ST. PAUL, Minn. - On the slaughterhouse floor at Quality Pork Processors Inc. is an area known as the "head table," but not because it is the place of honor. It is where workers cut up pigs' heads and then shoot compressed air into the skulls until the brains come spilling out. But now the grisly practice has come under suspicion from U.S. health authorities. Over eight months from last December through July, 11 workers at the Austin, Minn., plant — all of them employed at the head table — developed numbness, tingling or other neurological symptoms, and some scientists suspect inhaled airborne brain matter may have somehow triggered the illnesses. The use of compressed air to remove pig brains was suspended at Quality Pork earlier this week while authorities try to get to the bottom of the mystery. "I'm still in shock, I guess," said 37-year-old Susan Kruse, who worked at the plant for 15 years until she got too weak to do her job last February. "But it was very surprising to hear that there was that many other people that have gotten this." Five of the workers — including Kruse, who has been told she may never work again — have been diagnosed with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, or CIDP, a rare immune disorder that attacks the nerves and produces tingling, numbness and weakness in the arms and legs, sometimes causing lasting damage. © 2007 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Glia; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 11062 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have discovered that others' perceptions of a person's scent can make it or break it for them socially. In a new study, they've discovered that if a person dislikes your scent, even though it registers subconsciously, they're more likely to dislike you, and vice-versa. "We evaluate people every day and make judgments about who we like or don't like," Wen Li, a postdoctoral fellow in the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine in Illinois, and lead author of the study, said in a release. "We may think our judgments are based only on various conscious bits of information, but our senses also may provide subliminal perceptual information that affects our behaviour." Li and his colleagues' findings are published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science. Study participants were asked to smell three scents contained in three bottles. Lemon was the "good" scent, sweat was the "bad" scent and an ethereal scent was considered neutral. The scents were administered in different concentrations. The study participants were given the scents to sniff and then shown a picture of a face with a neutral expression. They were asked to rank the face on a scale ranging from extremely likeable to extremely unlikeable. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Emotions
Link ID: 11061 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Charles Q. Choi Like father, like son — sexy fathers can give rise to sexy sons in the insect world. Researchers suggest these findings might also apply to humans. Males often give showy displays to attract females in the animal kingdom—from cricket songs to peacock plumes. Scientists had long assumed that attractive males can father attractive sons, but hard evidence supporting this idea is actually scant. To see if attractiveness can be hereditary, researchers in England focused on the fruit fly Drosophila simulans. Males of the species cannot force sex, meaning any mating that happens is because of male charisma. First, the scientists paired male and female flies at random. They found the length of time it took for them to have sex ranged from two minutes to two hours. The speed at which mating occurred suggests how attractive the males were. After each male mated with roughly three females, their sons were paired with single females, and the amount of time it took them to score was noted. The investigators found that attractive males indeed sired attractive sons. © 2007 LiveScience.com.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Glia
Link ID: 11060 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Elizabeth Quill All brain cells are the same, genetically speaking. Yet somehow they play vastly different roles, some directing movement, others participating in language or thought. Now, a study finds that a chemical known to turn genes on and off may be partially responsible for this division of labor. The results, researchers suggest, could help scientists better understand psychiatric and neurological diseases. It takes more than genes to make people who they are. Identical twins, for example, can look and act differently even though they share the same DNA (ScienceNOW, 5 July 2005). Environmental factors likely contribute to this variation, but it also seems to depend on so-called epigenetic phenomena, activity that regulates genes without changing the DNA code (ScienceNOW, 12 April 2006). In the 1960s, researchers found that the addition of a molecule called a methyl group to cytosine, one of the four building blocks of DNA, could turn off genes. Since then, scientists have found that this process, called methylation, can also turn genes on and that it is linked to cancer (ScienceNOW, 31 January 2000) and short-term memory formation (ScienceNOW, 14 March). Because no studies have surveyed methylation's role in assigning marching orders to brain cells, geneticist Andrew Feinberg and psychiatric neuroscientist James Potash, both of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, decided to investigate. Along with their colleagues, they compared possible methylation sites on 807 genes in 76 samples from human brains. Among the regions studied were the cerebellum, which controls movement, and the cerebral cortex, which controls language and memory. The team found that methylation patterns differed by brain region, indicating that epigenetics helps divide up the brain's functions. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 11059 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius OK, humanity: time to pull up our socks. In a test of rapid number recollection, college students were resoundingly outperformed by a young chimpanzee. At Kyoto University in Japan, students and chimps saw an array of five of the numerals 1 through 9 flash onto a computer screen for just 650 milliseconds. When the numerals simultaneously turned into white squares, the subjects had to touch the squares in numerical order. The students managed to choose the squares in the correct order around 80 percent of the time, as did Ayumu, a young chimp, says Kyoto's Tetsuro Matsuzawa. The researchers then shortened the viewing time to 430 ms and finally to just 210 ms, which isn't even enough time for a person's eye to scan across a screen. For the briefest exposures, the students got the sequence right only 40 percent of the time, but Ayumu still managed nearly 80 percent accuracy. "The memory aspect is really surprising," says Elizabeth Brannon of Duke University in Durham, N.C. Matsuzawa suggests that Ayumu's prowess comes from something akin to photographic memory in humans. The power to retain extreme detail from a quick glimpse shows up occasionally in young children but fades with age. Youth seems to be an advantage for chimps too, Matsuzawa and Sana Inoue say in the Dec. 4 Current Biology. The researchers worked with three pairs of mother-child chimps. Ayumu's mother, Ai, had starred in earlier research papers when she learned to associate sets of objects with the appropriate numerals. ©2007 Science Service

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Evolution
Link ID: 11058 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Nora Schultz Mating fish don't like an audience, it seems. When another male spies on them they change their mind about which female they prefer. The findings may alter the way we think about mate choice driving evolution, researchers say. Male molly fish of the species Poecilia Mexicana normally prefer to mate with large females who produce more eggs. In mate choice experiments, a male will spend 80% of its time near large females and only 20% near smaller ones. But when Martin Plath at the University of Potsdam in Germany and colleagues stuck a glass container holding another male into the tank to let him watch the show, the first molly changed his mind. Under the gaze of the intruder, he began to pay equal attention to both large and small females. Being watched by a green swordtail (Xiphophorus hellerii), on the other hand, did not faze the mollies at all – they only slightly reduced their preference for large females. "We think that the molly does this to avoid sperm competition," Plath told New Scientist. "It's likely that the other male will share the preference for large females, so it makes sense for the molly to not invest all his sperm into one female." © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 11057 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Being a slob puts you at risk of mental health problems, experts have warned. A lack of physical activity leads to depression and dementia, evidence presented at the British Nutrition Foundation conference shows. It comes as new research from the University of Bristol found that being active cuts the risk of Alzheimer's disease by around a third. Currently only 35% of men and 24% of women reach the recommended weekly amount of physical activity. Professor Nanette Mutrie, an expert in exercise and sport psychology at the University of Strathclyde, told the conference that mental health was not a trivial issue. "It's only recently that people have begun to see the link between physical activity and mental health. "It's important for increasing people's self esteem, general mood, coping with stress and even sleeping better. "And we now have very strong evidence that physical activity can prevent depression." She said inactive people had twice the risk of becoming depressed and there was also very good evidence that exercise is a useful treatment for depression. Researchers at the University of Bristol carried out an analysis of 17 trials looking at the effects of physical activity on dementia and Alzheimer's disease. They found that in both men and women physical activity was associated with a 30-40% drop in the risk of Alzheimer's. It is unclear why there is such a great effect but it could be associated with benefits to the vascular system as well as release of chemicals in the brain. (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 11056 - Posted: 12.07.2007

By Brian Alexander Suze has begun conversations with doctors this way: "I want to talk to you about something, but you have to give me your word you will not laugh or give a flippant response because it is a serious situation." In short, Suze has too much of a good thing. For days, sometimes weeks at a time, she feels constantly aroused, but can't get any satisfaction. Despite the preamble, though, "one doctor looked at me and said, 'What a lucky man your husband is! I wish my wife had this,'" says Suze, 63, a retired nurse in Florida. Others have asked, "So, is this like being a nymphomaniac?" Hardly. Suze, who asked that her last name not be published, has what is now called persistent genital arousal disorder, or PGAD. It was first named by sex therapist Sandra Leiblum in 2001 as persistent sexual arousal syndrome, but as Leiblum and others have begun studying patients, she decided that it was more a disorder than a syndrome, a syndrome being a constellation of symptoms that suggest the presence of true disease. In a recent article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, Leiblum and her co-authors identified a series of medical and psychological traits, including depression and panic attacks, that can accompany PGAD. Though some women are helped by psychiatric drugs, Leiblum strenuously resists the idea that the problem is necessarily psychological. “I do think there is always some organic contribution, but we just do not know what it is.” © 2007 MSNBC Interactive

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 11055 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Ewen Callaway Most people tend to learn from their mistakes and avoid making the same blunder twice. Now research reveals a genetic mutation that helps to determine the extent to which certain people are doomed to repeat history. Drug addicts, alcoholics and compulsive gamblers are known to be more likely than other people to have this genetic mutation, which leaves them with fewer receptors of a certain type in the brain. These receptors — called D2 receptors — are activated when levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine drop. Dopamine is responsible for signalling fun and pleasure in the brain. But dopamine also helps us learn. When we make a pleasurable decision, dopamine is a chemical treat, urging the brain to repeat the choice. Being deprived of such a treat should theoretically activate D2 receptors and encourage people not to make that same decision again. So it had been theorized that people with fewer D2 receptors might be less capable of learning from negative reinforcement. To test this, Tilmann Klein and Markus Ullsperger at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, looked at the decision-making of 26 men, while monitoring their brains with a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. Twelve of the volunteers had the gene mutation for low numbers of D2 receptors. The researchers chose men because dopamine levels change during a woman’s menstrual cycle, which would have complicated the study. © 2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 11054 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Charles Q. Choi Humpback whales may sing not to court mates but to help explore the seas around them. When a male humpback moves someplace new, he changes his song to match those coming from other nearby whales. "The traditional explanation for why whales do this is that male whales are singing to seduce female whales, and that females get really turned on by songs that are currently in style," said cognitive neuroscientist Eduardo Mercado III of the State University of New York in Buffalo. "A song that does not follow the most recent trends might be viewed as passé by females, so singers would need to keep current to compete." But instead of learning songs to better attract females, Mercado suggests humpbacks do so to help navigate new locales. In the complex underwater habitats where humpbacks live, figuring out where other whales are, just by listening, can prove quite challenging. Mercado suggests that singers can improve their ability to pinpoint other whales by learning their songs. By comparing incoming sounds that were likely degraded by journeying through the ocean with memories of pristine versions of those sounds, the whales can use any distortion they hear to judge the distance the sound has traveled. © 2007 LiveScience.com.

Keyword: Hearing; Language
Link ID: 11053 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BRENT BOWERS It has long been known that dyslexics are drawn to running their own businesses, where they can get around their weaknesses in reading and writing and play on their strengths. But a new study of entrepreneurs in the United States suggests that dyslexia is much more common among small-business owners than even the experts had thought. The report, compiled by Julie Logan, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Cass Business School in London, found that more than a third of the entrepreneurs she had surveyed — 35 percent — identified themselves as dyslexic. The study also concluded that dyslexics were more likely than nondyslexics to delegate authority, to excel in oral communication and problem solving and were twice as likely to own two or more businesses. “We found that dyslexics who succeed had overcome an awful lot in their lives by developing compensatory skills,” Professor Logan said in an interview. “If you tell your friends and acquaintances that you plan to start a business, you’ll hear over and over, ‘It won’t work. It can’t be done.’ But dyslexics are extraordinarily creative about maneuvering their way around problems.” The study was based on a survey of 139 business owners in a wide range of fields across the United States. Professor Logan called the number who said they were dyslexic “staggering,” and said it was significantly higher than the 20 percent of British entrepreneurs who said they were dyslexic in a poll she conducted in 2001. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 11052 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Neale McDevitt In the star-studded galaxy of academia, there are numerous brilliant teachers, trail-blazing researchers and visionary philanthropists. But there is only one Brenda Milner, a truly inspiring person who, over the course of her 89 years, has pulled off a rare trifecta by being remarkable in all three domains. When Milner was born in Manchester, England in 1918, there was little in her immediate surroundings to suggest she would one day become one of neuroscience's luminaries, the person whom Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel attributed with creating the field of cognitive neuroscience. Milner's father was a music critic and piano teacher who lovingly tended to what she remembers as the family's "large, overgrown garden." Her mother came from a broken home and, as such, had to abandon high school at 14 to join the workforce as a clerk. There's was a household filled with music, the classics and precious little science of any kind. As a young girl, Milner was largely home-schooled by her father, who distrusted formal education as stifling the creative spirit. Instead he taught his young daughter Shakespeare, German and arithmetic. One day, the 6-year-old Milner answered a knock at the door to find a stern-faced school inspector demanding to know why she wasn't in school. © 2007 McGill University

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 11051 - Posted: 06.24.2010

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