SUNY Downstate Medical Center neurologist Todd Sacktor compares memory to a glue that connects our consciousness. "It's like the essence of what keeps our soul together, our character together," he says. Despite the importance of this powerful, intangible wonder called memory, the mechanics of it still baffles scientists. And Sacktor recently peeled off one layer of the mystery. Sacktor and his collaborators at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel discovered that they could wipe out the long-term memory of rats with a single injection. "We went out even weeks and weeks later, and still the memory was erased, just like that," says Sacktor, snapping his fingers. The researchers trained rats to avoid certain tastes in drinks that the animals learned to associate with an upset stomach. Weeks later, they gave the rats an experimental drug called "ZIP" and, within minutes, the animals forgot which drinks to avoid. As Sacktor and his colleagues wrote in the journal "Science," the drug works by blocking a molecule called PKM zeta, which seems crucial to preserving memories. Sacktor says that this molecule works as a continuous memory motor when nerve cells, or neurons, in the brain communicate with each other as memories are formed. It triggers twice the number of receptors from one neuron to accept signals from another. But if that motor gets jammed, the number of receptors gets reduced again and the memories disappear. © ScienCentral, 2000-2007.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 10731 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — A big, warm hug works wonders, even in the monkey world. Female spider monkeys without infants, it seems, will hug mother monkeys in exchange for permission to kiss, sniff and touch their babies. The discovery, which will be outlined in an upcoming issue of Animal Behavior, not only shows how much primates, especially females, value infants, but it also reveals that an embrace conveys good intentions and provides comfort in primate species other than humans. "An embrace is defined as one monkey approaching another monkey and wrapping their arms around them, in very much the same way as humans do, with one arm wrapped around the neck and the other around the waist," lead author Kathy Slater told Discovery News. Slater, a researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chester, added that the embrace is often accompanied by a "kiss on the cheek" and a "pectoral sniff," when one monkey moves its head next to the other monkey's chest scent glands to get a whiff. She said both males and females tend to hug when they haven't seen each other for a while. Males will also sometimes hug each other in front of females "to reduce tension and prevent aggression" in a situation that can foster competition. © 2007 Discovery Communications

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10730 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Heidi Ledford Knocking out a single gene nearly doubles the lifespan of mice with the animal model of Lou Gehrig's disease, suggesting that the gene may one day become a target for therapies in humans. Lou Gehrig's disease, otherwise known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is a neurodegenerative disease that gradually erodes motor control. Death usually follows within three to five years of diagnosis. There is no cure, and the only drug available that slows progression of the disease, riluzole, prolongs survival only by a few months. Mice develop ALS-like symptoms when they have a mutation in a gene called SOD1 — a mutation that causes about 1-2% of human ALS cases. Research using these animal models has suggested that chemically reactive forms of oxygen that can damage cells also contribute to the disease. Several proteins present in the bodies of mice and people are known to generate reactive oxygen species as part of their normal function in cell signalling and inflammation. So John Engelhardt and his colleagues at the University of Iowa in Iowa City decided to look closely at two of these — Nox1 and Nox2 — to see whether turning down the amount of such proteins could slow the progression of ALS symptoms. It did — dramatically. The team found that ALS mice lacking the gene that creates Nox2 produced fewer reactive oxygen species and lived on average for 229 days — 97 days longer than those who had normal levels of Nox21. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 10729 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Memory loss. It's right up there with other signs of aging, such as wrinkles, hearing loss, and bifocals. While you might dismiss it as a "senior's moment," your brain has actually been going downhill since your early 30s. Our brains are naturally "rusting on the inside," as one expert puts it, but you can slow the process. You can eat for brain longevity and actually exercise this important organ. What is brain aging? Generally, brain aging is believed to be the gradual deterioration of the brain and its related systems. Historically,the process of aging has been largely ignored.Dementia, memory loss and mood changes were expected of the elderly.But over the last three decades, this view has undergone a transformation.Scientists now understand far more about the normal aging process and the causes of age-related conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and stroke. And with one in five Canadians reaching the age of 65 by 2026, health-care and research priorities areshifting to cope with the unique concerns of the aged population. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 10728 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By SALLY SATEL EARLIER this summer, the American Psychiatric Association announced that a 27-member panel will update its official diagnostic handbook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The fifth edition, which is scheduled to come out in 2012, is likely to add new mental illnesses and refine some existing ones. High on the agenda will be the controversial diagnosis of childhood bipolar disorder. Recent data show that office visits by children and adolescents treated for the condition jumped 40-fold from 1994 to 2003. We still don’t know how much of this increase represents long-overdue care of mentally ill youth and how much comes from facile labeling of youngsters who are merely irritable and moody. Part of the confusion stems from the lack of a discrete definition of juvenile bipolar illness in the diagnostic manual. But there is a deeper problem: despite the great progress being made in neuroscience, we still don’t have a clear picture of the brain mechanisms underlying bipolar illness — or most other mental illnesses. For perspective, we must return to 1980, when the revolutionary third edition of the handbook, the D.S.M. III, was published. In a radical break from earlier editions, which had been based largely on psychoanalytic principles of unconscious conflict and stunted sexual development, the D.S.M. III categorized illnesses based on symptoms. A patient was said to have a condition if he or she had a certain number of the classic symptoms for a certain period of time. This approach promoted “inter-rater reliability” — the odds that two examiners would agree on what diagnosis to assign a patient. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Depression
Link ID: 10727 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GINA KOLATA WHEN Jennifer Davis, my partner for long runs, was in college about 15 years ago, she had a real problem staying awake in her classes. The reason, she said, were those long, grueling workouts with the Dartmouth crew early in the day. Accepting Insomnia, Not Defeat (September 13, 2007) “Those are the only memories I have of totally falling asleep in lectures,” said Ms. Davis, a physical chemist living in Montgomery, N.J. “My notes from biology consist largely of squiggly lines meandering down the page of my notebook.” It’s one of the mysteries of sleep: Why is it that mild exercise can be invigorating, but strenuous endurance exercise — whether it’s crew practice, long runs as training for a marathon or juggling back-to-back workouts to prepare for a triathlon — makes people groggy? Elite marathoners know that hunger for sleep all too well. Deena Kastor, who won the London Marathon last year and set an American record, said she sleeps 10 hours at night and takes a two-hour nap every afternoon. Steven Spence, a marathoner who won a bronze medal at the 1991 world championships in Tokyo, had the same sleep habits when he was training. “I would be sleeping about half of my life,” Mr. Spence said. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 10726 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Michael Balter A new study of ancient reptile fossils has pushed back the date for the earliest known ear by 60 million years and generated a new hypothesis of why hearing evolved in the first place. An ear capable of hearing airborne sounds evolved independently at least six times among terrestrial vertebrate groups, including mammals, lizards, frogs, turtles, crocodiles, and birds. Yet although these ears may differ in some details, they all share certain features: an eardrumlike membrane to capture sound vibrations and small bones--such as the stapes--to transmit the sounds to the inner ear. Based on the fossil record, the earliest known ears of this type date to 200 million years ago or later. To further explore the evolutionary roots of terrestrial vertebrate hearing, paleobiologists Johannes Müller and Linda Tsuji of Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, examined several dozen specimens of early reptiles that have been found since the 1930s in the Mezen River Basin of central Russia. The fossils, which date to about 260 million years ago, had previously received only limited study. The researchers were able to identify six apparently closely related species, all of which showed clear evidence of large, eardrumlike structures covering much of their cheeks. In the better preserved specimens, inner ear bones similar to those of modern ears were found, including a stapes. Moreover, Müller and Tsuji found, the relative sizes of the eardrum and the part of the stapes that communicates with the inner ear were similar to those in modern terrestrial vertebrates, a key test that this ancient ear had the acoustic properties necessary for hearing airborne sounds. The findings are published online today in PLoS One. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Hearing; Evolution
Link ID: 10725 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The medication tamoxifen, best known as a treatment for breast cancer, dramatically reduces symptoms of the manic phase of bipolar disorder more quickly than many standard medications for the mental illness, a new study shows. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) who conducted the study also explained how: Tamoxifen blocks an enzyme called protein kinase C (PKC) that regulates activities in brain cells. The enzyme is thought to be over-active during the manic phase of bipolar disorder. By pointing to PKC as a target for new medications, the study raises the possibility of developing faster-acting treatments for the manic phase of the illness. Current medications for the manic phase generally take more than a week to begin working, and not everyone responds to them. Tamoxifen itself might not become a treatment of choice, though, because it also blocks estrogen — the property that makes it useful as a treatment for breast cancer — and because it may cause endometrial cancer if taken over long periods of time. Currently, tamoxifen is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of some kinds of cancer and infertility, for example. It was used experimentally in this study because it both blocks PKC and is able to enter the brain. Results of the study were published online in the September issue of Bipolar Disorders by Husseini K. Manji, MD, Carlos A. Zarate Jr., MD, and colleagues. Almost 6 million American adults have bipolar disorder, whose symptoms can be disabling. They include profound mood swings, from depression to vastly overblown excitement, energy, and elation, often accompanied by severe irritability. Children also can develop the illness.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10724 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin Whatever it was that sealed the fate of the Neanderthals, it looks unlikely to have been climate change. That is the verdict of a new study that used climate records from Venezuela to deduce what happened at the Neanderthals' last stand at the southern tip of Europe. The research suggests that a switch to a cold, dry climate was probably not the telling factor in the demise of the Neanderthals, because of all the probable dates for their extinction, most do not lie near major cold events in the climate record. Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) lived in Europe until around 30,000 years ago — not long after Homo sapiens arrived on the scene 40,000 years ago. The Neanderthals are thought to have lasted longest in the region around Gibraltar, off the southern tip of Spain. "There are different factors that have been invoked to explain the Neanderthal extinction," says Chronis Tzedakis of the University of Leeds, UK, who led the new research. "Clearly the appearance of anatomically modern humans is the prime suspect, but given that the extinction happened during the last glacial period, when climate was changing, what we know is that the climate was extremely unstable at that time." The main problem with testing the different theories comes from the difficulty in dating accurately the age of Neanderthal fossils and tools to compare their ages with records of past climate. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 10723 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CBC News Ask any devotee about the benefits conferred by alternative therapies such as yoga, tai chi and hypnosis, and the they'll tell you the list is lengthy. After a recent review by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, chronic pain management can be added to the list. According to the study, chronic non-malignant pain occurs in up to 50 per cent of older adults. Researchers reviewed 20 clinical trials involving eight mind-body therapies for adults who suffered from chronic, non-malignant pain, to assess their feasibility, effectiveness in pain management and safety. The findings are published in Volume 8 of the journal Pain Medicine. The therapies reviewed included biofeedback (learning to control body functions) , progressive muscle relaxation (tensing and releasing muscles), meditation, guided imagery (visualization techniques), hypnosis, tai chi chuan (a Chinese martial art consisting of sequences of very slow, controlled movements) qi gong (movements that include elements of meditation, relaxation and physical movement), and yoga. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 10722 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO - Pilfered fruit brazenly plucked under the farmer's gaze may be the secret to stolen love, at least for wild male chimpanzees and their consorts, British researchers said Tuesday. Wild chimps in West Africa pinch fruits from local farms to impress the lady chimps, and it seems to pay off, said Dr. Kimberley Hockings of the University of Stirling's department of psychology. "The adult male who shared most with this female engaged in more consortships with her and received more grooming from her than the other adult males, even the alpha male," said Hockings, whose study appears in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS One. "Such daring behavior may be considered an attractive trait," Hockings said in comments e-mailed to Reuters. She and colleagues studied crop-raids made by wild male chimpanzees in the West African village of Bossou in the Republic of Guinea. The study is the only recorded example of routine sharing of plant foods by chimps who are not related, the researchers said. © 2007 MSNBC.com © 2007 Microsoft

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10721 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Ker Than Like memory, human intelligence is probably not confined to a single area in the brain, but is instead the result of multiple brain areas working in concert, a new review of research suggests. The review by Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine, and Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico proposes a new theory that identifies areas in the brain that work together to determine a person's intelligence. "Genetic research has demonstrated that intelligence levels can be inherited, and since genes work through biology, there must be a biological basis for intelligence," Haier said. The review of 37 imaging studies, detailed online in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, suggests that intelligence is related not so much to brain size or a particular brain structure, but to how efficiently information travels through the brain. "Our review of imaging studies identifies the stations along the routes intelligence information processing takes," Haier said. "Once we know where the stations are, we can study how they relate to intelligence." The new theory might eventually lead to treatments for low IQ, the researchers say, or to ways of boosting the IQ of people with normal intelligence. © 2007 MSNBC.com © 2007 Microsoft

Keyword: Intelligence
Link ID: 10720 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Mary Muers Researchers who having been tracking a group of children since birth have found that the level of testosterone they were exposed to in the womb is linked to whether they show autistic traits throughout childhood. The children are now 8 years old. Questionnaires filled out by their parents show that those who had experienced higher levels of testosterone in the womb generally have better pattern recognition and numerical skills, such as remembering car number plates, but are less keen on socialising. None have been diagnosed with autism, but these are traits which, when taken to an extreme, are often present in autistic children. The researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, measured the level of testosterone in samples of amniotic fluid from 235 women who had tests for other clinical reasons, and have been following how some of the children develop ever since. When 12 months old, babies who had experienced higher levels of testosterone in the womb tended to look at their mother less often, and at 18 months, they were more likely to have a smaller vocabulary than the others, the team has previously reported. This latest update on their progress, presented by Simon Baron-Cohen and Bonnie Auyeung at the British Association's Festival of Science in York today, shows that the correlation between foetal hormone levels and autistic-trait behaviour continues as the children grow up. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Autism; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10719 - Posted: 06.24.2010

London, : A US company has demonstrated a motorized wheelchair that moves when the operator thinks of particular words. The wheelchair works by intercepting signals sent from the brain to the voice box, even when no sound is actually produced. Ambient, the company behind the wheelchair says, the gadget could prove a boon for people with spinal injuries or neurological problems like cerebral palsy or motor neurone disease. It could also help people operate computers and other equipment despite having serious problems with muscle control, it said. However, it added, the system would only work if a person is able to control his/her larynx, or voice box. Ambient co-founders Michael Callahan and Thomas Coleman said the system worked via a sensor-laden neckband, which eavesdropped on electrical impulses sent to larynx muscles. It then relayed the signals, via an encrypted wireless link, to a nearby computer, which decoded them, matching them to a series of pre-recorded “words” determined during training exercises, they said. These “words” could then be used to direct the motorised wheelchair, they added. © Zee News Limited.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 10718 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Liz Seward Yawning may reveal more about a person than their boredom threshold, according to research. A susceptibility to contagious yawning may actually be a sign of a high-level of social empathy. Although many species yawn, only some humans and possibly their close animal relatives find yawning infectious, suggesting the reason is psychological. The University of Leeds research was presented at the British Association's Festival of Science in York. "Contagious yawning is a very interesting behaviour," said Dr Catriona Morrison, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Leeds, who is leading the work. "You don't need a visual cue, you don't even need an auditory cue - you can just read about it or think about it and it gets you going. We believe that contagious yawning indicates empathy. It indicates an appreciation of other people's behavioural and physiological state," she added. Recent neuro-imaging has shown that the same area of the brain is involved when reacting to yawning and when considering others. The University of Leeds team carried out an experiment on students studying psychology and engineering to test this concept. Each student was shown to an occupied waiting room where their companion was actually a researcher who yawned 10 times in 10 minutes. The scientists recorded how often the students yawned in response. Each participant was then asked to complete a test of their empathetic skills, in which they analysed pictures of eyes and recorded the emotions shown. The results showed that those who had succumbed to the most contagious yawning also scored higher on the empathy tests. (C)BBC

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 10717 - Posted: 09.11.2007

The Canadian Press An antidepressant appears to work as well as the most commonly prescribed antipsychotic drug in treating agitation and aggressive behaviour in people with Alzheimer's — minus the severe side-effects, a Canadian study suggests. Researchers at Toronto's Baycrest geriatric centre and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health teamed up to conduct a head-to-head trial of the antidepressant citalopram (Celexa) and the antipsychotic risperidone (Risperdal) in non-depressed patients with dementia. During the 12-week study, 53 patients were treated with citalopram, a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor or SSRI, and 50 received risperidone. Researchers found that the two medications were almost equally effective in controlling psychotic behaviour in patients. Yet citalopram did not cause the often-severe adverse effects of risperidone, which can include unwanted sedation, increased confusion and the development of Parkinson's-like symptoms. "But the thing that was the biggest surprise to us was that we didn't hypothesize this," said principal researcher Dr. Bruce Pollock, a geriatric psychiatrist at Baycrest. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Depression
Link ID: 10716 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LAURA NOVAK As an infant, Raea Gragg was withdrawn and could not make eye contact. By preschool she needed to smell and squeeze every object she saw. “She touched faces and would bring everything to mouth,” said her mother, Kara Gragg, of Lafayette, Calif. “She would go up to people, sniff them and touch their cheeks.” Specialists conducted a battery of tests. The possible diagnoses mounted: autism spectrum disorder, neurofibromatosis, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety disorder. A behavioral pediatrician prescribed three drugs for attention deficit and depression. The only constant was that Raea, now 9, did anything she could to avoid reading and writing. Though she had already had two eye exams, finding her vision was 20/20, this year a school reading specialist suggested another. And this time the ophthalmologist did what no one else had: he put his finger on Raea’s nose and moved it in and out. Her eyes jumped all over the place. Within minutes he had the diagnosis: convergence insufficiency, in which the patient sees double because the eyes cannot work together at close range. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Vision; Autism
Link ID: 10715 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CAROL W. BERMAN, M.D. My patient, a 37-year-old homemaker, gazed at the man in the red plaid shirt as he sat on the couch in her living room. “Who are you?” she asked. There was something familiar about him. He wore her husband’s boots, but the shirt made him look like a truck driver. “Yeah, and who are you?” the man replied with a laugh. “Come here and give me a kiss.” She gave the man a peck on the cheek, but she felt guilty, fearing that her husband would arrive at any moment and admonish her. Not only did the man want a kiss — he also wanted sex! Discouraging him, she sat down to talk. The man spoke just like her husband and knew personal facts about her. It occurred to her that her husband had been mysteriously replaced by this fellow. How it happened she had no idea; she knew only that it had. My patient had a history of schizoaffective disorder, similar to schizophrenia, but with more emotional range. And when she told me of this incident at her weekly visit the next day, I worried that her psychosis was recurring. “Have you been taking your medicine?” I asked. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 10714 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BENEDICT CAREY He knew his colors and shapes, he learned more than 100 English words, and with his own brand of one-liners he established himself in television shows, scientific reports and news articles as perhaps the world’s most famous talking bird. But last week Alex, an African gray parrot, died, apparently of natural causes, said Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a comparative psychologist at Brandeis University and Harvard who studied and worked with the parrot for most of his life and published reports of his progress in scientific journals. The parrot was 31. Scientists have long debated whether any other species can develop the ability to learn human language. Alex’s language facility was, in some ways, more surprising than the feats of primates that have been taught American Sign Language, like Koko the gorilla, trained by Penny Patterson at the Gorilla Foundation/Koko.org in Woodside, Calif., or Washoe the chimpanzee, studied by R. Allen and Beatrice Gardner at the University of Nevada in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1977, when Dr. Pepperberg, then a doctoral student in chemistry at Harvard, bought Alex from a pet store, scientists had little expectation that any bird could learn to communicate with humans, as opposed to just mimicking words and sounds. Research in other birds had been not promising. But by using novel methods of teaching, Dr. Pepperberg prompted Alex to learn scores of words, which he could put into categories, and to count small numbers of items, as well as recognize colors and shapes. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 10713 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ELISSA ELY, M.D. BOSTON — The patient’s decline was ruthless. He became forgetful in his early 50s. By the time he saw a neurologist a few years later, he could not recall how to write in cursive, and confused pictures of a cookie and a whistle, a bed and a sandbox. A few years after that, he could no longer dress himself or speak fluently, and had developed muscle jerks that required medication to control. Diagnostically, he showed symptoms of several types of dementia, but no hallmarks that would narrow the cause to only one. He died in his early 60s. On a Friday morning a week later, Dr. Jeffrey T. Joseph, a pathologist, was gazing at the patient’s brain, waiting for neurology residents to arrive and gaze with him. He pondered whether to begin the dissection with a traditional vertical slice down the height of the brain. “I might cut coronally, might cut horizontally,” he said, thoughtfully. “I haven’t decided yet.” From a distance, brain autopsies seem an afterthought on life. Insurance does not cover them. They serve no lucrative purpose, so hospitals have a financial disincentive to do them. As a result, the field of neuropathology is shrinking, and its atrophy may diminish the entire field of neurology. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 10712 - Posted: 06.24.2010