Scientists strive to piece together the complete person David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor The history of medicine is filled with tales of bold surgeons replacing human body parts with artificial ones and of even bolder patients living with them. Artificial hearts are already beating tentatively in a few brave people, and biomedical engineers are constantly improving artificial limbs. Dozens of high-tech projects are under way that draw on the latest computer technology, synthetic materials and miniaturization methods. But the history of bionic efforts goes back for thousands of years: ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 2103 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Learn how Pinocchio felt (without having to lie) By Eric Haseltine How do you know how long your nose is? Perhaps you just feel how far it protrudes every time you twitch it or flare your nostrils. Or, you might have palpated your proboscis enough times to take its measure. Finally it's possible that you simply know the size of your shnozz by instinct. This last explanation, although elegant, is unsatisfying because it implies that your brain is born knowing how much your various body parts will grow. Given the variability of nutrition, disease and other factors that strongly influence growth, the brain cannot know a priori how big you will be. Recent research shows we not only have to learn-as-we grow about the size of our bodies, but that these learned perceptions can be altered in an astonishingly short time. © Copyright 2002 The Walt Disney Company. Back to Homepage.

Keyword: Vision; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 2070 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Barbara Feder Ostrov San Jose Mercury News Fifty years ago, physician-supply catalogs carried sugar pills and tonics in many shapes and colors. Known as placebos, these were sham medicines, inert substances that sometimes made sick patients feel better, especially when they came from a kindly, authoritative family doctor. Physicians no longer dispense sugar pills, of course. But the placebo effect remains a powerful force in modern medicine, a mysterious victory of mind over body that seems to flout the cherished objectivity of medical science. New brain-imaging studies show for the first time how and where the placebo effect kindles changes in the brain, renewing interest in the topic. Researchers are searching for ways healers can work with, rather than against, the effect to help patients. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 2051 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Surprising effects triggered deep in neural network Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer Brain surgeons are no longer content with mere cutting or burning. Now,they are increasingly turning to implanted electrical devices -- battery- powered pacemakers for the brain -- to tweak faulty neural circuits. Electrical stimulation, or "neuromodulation" as the technique is called, is frequently used for Parkinson's and other movement disorders, and spinal cord stimulation is an accepted option for intractable back and limb pain. Now, the approach is moving into new territory following the discovery that a little electrical stimulation, judiciously applied, can have some surprising effects. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 2021 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer An ordinary antibiotic slowed the progression of Lou Gehrig's disease in mice, suggesting a potential new approach for treating people, researchers report. The disease, formally known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, attacks nerve cells that control movement. As these cells degenerate, an affected person becomes progressively paralyzed. Most cases appear between the ages of 40 and 70, and death follows an average of four years after symptoms appear. The antibiotic, minocycline, was shown recently to prolong the lives of mice with a version of Huntington's disease, another neurodegenerative disorder. It is now being tested against Huntington's in people. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 2015 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Even simple movements, such as picking up food to eat, can disappear when an accident or injury causes the loss of a limb or damage to the spinal cord. Now, following years of research, scientists have developed systems that can bypass the loss or damage by directly interpreting an animal's brain signals and launching movement in robotic limbs. The advances may lead to new ways to help disabled people regain mobility. Zip, zap, zing. Pure mental power propels a robotic arm to reach out and clutch an apple. This scenario once seemed more relevant to a science fiction movie script than a scientific study. But over the past three decades a better understanding of how the brain controls movement urged many scientists to seriously scrutinize the notion of thought-driven artificial limbs. Most recently researchers translated their knowledge into the development of systems that can interpret an animal's brain signals and launch movement in robotic devices. The new advances are leading to: Copyright © 2002 Society for Neuroscience

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 2010 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius A Brooklyn-based research team has wired a rat's brain so that someone at a laptop computer can steer the animal through mazes and over rubble. The research gives a glimpse of the possibilities for training animals by sending cues and rewards directly to their brains, says Sanjiv Talwar of the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center. In the May 2 Nature , he and his colleagues predict their accomplishment could inspire novel approaches to land mine detection or search-and-rescue missions. The project grew out of research to develop new types of prostheses for paralyzed people that will use electric impulses sent directly to and from the brain. In 1999, coauthor John Chapin and his colleagues at the medical center demonstrated that signals from a rat's brain could move a robotic arm. From Science News, Vol. 161, No. 18, May 4, 2002, p. 276. Copyright ©2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 2008 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Desire drives remote-controlled rodents. TOM CLARKE Remote-controlled rats could soon be detecting earthquake survivors or leading bomb-disposal teams to buried land mines. Signals from a laptop up to 500 metres away make the rats run, climb, jump and even cross brightly lit open spaces, contrary to their instincts. The rodents carry a backpack containing a radio receiver and a power source that transmits the signals into their brains through electrical probes the breadth of a hair. "They work for pleasure," says Sanjiv Talwar, the bioengineer at the State University of New York who led the research team. One electrode stimulates the rat's medial forebrain bundle, or MFB, the 'feelgood' centre of the mammalian brain. "The rat feels nirvana," Talwar says. Talwar, S. K. et al. Rat navigation guided by remote control.. Nature, 417, 37 - 38, (2002). © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 1992 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By RICK CALLAHAN, Associated Press - By implanting electrodes in rats' brains, scientists have created remote-controlled rodents they can command to turn left or right, climb trees and navigate piles of rubble. Someday, scientists said, rats carrying tiny video cameras might search for disaster survivors. "If you have a collapsed building and there are people under the rubble, there's no robot that exists now that would be capable of going down into such a difficult terrain and finding those people, but a rat would be able to do that," said John Chapin, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at the State University of New York in Brooklyn. The lab animals aren't exactly robot rats. They had to be trained to carry out the commands. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 1987 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Brian Reid Special to The Washington Post Ten years ago, researchers stumbled onto a striking finding: Women who believed that they were prone to heart disease were nearly four times as likely to die as women with similar risk factors who didn't hold such fatalistic views. The higher risk of death, in other words, had nothing to with the usual heart disease culprits -- age, blood pressure, cholesterol, weight. Instead, it tracked closely with belief. Think sick, be sick. That study is a classic in the annals of research on the "nocebo" phenomenon, the evil twin of the placebo effect. While the placebo effect refers to health benefits produced by a treatment that should have no effect, patients experiencing the nocebo effect experience the opposite. They presume the worst, health-wise, and that's just what they get. © 2002 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 1980 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Mississippi's illegal roach killer excites attention. HELEN PEARSON The brain centre targeted by traces of a widely used pesticide has been identified by US researchers. The finding could help explain symptoms seen in people exposed to the pesticide in their homes. Several years ago, some US homes were sprayed illegally with the crop pesticide methyl parathion, known to be toxic at high doses. Evidence has since emerged linking the exposure to anxiety, sleeplessness and depression in people living in the houses. Low levels of the 'cotton poison' may affect a brain centre involved in sleep-wake cycles, memory and anxiety, Hong Zhu revealed at the Experimental Biology 2002 meeting in New Orleans on Monday. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 1946 - Posted: 06.24.2010

DENVER, COLORADO--Every month, more than 6 million women in the United States suffer a migraine headache at the start of menstruation. Now, investigators believe they've identified a molecule that plays a key role in prompting the migraines. In the early 1980s, researchers determined that menstrual migraines were triggered by the sudden drop in estrogen levels that occurs just before menstruation begins. However, they had little idea how changing hormone levels triggered the headaches. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 1943 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Francesco Fiondella, BioMedNet News When nerves are severed by spinal cord injury, a tangle of long and branched molecules forms around them like "overgrown shrubbery," as one expert puts it, and prevents the damaged fibers from regenerating. Researchers now say that selectively pruning this molecular growth with chemicals results in "modest but significant" nerve regeneration in rat models, according to published and unpublished findings presented this week. A class of molecules known as chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans (CSPGs), a protein called Nogo, and another called myelin associated glycoprotein (MAG) are among the most studied of this molecular shrubbery shown to inhibit nerve regeneration. © Elsevier Science Limited 2002

Keyword: Regeneration; Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 1930 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent AN EXPERIMENTAL treatment for Parkinson's disease has regenerated the brains of five people with the condition. One of the patients has learned to laugh again and has regained his sense of smell. Although the results are preliminary, and have yet to be published, doctors believe the procedure could offer hope to Britain's 120,000 sufferers. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Trophic Factors
Link ID: 1913 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The muscle destruction associated with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), the most common childhood form of muscular dystrophy, is halted in mice when supplemental amounts of a naturally occurring enzyme are added to the skeletal muscle. These results from researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine are published in the April 16, 2002 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Muscle wasting associated with DMD was inhibited after the UCSD team added an enzyme called CT GalNAc transferase to skeletal muscles in mice bred to develop DMD. Normally, CT GalNAc transferase is expressed in another area of the muscle, the neuromuscular junction, where nerves send impulses to muscle fiber. The UCSD team was able to re-position the enzyme so that it was available in the DMD-vulnerable skeletal muscle, which is the structural tissue that supports body movement. Copyright ©2001 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Muscles
Link ID: 1896 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Myasthenia gravis finding may lead to cure and shine light on other autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis GALVESTON, Texas-Researchers here have identified a critical element in the molecular process responsible for the neuromuscular disease myasthenia gravis. The discovery could lead to a possible cure for the muscle-weakening disease and to important insights into other autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, lupus and multiple sclerosis. Myasthenia gravis, which afflicts about 36,000 Americans, causes a loss of muscle strength, which at worst can make even the smallest movements difficult. It occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks molecules called acetylcholine receptors that muscle cells use to receive chemical signals from nerves. In an article appearing April 15 in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, scientists Premkumar Christadoss, Huan Yang, Elzbieta Goluszko, Teh-Sheng Chan and Mathilde Poussin, all of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB), pinpoint the specific part of the human acetylcholine receptor that evokes the strongest response from the human immune cells initiating such "friendly fire" attacks. Copyright © 2001, 2002 The University of Texas Medical Branch.

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 1865 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service A man with Parkinson's disease whose own neural stem cells were extracted from his brain, grown in the lab, and re-implanted a few months later has shown improvement in his symptoms a year after the transplant, a team of neurosurgeons announced on Monday. The significance of the experiment is still unclear, since only one patient has undergone the procedure and a longer follow-up must be done to assess the real benefits. But if additional transplants confirm the improvement seen in the first patient, the technique might rival, and possibly outshine, other cell-based therapies under investigation. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Stem Cells
Link ID: 1835 - Posted: 06.24.2010

As a Google user, you're familiar with the speed and accuracy of a Google search. How exactly does Google manage to find the right results for every query as quickly as it does? The heart of Google's search technology is PigeonRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. Building upon the breakthrough work of B. F. Skinner, Page and Brin reasoned that low cost pigeon clusters (PCs) could be used to compute the relative value of web pages faster than human editors or machine-based algorithms. And while Google has dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of our service on a daily basis, PigeonRank continues to provide the basis for all of our web search tools. Why Google's patented PigeonRank™ works so well PigeonRank's success relies primarily on the superior trainability of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia) and its unique capacity to recognize objects regardless of spatial orientation. The common gray pigeon can easily distinguish among items displaying only the minutest differences, an ability that enables it to select relevant web sites from among thousands of similar pages. ©2002 Google

Keyword: Vision; Robotics
Link ID: 1802 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The case has long baffled medical researchers. The years following World War II saw a sharp rise in the incidence of a rare brain disease called lytico-bodig among the Chamorro people of Guam. Until 1970, the disease--whose effects include dementia, the slow paralysis associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and the tremors of Parkinson's disease--struck more than a hundred times more often than other types of ALS elsewhere. New research suggests that the consumption of toxin-laden bat meat was to blame. The leading hypothesis had focused on flour ground from toxin-containing seeds of cycad plants. However, lab animals that were fed the flour failed to develop neurological disease. In the March 26 issue of Neurology, ethnobotanist Paul Cox, director of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kalaheo, Hawaii, and neurologist Oliver Sacks of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City point the finger at another possible culprit. They blame the Chamorros' consumption of "flying foxes," bats that ingest large quantities of the seeds and store the toxins in their fat. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 1797 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Gunjan Sinha Almost everybody gets pleasure from some kind of pain. Some people like their food so hot it makes them sweat; others get off on the "burn" that comes from a hellacious workout. Scientists, meanwhile, are hard at work figuring out why some things hurt so good. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have discovered that the part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which lights up when people feel pleasure, also does so when they feel pain. This, says David Borsook, one of the study's authors, proves that there's a bona fide intersection between pain and pleasure. Copyright © 2002 Popular Science.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Emotions
Link ID: 1787 - Posted: 06.24.2010