggests that bird brains can help scientists understand speech and speech disorders in humans. Dubbed the "speech gene," FOXP2 was first identified in 2001 when scientists found a mutated version in a family with severe speech problems. The gene is believed to code for a protein that influences coordination between mouth movements and speech (ScienceNOW, 3 October 2001). Since its discovery, researchers have found that the gene plays a role in the development of language (ScienceNOW, 14 August 2002), that mice need the gene to emit characteristic ultrasonic sounds (ScienceNOW, 21 June 2005), and that it plays a role in bat echolocation (ScienceNOW, 19 September). After researchers discovered in 2004 that FOXP2 is expressed in the same areas of the brain in humans and zebra finches, a song-learning bird, neurobiologist Constance Scharff of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin began to investigate whether such birds could help scientists understand how humans learn language. Scharff and her colleagues used RNA interference (RNAi), a procedure that inhibits gene expression, to reduce the levels of FOXP2 in zebra finches. When the birds were 23 days old, the age at which song learning is known to begin, the researchers injected the gene-silencing RNA strands into seven male zebra finches' brains, using 10 finches as controls. The birds were kept in sound isolation chambers with adult males, who acted as tutors just as they would in the wild. Over a period of 60 days, the team recorded the songs of the RNAi-treated birds and their control counterparts and analyzed them to see how well they replicated their tutors' songs. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Language; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 11043 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers at Georgia State University's Language Research Center already knew their chimpanzees are pretty smart. They have good memories, can use symbolic language to communicate, and even do simple arithmetic. But it turns out that the apes can also plan for the future and devise ways to control their impulses. Michael Beran and Ted Evans were interested in how people exert impulse control. "How we deal with situations in which we might be tempted by certain kinds of things but we need to avoid those things if we can in order to benefit in the long run," explains Beran. "So, situations that are similar to people on a diet or who are trying to stop smoking." "One thing we tend to say as humans is that when we fail in these things, we say, 'Oh, we're just giving in to our animal impulses.' And so the question is, are animals always impulsive, or can they show self-control? Can they delay their own gratification?" They can, even better than young human children, the researchers say. They gave the chimps candies one at a time, and the longer the animals waited to eat them, the more candies they earned. "We taught the chimpanzees that the longer that they waited to eat the candies, the more candies they would get," Evans explains. The researchers found that when these apes had playthings like toothbrushes or magazines handy, they used them as distractions to help them delay eating the treats so they could get more. © ScienCentral, 2000-2007.

Keyword: Attention; Emotions
Link ID: 11042 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas, -- Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals and, if so, did the mating result in a half-human, half-Neanderthal hybrid ? The answer is possibly yes to the interbreeding but no to the hybrid, according to the authors of a new study that is already making waves among leading anthropologists. At the center of the study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, and the current debate, is a 29,000-year-old Romanian skull that is one of the oldest fossils in Europe with modern human features. But those features aren't quite a perfect match with us, which has led some experts to suspect it was a cross between a Neanderthal and a modern human. That's not so, according to Katerina Harvati, and her colleagues Philipp Gunz and Dan Grigorescu. "It differs from living people only in subtle ways, and always well within the range of modern human variation," Harvati, who led the recent study, told Discovery News. "It has, for instance, slightly heavier eyebrows than the average person, and is generally somewhat more robust than average," she added, explaining that modern humans have gradually evolved to become more slight and slender than Upper Paleolithic people were. © 2007 Discovery Communications

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 11041 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Phil McKenna Close family ties are important in elephant societies (Image: Lucy Bates)Elephants really do have good memories – at least when it comes to keeping tabs on where their own relatives are, suggests a new study. African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Kenya's Amboseli National Park are able to recognise up to 17 female family members based on cues they pick up from sniffing their urine. Individuals then use the information to keep track of the location of others relative to themselves as they travel over large distances. "The cliché – that elephants have great memories – seems to be true," says Lucy Bates at the University of St Andrews, UK, who led the study. "By the nature of the society they live in, where they have these close-knit family groups surrounded by so many other non family members, it is very important to recognise individuals and to respond to them appropriately," she says. Collecting urine and surrounding soil from female elephants with a hand trowel, Bates and colleagues placed fresh urine samples before individuals from 36 family groups and judged their responses. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 11040 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By TARA PARKER-POPE Heather Kuzmich has the neurological disorder known as Asperger’s syndrome. She is socially awkward, has trouble making eye contact and is sometimes the target of her roommates’ jokes. But what makes the 21-year-old Ms. Kuzmich different from others with Asperger’s is that for the past 11 weeks, her struggle to cope with her disability has played out on national television. She is one of 13 young women selected by the supermodel Tyra Banks to compete on the popular reality television show “America’s Next Top Model.” The addition of Heather Kuzmich to an otherwise superficial show has given millions of viewers an unusual and compelling glimpse into the little-understood world of Asperger’s. The disorder, considered a form of autism, is characterized by unusual social interaction and communication skills. Aspies, as people with the condition like to call themselves, often have normal or above-average intelligence, but they have trouble making friends and lack the intuitive ability to gauge social situations. They fail to make eye contact and often exhibit a single-minded fixation that can be both bizarre and brilliant. By definition, people with Asperger’s are outside the mainstream. Even so, in recent months the syndrome has been cast into the limelight. “Look Me in the Eye,” a memoir about living with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison, who once created special effects for the rock band Kiss, has been a best-seller. In August, the Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Tim Page wrote a poignant article for The New Yorker about life with undiagnosed Asperger’s. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 11039 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Babies who go on to develop anorexia may be programmed in the womb by their mother's hormones, evidence suggests. Women are usually much more likely than men to have the eating disorder, but a University of Sussex study found men with a female twin were more at risk. This suggests the hormones released to aid female development may be key. Commenting on the Archives of General Psychiatry study, a UK expert said other factors in childhood and adolescence remained important. It is estimated that up to 90,000 people will be receiving treatment for eating disorders in the UK at any one time, with many other cases going undiagnosed. No-one is sure why women are more prone than men. Some experts suggest that the pressures of modern society are partly to blame while others look at brain changes much earlier in life. Research into twins is a way to examine the factors involved, as the single most important period for brain development is during the months of pregnancy. Dr Marco Procopio, from the University of Sussex, worked with Dr Paul Marriott from the University of Waterloo in Canada to look at information drawn from thousands of Swedish twins born between 1935 and 1958. Overall, as expected, female twins were more likely to develop anorexia than male twins. The only exception was among mixed-sex twins, where the male was as likely to develop anorexia as the female. The researchers wrote that the most likely reason was because of sex steroid hormones released into the womb during pregnancy. (C)BBC

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 11038 - Posted: 12.04.2007

By Alicia Ault You walk into the room, but you can't remember why. You've forgotten where you left your keys. Lapses like that seem to be happening more often. The beginnings of Alzheimer's disease? Maybe, maybe not. What's the best way to find out? Most experts say you should raise concerns with your physician. But an Alzheimer's organization and an ad hoc panel that met last month say that anyone older than 65 -- and anyone who has a family history of the disease -- should request and receive memory tests on a regular basis. The Alzheimer's Foundation of America, a nonprofit advocacy group, endorses memory tests for all older Americans. And the Alzheimer's Disease Screening Discussion Group -- sponsored by Pfizer and Esai, the makers of the Alzheimer's drug Aricept -- recently urged screening for all those 65 or older or residing in an assisted-living or long-term-care facility. But some experts worry that mass screening could do more harm than good by giving false reassurances to some and causing others needless worry. One in seven Americans over age 71, about 3.4 million, have dementia. The majority, 2.4 million, have Alzheimer's disease, according to a recently published study funded by the National Institute on Aging. © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Alzheimers; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 11037 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Constance Holden People with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) hate the way they look. Even though they are as normal in appearance as anyone else, they are obsessed with features such as their skin, their noses, and their hair, which--to them--never look right. Now, the first brain-imaging study of BDD patients shows that the condition is not an emotional problem. Rather, their brains are presenting them with skewed images of themselves. Psychiatrist James Feusner and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, asked BDD subjects and controls to scrutinize images of faces while their brains were being scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Each face was presented in three versions: One was an unaltered photograph; one included only low-spatial-frequency information, resulting in a blurred image that yielded just a general impression of the face; and the third contained only high-frequency information, which exaggerated the lines of the face (see picture). Previous research has shown that different neural pathways process high- and low-frequency information. When the image is blurry, the normal brain analyzes the face as a whole, whereas with high-frequency data, it zeroes in on details. The scientists found that the control subjects used a more holistic, right-brain strategy for the unaltered face and the low-frequency one. They only moved to the high-detail strategy for the high-detail face. In the BDD group, however, subjects failed to look at the figure as a whole, instead using left-brain channels that dwell on details for all three faces. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia; Laterality
Link ID: 11036 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Diagnosing psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression is a difficult business – as many as 70% of people who experience a psychosis for the first time are misdiagnosed. So the need for an accurate and objective way of spotting these illnesses is much needed. John Pettrigrew, professor of physiology at the University of Queensland in Australia, has found a way that this might be done. His idea is based on a phenomenon that occurs when a viewer is presented with a different visual stimulus for each eye. When this happens, the brain switches from perceiving one image to the other, but patients suffering from conditions such as schizophrenia switch much more rapidly. Pettigrew has tested this idea for a specific type of image in which two slatted forms or "gratings" are superimposed to form a diamond-shaped pattern. When the gratings move, the viewer sees either the diamond patterns move, or the gratings move relative to each other. The rate at which the viewer's perception switches from one form of motion to the other can then be used to diagnose mood disorders, or even a predisposition to such a disorder. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 11035 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Ewen Callaway Remember this: even if the numbers flash up for only an instant, this chimp can remember where they were.Courtesy of the researchersA particularly cunning seven-year-old chimp named Ayumu has bested university students at a game of memory. He and two other young chimps recalled the placement of numbers flashed onto a computer screen faster and more accurately than humans. “It’s a very simple fact: chimpanzees are better than us — at this task,” says Tetsuro Matsuzawa, a primatologist at Kyoto University in Japan who led the study. The work doesn't mean that chimps are 'smarter' than humans, but rather they seem to be better at memorizing a snapshot view of their surroundings — whether that be numbers on a screen or ripe figs dangling from a tree. Humans may have lost this capacity in exchange for gaining the brainpower to understand language and complex symbols, says Matsuzawa. Two decades have passed since Matsuzawa’s team first taught a female chimp, Ai, to recognize and order Arabic numerals1. Later, he and Nobuyuki Kawai trained her to memorize the location of numbers as they flashed onto a computer screen. The numbers would be quickly covered with white squares, and Ai could then touch those squares in order of the numbers concealed beneath them2. After much training, chimps can be remarkably good at this task (see video, in real time). © 2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 11034 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The natural "high" produced by exercise could one day be available in a pill that targets a gene in our brains. The Yale University experts say that experiments on mice could show why regular exercise can help people suffering from depression. Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, they say it could lead to more effective drugs. Mental Health charities in the UK already back exercise programmes as a way of lifting depression. While the link between exercise and improved mood is well known, the reasons behind it are not fully understood. The latest research focuses on an area of the brain called the hippocampus, which is already established as a target for antidepressant drugs. The team developed a test to see which genes in this region were made more active during exercise, and highlighted one called VGF. This gene is linked to a "growth factor" chemical involved in the development of nerve cells. This fitted with their theory that, for depression to lift, changes in the actual structure and links between brain cells are needed, not just changes in the chemicals surrounding the cells. The next step was to make a version of that chemical, and to test it on mice, where it showed an effect on their behaviour that roughly equated to antidepressant effects in humans. The researchers believe that a drug based on VGF could offer "possibly even superior efficacy" to current antidepressants. (C)BBC

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 11033 - Posted: 12.03.2007

Sophisticated scans have revealed the eating disorder anorexia is linked to specific patterns of brain activity. Even young women recovering from anorexia who have maintained a healthy weight for over a year had vastly different brain activity patterns. The findings in the American Journal of Psychiatry point to a brain region linked to anxiety and perfectionism. The University of Pittsburgh authors said the understanding might help with the development of new treatments. The work could also explain why people with anorexia nervosa are able to deny themselves food. It is estimated that one in 100 women between the ages of 15 and 30 has anorexia. The main symptom is the relentless pursuit of thinness through self-starvation. This may become so extreme that it is life-threatening. Dr Walter Kaye and his team studied 13 women who were recovering from anorexia and 13 healthy women. The women were asked to play a computer quiz where correct guesses were rewarded financially. At the same time, the researchers observed what was going on inside the mind using a type of brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging. During the game, brain regions lit up in different ways for the two groups of women. While the brain region for emotional responses - the anterior ventral striatum - showed strong differences for winning and losing the game in the healthy women, women with a past history of anorexia showed little difference between winning and losing. Dr Kaye said that, in anorexia, this might impact on food enjoyment.

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 11032 - Posted: 12.03.2007

NEW YORK - The teenage brain, Laurence Steinberg says, is like a car with a good accelerator but a weak brake. With powerful impulses under poor control, the likely result is a crash. And, perhaps, a crime. Steinberg, a Temple University psychology professor, helped draft an American Psychological Association brief for a 2005 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18. That ruling relies on the most recent research on the adolescent brain, which indicates the juvenile brain is still maturing in the teen years and reasoning and judgment are developing well into the early to mid 20s. It is often cited as state lawmakers consider scaling back punitive juvenile justice laws passed during the 1990s. “As any parent knows,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the 5-4 majority, youths are more likely to show “a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility” than adults. “... These qualities often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions.” He also noted that “juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure,” causing them to have less control over their environment. © 2007 Microsoft

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Emotions
Link ID: 11031 - Posted: 06.24.2010