Michael Hopkin Scientists have deliberately fooled people into feeling they are watching themselves from outside their own bodies, using virtual-reality technology. The achievement reveals how the brain can be confused as it struggles to integrate confusing information from the different senses. People who claim to have had out-of-body experiences (OBEs) — most famously patients on the operating table or those who have narrowly avoided death — describe a sensation of having floated out of themselves, for example towards the ceiling of an operating theatre. From there they watch their body and activities surrounding it. Such experiences have been claimed by spiritualists to represent evidence of a soul. But the new research shows that it is possible to create a similar sensation simply by tricking the mind. Understanding how the mind sometimes perceives itself as journeying out of the body could help with the development of more realistic computer games or remote robotic systems, or even help to understand the brains of those who claim to experience the phenomenon naturally, such as schizophrenics or epileptics. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 10641 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CBC News The after-effects of a medically-termed 'minor stroke' often result in hidden disabilities that significantly impair a stroke patient's full recovery, according to a research study at the University of Calgary. The study tracked 48 patients who had experienced minor strokes and their wives for three months after release from hospital. It found that nearly half of the patients had difficulties recuperating and experienced problems in their employment, social and recreational activities and family interactions. Researcher Teri Green, a PhD student in the University of Calgary's Faculty of Nursing and a post-doctoral fellow in the Calgary Stroke Program, told CBC News that "minor" strokes are often a misnomer, because there are often hidden disabilities, like fatigue, and the loss of concentration and memory. She says there needs to be more awareness and education around these after-effects. Unfortunately, many patients aren't receiving that counselling. "The problem is we send these patients home from hospital so fast we don't have a chance, and we don't take the time, to give them the information that they need," she said. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 10640 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By TOM BREEN GILBERT, W.Va. -- When his craving for painkillers got to be too much, Steve Dotson lay down and let his wife drive a car over his leg. It hurt, but he could dismiss the pain with thoughts of the medicated bliss that would follow. Soon, he lost his house, the state took his children away and he was spending nights under a bridge, where he hoped to die. "You get to where you don't even want them (pills) anymore, you just do them so you can get through the day," said the 43-year-old southern West Virginia resident. Dotson is one of millions of Americans who have experienced the harm that can come from addiction to the prescription narcotic hydrocodone. Less regulated than similar prescription painkillers, drugs containing hydrocodone have quietly become the most widely prescribed _ and, perhaps, widely abused _ opiate painkillers on the market. With 124 million prescriptions in 2005, drugs containing hydrocodone are the most popular of their type in the country, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Office of Diversion Control. They are sold under hundreds of brand names and generic titles, and hydrocodone can be found in medication ranging from cough syrup to painkillers. © 2007 The Associated Press

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 10639 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sharon Begley - Like 700,000 other Americans every year, Christopher Ware had a stroke in 1997. But unlike most stroke victims, who tend to be elderly, Ware was all of 25 when he woke up one morning with an excruciating headache, numbness in his right side and—he learned when his parents were unable to understand what he was saying—slurred speech. Once the doctors at BroMenn Regional Medical Center in Normal, Ill., determined that a clot in his brain had cut off crucial oxygen to neurons in one region, he spent a week in the intensive care unit before beginning what would be a month of speech, physical and occupational therapy. When he was discharged, Ware's speech was still slurred and, although his right leg could move well enough to walk (awkwardly), his right arm hung uselessly at his side. He was unable to lace his shoes or tie his tie, or use his right hand to write or eat or type. That's how Ware would be today, one of 4 million Americans living with the aftereffects of stroke. But in addition to shattering the stereotype about who suffers a stroke, Ware has become a pioneer in how to recover from one, long after physicians have said further improvement is impossible. Seven years after his stroke, he enrolled in a clinical trial at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where physicians have been testing an experimental stroke-rehab device. Through electrodes implanted on the brain's thin covering (called the dura), it delivers electrical jolts to specific brain regions. Manufactured by Northstar Neuroscience, it has now given hundreds of stroke patients mobility they thought they had lost forever. After six weeks of the experimental treatment, for instance, Ware could use his right hand to tie his shoes and tie, type, maneuver utensils and write. © 2007 MSNBC.com © 2007 Microsoft

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 10638 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Benjamin Lester Bug repellent might not set human hearts aflutter, but it does crested auklets. These arctic sea birds produce citrus-scented secretions that repel ticks--and attract mates, according to new research. The discovery clears up a long-standing mystery over the purpose of the compounds, and--because birds rub each other with the secretions during courtship--it represents the first documented transfer of chemical defenses between birds. Crested auklets (Aethia cristatella) live in massive colonies on islands off Siberia and Alaska. Compounds similar to the auklet secretions act as insecticides in other species, so researchers believed they might play a role as a natural defense against the ticks and other arthropods that plague the birds. In addition, auklets' habit of rubbing the strongly scented napes of each other's necks during courtship fueled speculation that the compounds serve as a sexual attractant. However, the questions have proved difficult to answer, in part because of the remoteness of the birds' habitat. Hector Douglas found some answers at the zoo. The University of Alaska, Fairbanks, biologist placed two taxidermic auklets into an enclosure with 14 live birds at the home of one of the world's few captive populations--the Cincinnati Zoo. The models were placed on top of rock piles and dispensers placed underneath wafted out the scent of a synthetic version of the auklet "essence." © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10637 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Gretchen Vogel There's one more doughnut in the box. Do you reach for it or not? The answer may depend on a brain region just behind your eyes called the dorsal frontomedial cortex. New experiments point to it, and two smaller regions, as the sources of our self-control. The question of free will--whether and how we consciously control our actions--has puzzled philosophers for centuries. Twenty-five years ago, the question got a bit stranger when psychologists found that electrical signals in the brain that direct movement of a finger or limb occur about a half a second before a person is aware of making a decision to move. In other words, our brains seem to make decisions before we are consciously aware of doing so. That result raised the question of why we should be aware of our actions at all. If our conscious minds don't control our actions, why did consciousness evolve? Benjamin Libet, a psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who did the original experiments, suggested that perhaps our conscious mind has the ability to veto actions--to stop ourselves from doing things that our brains have sent a message to do. Psychologists Marcel Brass of Ghent University in Belgium and Patrick Haggard of University College London attempted to measure what happens in the brain when we stop ourselves from doing something. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 10636 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Cutraro BOSTON--People who start their mornings by pouring cream and sugar into a steaming mug of coffee are usually trying to mask the beverage's bitterness. But the reason coffee makes us pucker has eluded scientists for decades. Now, researchers have narrowed the search by identifying two chemical compounds responsible for bitter taste in coffees ranging from mild breakfast blends to intense espressos. According to work presented here at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, it turns out that the roasting process--not the raw beans--produces these compounds, a finding that could open the door to improved methods for processing coffee beans. A cup of coffee is a complex brew of more than 30 chemical compounds that contribute to its taste, aroma, and acidity. Since the 1930s, scientists have separated and identified numerous chemicals responsible for many of the sensory components of a cup of joe, but few have investigated those that produce bitterness. To explore further, food chemist Thomas Hofmann of the Technical University of Munich in Germany and colleagues sequentially filtered brewed coffee. They found that the fractions containing the lowest molecular weight compounds were the most bitter, giving the team a target for further analysis. Using mass spectroscopy, the researchers identified one of the compounds as chlorogenic acid lactone, a breakdown product of chlorogenic acid, which is present in nearly all plants. Next, the team brewed a series of coffees from light to dark roasts and measured the amount of chlorogenic acid lactone in each. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 10635 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin Chimps struggling to accumulate a large quantity of food deliberately keep themselves busy to avoid the temptation to gorge themselves straight away, researchers have found. The study shows that, like a shopaholic striving to resist the lure of the department store, our ape cousins welcome a distraction that takes the mind off the impulsive urge to splash out. Researchers at Georgia State University in Atlanta presented four chimps with a plastic container attached to a tube that gradually filled the container with candy. Opening it, however, would cut off the flow of food. Chimps were kept away from the candy machine but were allowed to observe it, so learning that the longer they waited, the bigger the treat they would get. But as many of us know, self-control doesn't come easily. Studies of human children have shown that the average five-year-old is rarely able to resist eating sweets, even if promised that abstinence will be rewarded with even more sweets later on. The Georgia researchers, Theodore Evans and Michael Beran, guessed that chimps would have a good chance at resisting the candies if given a range of toys and other distractions to play with. "We chose a set of items they are known to have an interest in," explains Evans. "They enjoy brushing their teeth, for example; we gave them magazines so they could look at the pictures; and they enjoy different types of fasteners, zips and clips that they can take apart." ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Attention; Obesity
Link ID: 10634 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have identified a new mechanism by which tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) inhibit neurotransmitter transporters—a discovery that may improve the design of new antidepressants that are more effective than the TCAs currently on the market. TCAs, which have been prescribed for decades, have been largely supplanted by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors because of their lack of specificity. Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Eric Gouaux at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and colleagues began their studies with the goal of understanding how TCAs interact with their clinical target, sodium-coupled neurotransmitter transporters. These transporters mop up neurotransmitters from the synapse, the junction between neurons. Neurotransmitters are molecules that neurons use to communicate with neighboring neurons. TCAs work by inhibiting the reuptake of neurotransmitters by neurons. Disorders such as depression, epilepsy, autism, or obsessive-compulsive disorder can result from impaired function of sodium-coupled neurotransmitter transporters. Thus, these molecules are the target of a variety of drugs, including TCAs. It has been a great challenge, however, to understand precisely how these molecules function and interact with drugs. The problem, Gouaux said, is that the transporters found in humans are not amenable to study. © 2007 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 10633 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D. Americans seem to like psychotherapy. Whether it’s for the mundane conflicts of everyday life or life-threatening illnesses like major depression, psychotherapy is widely viewed as a healthy, if not harmless, pursuit. Yet unlike most other medical treatments, psychotherapy can take considerable time. An infection can be cured in days, but remission of severe depression or anxiety disorder usually takes weeks or months, and a personality disorder typically requires years of intensive psychotherapy. So if the outcome may be months or years away, how can a person tell whether his psychotherapy is any good? It’s harder than you’d think. For one thing, people commonly equate feeling better with getting good treatment. But since psychiatric disorders fluctuate spontaneously with time, like most illnesses, many patients would get better even if they got no treatment at all. A patient getting bad psychotherapy might flourish, while another patient getting exemplary treatment might suffer terribly. Judging from one of the largest surveys of psychotherapy to date, most Americans who try psychotherapy think it is beneficial. In its 1994 annual questionnaire, Consumer Reports asked readers about their experience in psychotherapy. Of 7,000 subscribers who responded to the mental health questions, 4,100 saw mental health professionals. Most reported feeling better with therapy, regardless of whether they were treated by a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a social worker. And those in long-term therapy reported more improvement than those in short-term therapy. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 10632 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Robert Roy Britt Researchers presented further evidence today that obesity in some cases might be contagious. A common virus, implicated in previous studies as a possible cause of obesity, was found in lab tests to transform adult stem cells obtained from fat tissue into fat cells. A gene in the virus has now been found to be the likely culprit. “We’re not saying that a virus is the only cause of obesity, but this study provides stronger evidence that some obesity cases may involve viral infections,” said Dr. Magdalena Pasarica of Louisiana State University. “Not all infected people will develop obesity,” Pasarica said. “We would ultimately like to identify the underlying factors that predispose some obese people to develop this virus and eventually find a way to treat it.” The virus is a human adenovirus-36 (Ad-36), known to cause respiratory and eye infections. Previous research has shown that it causes fat to accumulate in animals, and other work found that 30 percent of obese people were infected with the Ad-36 virus in comparison to 11 percent of lean people. But no one has shown clearly that the virus actually causes fat levels to increase in human cells. In the new study, Pasarica and her associates obtained adult stem cells from fatty tissue of patients who had undergone liposuction. Half of the stem cells were exposed to the virus and the other half were not. Most of the virus-infected cells developed into fat cells, while the non-infected cells did not. © 2007 MSNBC.com © 2007 Microsoft

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 10631 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers found that cats' memories were much longer after stepping over an obstacle, rather than just seeing an object, says a study published Monday in the science journal Current Biology. The scientists who led the study, David A. McVea and Keir G. Pearson, from the Department of Physiology at the University of Alberta, conducted a simple experiment to measure the felines' memories. Audrey, a current resident of the Hemingway House in Key West, Fla. (Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press) They halted the cats' walking after their forelegs, but not hind legs, had cleared an obstacle. Then they distracted the animals with food, and lowered the obstacle into the walking surface. The next step revealed whether the cat remembered stepping over the "disappearing" obstacle. The researchers then repeated the experiment to find out if the cats remembered what they saw, versus what they did. But this time they stopped the cats just before they made their first step. McVea, told CBC News that this form of memory is equally vital to humans. "Although we use vision extensively to guide our walking, we don't look at our feet as we walk — we look three or four steps ahead and remember the terrain." © CBC 2007

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 10630 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BENEDICT CAREY In academic feuds, as in war, there is no telling how far people will go once the shooting starts. Alice Dreger, an ethics scholar, investigated the accusations against Dr. Bailey. Earlier this month, members of the International Academy of Sex Research, gathering for their annual meeting in Vancouver, informally discussed one of the most contentious and personal social science controversies in recent memory. The central figure, J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University, has promoted a theory that his critics think is inaccurate, insulting and potentially damaging to transgender women. In the past few years, several prominent academics who are transgender have made a series of accusations against the psychologist, including that he committed ethics violations. A transgender woman he wrote about has accused him of a sexual impropriety, and Dr. Bailey has become a reviled figure for some in the gay and transgender communities. To many of Dr. Bailey’s peers, his story is a morality play about the corrosive effects of political correctness on academic freedom. Some scientists say that it has become increasingly treacherous to discuss politically sensitive issues. They point to several recent cases, like that of Helmuth Nyborg, a Danish researcher who was fired in 2006 after he caused a furor in the press by reporting a slight difference in average I.Q. test scores between the sexes. “What happened to Bailey is important, because the harassment was so extraordinarily bad and because it could happen to any researcher in the field,” said Alice Dreger, an ethics scholar and patients’ rights advocate at Northwestern who, after conducting a lengthy investigation of Dr. Bailey’s actions, has concluded that he is essentially blameless. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10629 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GEORGE JOHNSON The reason he had picked me from the audience, Apollo Robbins insisted, was that I’d seemed so engaged, nodding my head and making eye contact as he and the other magicians explained the tricks of the trade. I believed him when he told me afterward, over dinner at the Venetian, that he hadn’t noticed the name tag identifying me as a science writer. But then everyone believes Apollo — as he expertly removes your wallet and car keys and unbuckles your watch. It was Sunday night on the Las Vegas Strip, where earlier this summer the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness was holding its annual meeting at the Imperial Palace Hotel. The organization’s last gathering had been in the staid environs of Oxford, but Las Vegas — the city of illusions, where the Statue of Liberty stares past Camelot at the Sphinx — turned out to be the perfect locale. After two days of presentations by scientists and philosophers speculating on how the mind construes, and misconstrues, reality, we were hearing from the pros: James (The Amazing) Randi, Johnny Thompson (The Great Tomsoni), Mac King and Teller — magicians who had intuitively mastered some of the lessons being learned in the laboratory about the limits of cognition and attention. “This wasn’t just a group of world-class performers,” said Susana Martinez-Conde, a scientist at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix who studies optical illusions and what they say about the brain. “They were hand-picked because of their specific interest in the cognitive principles underlying the magic.” She and Stephen Macknik, another Barrow researcher, organized the symposium, appropriately called the Magic of Consciousness. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 10628 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ALICE PARK As a personality trait, shyness probably ranks as one of the more benign characteristics that someone can possess, but new research suggests that at least some forms of shyness may have violent, and often deadly, consequences. Analyzing eight school shootings over the past decade, psychologist Bernardo Carducci and his team at Indiana University found that the young shooters in these incidents shared nearly all of 29 personality and behavior characteristics that Carducci categorizes as cynical shyness. This form, says Carducci, who directs the Shyness Research Institute, differs from normal shyness in that sufferers disconnect with others when their efforts at socialization are rebuffed. "These are people who want to be with others but who are rejected in a very harsh way," he says. While normally shy people would continue to try, and eventually succeed, in connecting with others, cynically shy individuals internalize the rejection and alienate themselves. "As they develop a sense of disconnect, they move away from people, and as they move away from people, that makes it easier for them to hurt them. These people are becoming a cult of one," he says. Carducci presented his hypothesis at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association on Saturday, and notes that while his study did not include the most recent and deadliest school shooting, at Virginia Tech earlier this year, gunman Seung Hui Cho possessed 77% of the characteristics that Carducci isolated. These include social withdrawal, preoccupation with weapons and violence, anger or violence reflected in his work or journal, and hostility toward classmates and teachers. © 2007 Time Inc

Keyword: Aggression
Link ID: 10627 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Benjamin Lester Walk into the little girls' aisle at a toy store, and you'll be inundated with pink. We take for granted gender differences in color preference, but for more than 100 years, studies have failed to find a biological basis for the disparity. New research confirms that girls go for red whereas guys do not and links the mechanism to the biology of vision. Our color likes and dislikes may be a remnant of the different roles that men and women played in our distant hunter-gatherer past. Studies from as long ago as 1897 have hinted at differences in color preference between genders, suggesting that more females preferred reds than did males. But the data were murky and inconsistent, according to experts. Hoping to clear the air, neuroscientists Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University in the U.K. performed an experiment on 171 British Caucasians and 38 recent immigrants from China aged 20 to 26. Each subject chose his or her favorite from a series of color pairs on a computer screen. Humans judge color on two scales--one red-green and one blue-yellow. Hurlbert and Ling assigned each color values on these same two scales and compared each gender's preferences. In the 21 August issue of Current Biology, the researchers report that, on the yellow-blue scale, males and females both went for blue--U.K. females much more strongly than their male counterparts. On the red-green scale, however, females preferred red, whereas males opted for green--a difference that held true for Caucasian and Chinese subjects, although in Chinese females the trend was much more pronounced. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10626 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Mary Muers Researchers have found a simple physical symptom that accompanies the early, subtle brain changes that lead to dementia. Women who will go on to develop dementia begin to lose weight at least ten years before diagnosis, say researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. While the symptom of weight loss is too common to serve as a usable early warning sign for mental decline, researchers hope other such physical changes could be used to spot dementia before memory loss sets in. David Knopman, who led the study published in Neurology1 today, thinks the women may have shed the weight because creeping damage in their brains caused them to lose interest in food. He speculates that the disease could cause apathy or dull the senses of taste and smell, making food less appealing. Neurologists have long suspected that conditions such as Alzheimer's disease begin to develop 10-20 years before diagnosis. But spotting such early changes has proven difficult. This is one of only a few studies to make a link between physical symptoms and emerging dementia. "It's an interesting development in terms of how we think about dementia," says Robert Stewart, an epidemiologist at London's Institute of Psychiatry who has previously found a hint of a link between dementia and weight loss2. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Alzheimers; Obesity
Link ID: 10625 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Ewen Callaway The body's clock may lose track of time during winter hibernation, scientists have found in a species of hamster. The genes responsible for regulating circadian rhythms in the brain normally follow a 24-hour cycle, with their activity waxing and waning in step with day and night. But what happens during hibernation? Brain activity resembles that of deep slumber, and the body slows its metabolism to a crawl. The internal temperature of arctic ground squirrels, for instance, can plummet below freezing. It's thought that hibernation evolved from sleep as a way to save energy during lean winter months. Some studies have hinted that factors such as body temperature continue to oscillate up and down in a daily cycle during this winter period, although not nearly so much as during normal conditions. But no one had tapped directly into the brain or looked at the genes that control the body clock to see what was happening there. Biologists Florent Revel and Paul Pévet of Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, France, investigated hibernation's effect on the brain in European hamsters, which normally stay burrowed in their nests between December and March, rarely venturing above ground. During these months they follow a regular schedule: three to four days of hibernation followed by two to three days of activity. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 10624 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi Paedophiles may have reduced concentrations of nerve cells in key areas of the brain compared to normal people, according to a study published by German researchers. The study could have significant legal implications, experts say, because it hints at a direct link between brain development and criminal behaviour. The causes of paedophilia are not understood and even diagnosis is controversial (see Sex offenders: Throwing away the key). Boris Schiffer and colleagues of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany studied 18 convicted paedophiles with a history of repeatedly abusing children younger than 14. Schiffer scanned their brains using magnetic resonance imaging and compared the scans to those of normal men of matching ages. The scans revealed that the paedophiles had less "grey matter" – tissue with a high concentration of nerve cells – in several areas of the brain. The men in Schiffer's study had an average IQ of about 90, which is not considered abnormally low, compared to an average of 100 for the control group. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 10623 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CBC News It's long been thought that stress is harmful to your health, but a new study finds chronic stress may increase a person's risk of developing or accelerating a neurodegenerative disease like multiple sclerosis. Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that inflammation brought on by stress leads to the worsening of the mouse equivalent of MS. In studies, stressed mice produced a cytokine which is released during stress. That cytokine increased the severity of an MS-like illness in the mice. CBC The findings were presented Friday at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association. In the study, scientists simulated stressful situations on mice infected with Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis (TMEV), an acute infection of the central nervous system which is followed by a chronic autoimmune disease similar to that seen in humans with MS. Another group of mice was also infected but not exposed to stress. Researchers found that the stressed mice produced a cytokine — interleukin-6 (IL-6) — which is released during stress and regulates the part of the immune system that fights infection. IL-6 increases the severity of the MS-like illness. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Stress
Link ID: 10622 - Posted: 06.24.2010