By Denise Winterman Modern life is too demanding to turn out the lights and we're more sleep deprived than ever before. How can we get back in the habit of grabbing shut-eye? Ask someone how they are and their response, more often than not, is "fine but a bit tired". Not surprising when one in three of us have sleep problems, according to recent research. The medical profession calls it tatt, short for "tired all the time". It's one of the most common complaints that doctors hear. The disappearance of rest from daily life is also one of the themes of a major new exhibition on sleep at the Wellcome Collection in London. We just aren't getting enough sleep and it's slipping down people's list of priorities. It seems modern life is just too demanding - and exciting - to switch off. As a result sleep deprivation is becoming a national problem, say experts. Sleep is so important because it allows the brain to recover from the rigours of the day. Not getting enough has been found to increase the risk of obesity, heart disease and depression. The government is keen to tackle these health issues, efforts doomed to failure unless getting enough sleep is made a priority as well. (C)BBC

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 11022 - Posted: 11.29.2007

By GINA KOLATA Obesity rates in women have leveled off and stayed steady since 1999, long enough for researchers to say the plateau appears to be real. And, they say, there are hints that the rates may be leveling off for men, too. The researchers’ report, published online at cdc.gov/nchs, used data from its periodic national surveys that record heights and weights of a representative sample of Americans. Those surveys, said Cynthia L. Ogden, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics and the lead author of the new report, are the only national ones that provide such data. Dr. Ogden added that the trend for women was “great news.” Obesity rates have held at about 35 percent since 1999, convincing her that the tide had changed. “I’m optimistic that it really is leveling off,” she said. Men’s rates increased until 2003, when they hit 33 percent and stayed there through 2005-6. Dr. Ogden said she would like to see a few more years of data before declaring that men’s rates had stopped increasing. Obesity is defined as a body mass index, a measure of weight for height, of 30 or greater. For example, someone 5 feet 6 inches tall would be obese at 186 pounds. The goal at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is for the obesity rate to be no more than 15 percent by 2010. The last time that rate was seen was 1980. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 11021 - Posted: 06.24.2010

High blood pressure coupled with Alzheimer's may make patients more vulnerable to the effects of the neurological disease, finds a new study. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh discovered that high blood pressure reduces the flow of blood to the brain. "While hypertension is not a cause of Alzheimer's disease, our study shows that it is another hit on the brain that increases its vulnerability to the effects of the disease," said study co-author Cyrus Raji, a scientist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, in a release. High blood pressure, in which blood circulates through the body too forcefully, leads to an elevated risk for heart attack, stroke and aneurysm, say researchers. The findings were presented Tuesday in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. "These results suggest that by changing blood flow to the brain, hypertension — treated or untreated — may contribute to the pathology of Alzheimer's," Raji said. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 11020 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Millions of Americans, especially children, are needlessly getting dangerous radiation from “super X-rays” that raise the risk of cancer and are increasingly used to diagnose medical problems, a new report warns. In a few decades, as many as 2 percent of all cancers in the United States might be due to radiation from CT scans given now, according to the authors of the report. Some experts say that estimate is overly alarming. But they agree with the need to curb these tests particularly in children, who are more susceptible to radiation and more likely to develop cancer from it. “There are some serious concerns about the methodology used,” but the authors “have brought to attention some real serious potential public health issues,” said Dr. Arl Van Moore, head of the American College of Radiology’s board of chancellors. Because doctors underestimate the radiation risk from computed tomography or CT scans, a type of souped-up X-ray, they may be ordering too many of the scans, David Brenner and Eric Hall of Columbia University Medical Center in New York said. © 2007 MSNBC Interactive

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 11019 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scans have shown that paedophilia may be the result of faulty connections in the brain. Researchers used sophisticated MRI scans to compare the brains of paedophiles and non-sexual criminals. Paedophiles had significantly less of a substance called "white matter", responsible for wiring the different parts of the brain together. The study, by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, appears in the Journal of Psychiatry Research. The study follows work by Yale University which uncovered differences in the thought patterns of paedophiles. They team found activity in parts of paedophiles' brains were lower than in other volunteers when shown adult, erotic material. It had been widely thought that paedophilia was triggered by childhood trauma or abuse. However, the condition has also been linked to low IQ, suggesting a possible link to brain development. Paedophiles are also three times more likely to be left-handed. Lead researcher Dr James Cantor said the latest study found a signficant lack of white matter connecting six different areas of the brain all known to play a role in sexual arousal. His theory is that the lack of adequate wiring between the different centres results in paedophiles not being able to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate sexual objects. However, Dr Cantor stressed the latest study did not suggest that paedophiles could not be held criminally responsible for their actions. He said: "Not being able to choose your sexual interests doesn't mean you can't choose what you do." (C)BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Brain imaging
Link ID: 11018 - Posted: 11.29.2007

WASHINGTON - The most widely used flu drug in the world should carry a stronger warning label about psychiatric problems seen in a handful of patients, government advisers said Tuesday. A panel of experts to the Food and Drug Administration recommended drug maker Roche change the warning label for Tamiflu, which has been used by 48 million patients since its launch in 1999. The drug’s label already mentions reports of delirium and self-injury, primarily among children in Japan, but some FDA’s experts suggested the language should mention several patients died as a result of these abnormal behaviors. The panel was discussing specifics of the language late Tuesday. While FDA’s advisers agreed stronger warnings were needed, they said that it is unclear whether the psychiatric problems are a side effect of the drug or the flu itself. Some panelists said labeling should point out that similar deaths have also occurred in flu patients not on medication. Nearly 600 cases of psychiatric problems have been reported in Tamiflu patients, with 75 percent of them coming from Japan. Five children there have died after “falling from windows or balconies or running into traffic,” according to FDA. Japan accounts for two thirds of the $2.4 billion global market for Tamiflu because doctors there almost always prescribe drugs to treat flu symptoms. © 2007 Microsoft

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 11017 - Posted: 06.24.2010

What goes through the mind of a gun-toting teenager when he pulls the trigger? Does he make a conscious decision to kill? Or is he acting on instinct? The debate over why teens turn violent usually focuses on family breakdown, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, unemployment, even diet. However, in recent years science has started to shed a fascinating light on the underlying causes of youth crime by asking whether violence is a symptom of a sick or underdeveloped brain. This question is at the heart of a new project launched by Camila Batmanghelidjh, the founder of Kids Company. She takes an imaginative approach to improving the lives of neglected and abused children. Her organisation, which works in 33 schools across London and is one of The Daily Telegraph's chosen charities for this year's Christmas appeal, started a pilot scheme this month to examine the brains and behaviour of young offenders, in order to help understand how they think. "Neglected and traumatised children do not appraise a situation objectively," Camila says. "They don't come to the point of a moral decision with a neutral frame of mind." © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007

Keyword: Aggression; ADHD
Link ID: 11016 - Posted: 06.24.2010

-- Amputees given prosthetic limbs could soon "feel" with their new hands or feet, after a team of scientists successfully rerouted two patients' key nerves. Scientists at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University announced late Monday they had rerouted through their chests the nerves of two patients that had transferred sensation from the hand to the brain. After several months during which the nerves re-established themselves in the chest muscles, physical pressure, heat and cold, and electrical stimulus were applied to the areas of the nerves and the patients said they could feel the effect. In some of the testing, the patients could even specify which area on the hand they could feel; one, a woman identified as STH, at one point pinpointed a strong feeling of the skin stretching and the joint position of her ring finger being extended. Moreover, the patients consistently distinguished between the sensation of the chest nerves and those of the missing limbs. The scientists suggest their success in reviving such specific sensation identified with missing limbs could lead to establishing nervous system feedback in prosthetic devices like artificial hands, arms, feet and legs. © 2007 Discovery Communications

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Robotics
Link ID: 11015 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR A new study has found a link between asthma and post-traumatic stress disorder, though the reasons remain unknown. The stress disorder, P.T.S.D. for short, is common among combat veterans and others who have endured severe trauma, like 9/11 rescue workers. Previous studies have demonstrated a connection between asthma and psychiatric illnesses, but no one knows whether one disorder increases the risk for the other or whether they share a common risk factor, either environmental or genetic. Researchers used data on 3,065 male twin pairs who had lived together as children and had active duty in the Vietnam War. They adjusted the findings to eliminate the influence of depression, smoking, age, body mass index, exposure to combat and other variables. One-fourth of men with the most severe symptoms of the stress disorder were more than twice as likely to suffer from asthma as the quarter with the fewest P.T.S.D. symptoms. The association cannot be fully explained by familial or genetic factors; identical twins, who have exactly the same genes, were no more likely to suffer from both illnesses than fraternal twins, who share only half their genes. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 11014 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By MICHAEL BALTER Twelve brains were arranged on the work bench of Ralph Holloway’s anthropology laboratory at Columbia University. They were not real brains, but endocasts — latex molds made from the interiors of the skulls that once housed them. Nevertheless, many of their ridges and furrows were clearly visible. Ralph Holloway pioneered the endocast technique, in which latex brain molds are made from the interiors of the skulls that housed them. Dr. Holloway showed one of them to a visitor. “This is Homo floresiensis,” he said, a k a the “Hobbit,” a tiny hominid that lived 18,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores. The other 11 were those of modern humans who had microcephaly, a pathological condition characterized by a small brain and head. While many anthropologists are convinced the Hobbit represents a new species of human, some argue vociferously that it is a microcephalic Homo sapiens with nothing new to say about evolution. Dr. Holloway said he was still “on the fence” about the controversy. “Homo floresiensis does not show any of the classic signs of microcephaly,” he said. “On the other hand, its brain does show a highly unusual degree of platycephaly,” a marked flattening of the brain. This could indicate that the Hobbit was suffering from some other sort of pathology. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 11013 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Dennis Drabelle My friend Rachel and I are pumped because we get to see Ang Lee's new movie free of charge. There's a hitch, though: Instead of passes, we have to bring medallions to the theater, and we can't just hand these over at the door. We must wear them on our noses, embedded in our flesh. A free flick is nothing to sniff at, so we fasten the medallions on. (They come with handy little points.) Miraculously, they don't cause pain, though mine keeps threatening to fall off. I can't say how good the movie was -- we never got that far. As you may have guessed, the above was a dream. On awakening, I recalled having read a squib about Ang Lee and his ultra-sexy new film, "Lust, Caution," the day before, but that pretty much exhausted the real-world triggers for my scenario. Though the dream was trifling, I liked it for its silliness and simplicity. And as dreamers are wont to do, I wondered if it might have a meaning, if it revealed something unknown to my waking mind about what makes me tick. To see what could be made of it, I consulted the psychological literature and got in touch with experts in the field. In doing so, I discovered that I've had the wrong idea about dreams, which turn out to be not so much puzzles to be solved as mirrors to be gazed at. Freud called dreaming "the royal road to the unconscious," and Freudian theory would say that my nose-medallion dream stemmed from some repressed wish, probably left over from childhood and tucked away in my unconscious, where my alert self didn't have to confront it. For all I know, having to wear the medallion could be a reprimand for wanting to ogle the naked bodies of Lee's actors. I might object that I'm too old for piercing and that built-in jewelry would clash with my self-image, but could the unconscious me harbor a longstanding perforation wish just the same? © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 11012 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By HENRY FOUNTAIN It’s a jungle out there — and a desert, an ocean and a savanna, too. So it helps to know your enemies. While many animals can tell friend from foe, relatively few have been shown to be able to distinguish among predator species based on the type of threat they represent. A potentially even more useful ability would be to be able to tell which of several groups of a single predator species are the ones to worry about. African elephants, it turns out, have this ability. Lucy A. Bates and Richard W. Byrne of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and colleagues have demonstrated that using odor and visual cues elephants are able to classify subgroups within a predator species. The species in question? Homo sapiens. In a report in Current Biology, the researchers describe their experiments in Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Elephants in the region encounter different ethnic groups, including the Maasai, whose young men spear elephants, and the Kamba, agricultural villagers who pose no threat at all. The researchers observed elephants exposed to the scent from identical cloth garments, some worn by Maasai men, others by Kamba men and some that were unworn. The Maasai scent produced the strongest reactions, with elephants moving farther and faster to distance themselves from the odor source, often not stopping until reaching tall grass. The elephants also took far longer to calm down than those exposed to scents from the Kamba and unworn cloths. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 11011 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Shankar Vedantam Over the past several decades, a steady stream of studies has documented that people born in winter and spring have an increased risk for schizophrenia, a serious mental illness characterized by disordered thinking, hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms. Explanations for the increased risk have ranged from the astrological -- different signs of the zodiac have been associated with various mental problems -- to accounts that suggested the risk came from seasonal variations in sunlight. In recent months and years, scientists have developed a different explanation: Studies show the increased risk of schizophrenia appears linked to maternal infections during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy -- especially flu infections. Since the flu peaks in the fall, this might explain why babies born in the winter and spring have the higher risk. The research is both intriguing and troubling. For one thing, it suggests that the origins of diseases such as schizophrenia might start as early as the womb. Indeed, symptoms of schizophrenia, which typically emerge in late adolescence or early adulthood and affects about 1 percent of the population, may only be the very last stage in a long process. © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 11010 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Premenopausal women with even mild depression have less bone mass than do their nondepressed peers, a study funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), shows. The level of bone loss is at least as high as that associated with recognized risk factors for osteoporosis, including smoking, low calcium intake, and lack of physical activity. Hip bones, the site of frequent fractures among older people, were among those showing the most thinning in depressed premenopausal women. The reduced bone mass puts them at higher risk of these costly, sometimes fatal fractures and others as they age, the researchers note in the November 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. The report was submitted by Giovanni Cizza, MD, PhD, MHSc, of NIMH and the NIH National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK); Farideh Eskandari, MD, MHSc, of NIMH; and colleagues. "Osteoporosis is a silent disease. Too often, the first symptom a clinician sees is when a patient shows up with a broken bone. Now we know that depression can serve as a red flag — that depressed women are more likely than other women to approach menopause already at higher risk of fractures," said NIMH Deputy Director Richard Nakamura, PhD. After bone mass reaches its peak in youth, bone-thinning continues throughout life, accelerating after menopause. Preliminary studies had suggested that depression may be a risk factor for lower-than-average bone mass even in young, premenopausal women. Results of the current study lend considerable weight to those earlier findings. The study’s design reduced the possibility that the lower bone mass was linked to factors other than depression.

Keyword: Depression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 11009 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Daniel Engber Here's a pretty safe bet: At some point this week, somewhere in the world—a darkened auditorium, a classroom, or an academic conference—a biologist will quote Marcel Proust. My career as a grad student in neuroscience was filled with these obligatory madeleine moments: It seemed like every talk, lecture, presentation, or paper on the biology of memory began with a dip into Swann's Way. An extended passage from the book appears in the brain researcher's standard reference manual, Principles of Neural Science, and Proustian inscriptions routinely make their way into peer-reviewed science journals (PDF) and book chapters. Even the most sublunary findings—a study of cultured mouse cells or the neuromuscular junction of a fly—might earn the literary flourish of a line or two, projected above an audience on a PowerPoint slide: "I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. … " How surprising, then, to discover that biologists have forgotten all about Proust. That's the leaky premise of science journalist Jonah Lehrer's new book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist. "As scientists dissect our remembrances into a list of molecules and brain regions," he writes, "they fail to realize they are channeling a reclusive French novelist." If only they knew! And it's not just Proust whose work is being "channeled." According to Lehrer, the lab-coated philistines have spent 100 years rehashing the discoveries of modernist literature, painting, and music. "We now know that Proust was right about memory, Cezanne was uncannily accurate about the visual cortex, Stein anticipated Chomsky, and Woolf pierced the mystery of consciousness; modern neuroscience has confirmed these artistic intuitions." (C)2007 Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 11008 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Lisa Katayama SAN FRANCISCO -- I feel like the hoodlum Alex in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange: My head is held steady by a chin strap, while two technicians grease my scalp with conductive gel and slip on a cap bristling with electrodes. I'm about to have my brain scrambled -- electrically -- in the name of medical science. Scientists are going to knock out regions of my brain while I perform a memory test. "We're ready to do some zapping!" one of the technicians says excitedly. I'm a guinea pig in a brain-scan experiment conceived by neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley, who is testing how memory changes with age. The "zapping" induces seizures in some subjects and cures depression in others. I don't know what it will do to me, but I'm about to find out. Brain experiments are a dime a dozen these days. But Gazzaley's experiment is the first to combine three brain-scan technologies in one study: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which will knock out some of my memory circuits. "Gazzaley's research is cutting edge," says Suzanne Corkin, an MIT neuroscientist. "Most cognitive neuroscience labs do not have the equipment and technical knowledge to apply all three methods." © 2007 CondéNet, Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Brain imaging
Link ID: 11007 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Brain scans may be able to reveal which people are at genetic risk of developing obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), researchers say. Individuals with OCD and their close relatives have distinctive patterns in their brain structure, a team at Cambridge University found. The genes responsible remain unknown, but it appears they change the brain's anatomy, which may aid diagnosis. The study is published in the latest edition of the journal Brain. OCD is an anxiety disorder in which the person is compelled by irrational fears and thoughts to repeat seemingly needless actions over and over again. It can manifest itself in repetitive behaviours, such as excessive hand washing, cleaning or repeated checking, affects 2%-3% of the population and is known to run in families. Using magnetic resonance imaging, the Cambridge researchers scanned the brains of nearly 100 people, including some with OCD and some who were close relatives of individuals with OCD. Participants also completed a computerised test that involved pressing a left or right button as quickly as possible when arrows appeared. When a beep noise sounded, volunteers had to attempt to stop their responses. The aim was to objectively measure ability to stop repetitive behaviours. Both OCD patients and their close relatives fared worse on the computer task than the control group. This was associated with decreases of grey matter in brain regions important in suppressing responses and habits - the orbitofrontal and right inferior frontal regions. Researcher Lara Menzies said: "Impaired brain function in the areas of the brain associated with stopping motor responses may contribute to the compulsive and repetitive behaviours that are characteristic of OCD. (C)BBC

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Brain imaging
Link ID: 11006 - Posted: 11.26.2007

By DANIEL CARLAT On a blustery fall New England day in 2001, a friendly representative from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals came into my office in Newburyport, Mass., and made me an offer I found hard to refuse. He asked me if I’d like to give talks to other doctors about using Effexor XR for treating depression. He told me that I would go around to doctors’ offices during lunchtime and talk about some of the features of Effexor. It would be pretty easy. Wyeth would provide a set of slides and even pay for me to attend a speaker’s training session, and he quickly floated some numbers. I would be paid $500 for one-hour “Lunch and Learn” talks at local doctors’ offices, or $750 if I had to drive an hour. I would be flown to New York for a “faculty-development program,” where I would be pampered in a Midtown hotel for two nights and would be paid an additional “honorarium.” I thought about his proposition. I had a busy private practice in psychiatry, specializing in psychopharmacology. I was quite familiar with Effexor, since I had read recent studies showing that it might be slightly more effective than S.S.R.I.’s, the most commonly prescribed antidepressants: the Prozacs, Paxils and Zolofts of the world. S.S.R.I. stands for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, referring to the fact that these drugs increase levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, a chemical in the brain involved in regulating moods. Effexor, on the other hand, was being marketed as a dual reuptake inhibitor, meaning that it increases both serotonin and norepinephrine, another neurotransmitter. The theory promoted by Wyeth was that two neurotransmitters are better than one, and that Effexor was more powerful and effective than S.S.R.I.’s. I had already prescribed Effexor to several patients, and it seemed to work as well as the S.S.R.I.’s. If I gave talks to primary-care doctors about Effexor, I reasoned, I would be doing nothing unethical. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 11005 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By MARLISE SIMONS WAGENINGEN, the Netherlands — At first sight, nothing betrays the strange happenings at the Restaurant of the Future, a spacious, bright university canteen where scientists and students stop in for food and lunchtime chatter. The chef, Jan Kiewied, is stir-frying peppers at a glowing stove, his staff is scrubbing pots, and clients are scooping up salads and lentil soup. Yet everyone and everything is being recorded by hidden sensors and cameras. Carry that soup to the cash register and the customer may activate a pair of invisible floor scales. Sit down to eat and the chair may start to measure one’s heartbeat. And as a diner munches on that salad, a researcher on another floor may be watching how fast — or slowly — the diner chews. The restaurant, set on the leafy campus of Wageningen University, feels friendly enough, but it is fitted with hidden wiring and switches worthy of a battleship. In reality it is a new research center, devoted to exploring a question that is both simple and complicated: what makes people eat and drink the way they do? Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 11004 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Gene Emery BOSTON (Reuters) - Viewing the reflected image of an intact limb in a mirror can fool the mind into thinking that a lost leg or foot still exists, dramatically relieving phantom limb pain, researchers reported on Wednesday. At least 9 out of 10 amputees report feeling sometimes-severe pain in the missing limb, often the result of a sensation that the arm or leg is stuck in the wrong position. The sensation can be excruciating and pain drugs often do little to help. But some studies have suggested that using a mirror to trick the mind into thinking the lost limb is still there may help. Doctors do not understand why it works, but it appears to help a confused brain reconcile sensations coming from the severed nerves. Dr. Jack Tsao, a Navy neurologist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, asked 22 volunteers, most of whom had lost part of a leg in Iraq, to try one of three therapies. With the mirror technique, patients saw a reflected image of their intact limb as they spent 15 minutes a day trying to move legs and feet. The setup gave the illusion that the missing limb was present and moving normally. © Reuters 2007.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 11003 - Posted: 06.24.2010