By Amy Norton NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Group therapy using a technique based on the theory of "cognitive dissonance" may help young women at risk of eating disorders, new research suggests. The study included 93 college women who responded to a call for women who were not satisfied with their bodies. Both interventions lasted about 6 weeks. The researchers found that group therapy, once-weekly for 6 weeks, relieved some of the students' body dissatisfaction, unhealthy eating habits and symptoms of anxiety. The other approach that was used -- yoga -- failed to spur any improvements, according to findings published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. However, the researchers note that 6 weeks was a relatively short period to learn yoga, and previous studies that found a relationship between yoga and a reduction in eating disorder symptoms included women who practiced yoga for about six years. The problem of "disordered eating" is common among college women. Though they fall short of an official eating disorder diagnosis, these women suffer from body dissatisfaction and fear of gaining weight, and often use unhealthy weight control measures like fasting, vomiting and laxative and diuretic abuse. Many go through cycles of binge-eating. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 10031 - Posted: 06.24.2010

When you bite into a meal, you're not just feeding yourself. Washington University microbiologist Jeff Gordon reminds us that the friendly bacteria in our intestines that help us extract energy from food, outnumber our own cells ten to one. "We never dine alone," says Gordon. "We have a vast community of microbes that benefit us and one of the ways they coexist and collaborate with us is by sharing nutrients." Microbes' help in harvesting and storing energy from food might have been beneficial in our early evolution. But in the modern era of large portions of high-calorie foods, that friendly assistance may not be so helpful. Now he and his team have evidence that our microbial partners play a role in obesity. "Part of the pathology of obesity is that our gut microbes in an obese state may have increased capacity to harvest energy," he says. The researchers discovered that obese mice have more of a certain type of bacteria, called Firmicutes, while lean mice had more of another type, Bacteroidetes. They also checked a small number of people and found a similar result. As they reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, when they engineered mice to lack any microbes, then fed them the equivalent of a fast-food diet, the animals didn't gain body fat. "Mice raised in the absence of any microbes, so-called germ-free mice are resistant to the obesity produced by a high fat, high sugar diet," Gordon says. © ScienCentral, 2000-2007.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 10030 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bruce Bower For the first time, researchers have observed wild chimpanzees making and using tools for hunting. What's more, it's mostly the female chimps and juveniles that adopt this style of attack, which occasionally nabs a small mammal that the chimp then eats. The discovery that tool-assisted hunting among chimps includes females and youngsters challenges the traditional idea that such behavior in people and their ancestors evolved as a solely male pursuit, say anthropologists Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University in Ames and Paco Bertolani of the University of Cambridge in England. Pruetz and Bertolani studied 35 chimps living at Fongoli, a savanna site in southeastern Senegal. Between March 2005 and July 2006, the researchers recorded 22 instances of tool-aided hunting. In these cases, individual chimps made spearlike tools out of tree branches and then thrust the implements into cavities in hollow tree trunks and branches where bush babies sleep during the day. Although most of the observed hunting attempts failed to snare the palm-size mammals, the investigators recorded one instance of a female chimp immobilizing a bush baby by jabbing it with a sharpened branch, pulling the animal out of its nest, and eating it. ©2007 Science Service

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 10029 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Two new studies from the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials for Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) provide more insights into comparing treatment options, and to what extent antipsychotic medications help people with schizophrenia learn social, interpersonal and community living skills. The new studies are published in the March 2007 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. CATIE, a $42.6 million, multi-site study, was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Comparing Newer Antipsychotic Medications After Older One Fails Quetiapine, and to some extent olanzapine, may be more effective than risperidone among patients who were originally taking, but had to discontinue, perphenazine — an older, first generation antipsychotic medication. However, patient responses varied considerably. “CATIE continues to fine-tune our understanding of how our arsenal of antipsychotic medications work in real-world settings, but it also is revealing to us what questions we still must address,” said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. Of the 257 patients who were initially randomized to perphenazine in the CATIE study, 192 discontinued the medication for various reasons, including ineffectiveness and intolerable side effects. Among those who discontinued, 114 agreed to be re-randomized to one of three newer antipsychotic medications — olanzapine, quetiapine or risperidone.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 10028 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have developed a fruitfly model that replicates the genetic instability seen in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, including spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) and Huntington's disease. The fly model carries the same genetic mutation that affects humans who have SCA3, a disorder that causes them to lose motor coordination. The researchers believe their model will provide insight into more than 30 additional human diseases, including fragile X syndrome, that are caused by similar genetic mutations. They have already used it to better understand drugs that are now being evaluated for the treatment of these diseases. In an article published March 1, 2007, in Science Express, the advanced online publication of the journal Science, the researchers say their findings suggest those drugs may confer a therapeutic “double whammy”—alleviating two effects of the toxic protein that causes neurodegeneration. The research team was led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Nancy Bonini and colleague Joonil Jung, who are both at the University of Pennsylvania. SCA3 and Huntington's disease arise when mutations in their respective genes cause the production of an abnormally long number of repeats of three nucleotides, also known as triplet repeats. The length of the “genetic stutter” of nucleotides can vary in each disease. For this set of diseases, the repeated nucleotide triplet encodes an amino acid called glutamine, and thus leads to a protein with an abnormally long glutamine string. The malformed protein is toxic to cells and causes neurological degeneration. © 2007 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Huntingtons; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 10027 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Using a state-of-the-art technique to map neurons in the spinal cord of a larval zebrafish, Cornell University scientists have found a surprising pattern of activity that regulates the speed of the fish’s movement. The research may have long-term implications for treating injured human spinal cords and Parkinson’s disease, where movements slow down and become erratic. The study, "A Topographic Map of Recruitment in Spinal Cord," published in the March 1 issue of the journal Nature, maps how neurons in the bottom of the fish’s spinal cord become active during slow movements, while cells further up the spinal cord activate as movements speed up. By removing specific neurons in the lower spinal cord with laser beams, the researchers rendered the fish incapable of slow movements. By removing nerves further up the backbone, the fish had difficulty moving fast. "No one had any idea that organization like this existed in a spinal cord," said Joseph Fetcho, a Cornell professor of neurobiology and behavior and an author of the study. "Now that we know the pattern, we can begin to ask how that changes in disease states." David McLean, Cornell postdoctoral researcher in Fetcho’s laboratory, was the first person to discover the pattern of neural activation and how it was associated with speed of movement. He is the lead author on the study.

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Parkinsons
Link ID: 10026 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Using a cognitive behavioral therapy called "prolonged exposure" appears more effective than "present-centered" therapy, a supportive intervention to treat female military veterans and active duty women with posttraumatic stress disorder, according to a study in the February 28 issue of JAMA. "Events such as the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the war in Iraq, and hurricane Katrina have focused attention on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder that can result from exposure to traumatic events like combat, rape, assault, and disaster. Posttraumatic stress disorder is characterized by symptoms of re-experiencing the traumatic event, avoiding reminders of the event or feeling emotionally numb, and a state of increased psychological and physiological tension. The disorder is associated with psychiatric and physical illnesses, reduced quality of life, and substantial economic costs to society", according to background information in the article. "Lifetime prevalence in U.S. adults is higher in women (9.7 percent) than in men (3.6 percent) and is especially high among women who have served in the military." There has been no prior study to evaluate treatment for PTSD in this group. Paula P. Schnurr, Ph.D., of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center for PTSD, White River Junction, Vt., and Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, N.H., and colleagues conducted a study to compare the effectiveness of two types of treatments for PTSD, prolonged exposure and present-centered therapy. Prolonged exposure is a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in which a patient is asked to vividly recount a traumatic event repeatedly until the patient's emotional response decreases and to gradually confront safe but fear-evoking trauma reminders.

Keyword: Stress; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 10025 - Posted: 03.01.2007

Heidi Ledford Tadpoles can achieve something that humans may only dream of: pull off a tadpole's thick tail or a tiny developing leg, and it'll grow right back — spinal cord, muscles, blood vessels and all. Now researchers have discovered the key regulator of the electrical signal that convinces Xenopus pollywogs to regenerate amputated tails. The results, reported this week in Development, give some researchers hope for new approaches to stimulating tissue regeneration in humans1. Researchers have known for decades that an electrical current is created at the site of regenerating limbs. Furthermore, applying an external current speeds up the regeneration process, and drugs that block the current prevent regeneration. The electrical signals help to tell cells what type to grow into, how fast to grow, and where to position themselves in the new limb. To investigate, Michael Levin and his colleagues at the Forsyth Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology in Boston, Massachusetts, sorted through libraries of drug compounds to find ones that prevent tail regeneration but do not interfere with wound healing. One such drug, they found, blocks a molecular pump that transports protons across cell membranes; this kind of proton flow creates a current. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 10024 - Posted: 06.24.2010

UNITED NATIONS: Up to one billion people suffer from neurological disorders including Alzheimer's, epilepsy and strokes, the World Health Organization said in a study released Wednesday. U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said the report by the Geneva-based WHO found that health systems need strengthening to better help people with the disorders. The report, "Neurological Disorders: Public Health Challenges," says that as many as 6.8 million people across the globe die every year as a result of ailments that affect the brain. At least 50 million people suffer from epilepsy, and 24 million are affected by Alzheimer's, brain injury, stroke and neuro-infections, the report said. About 326 million suffer from migraines. "Despite the fact that highly effective, low-cost treatments are available, as many as nine out of 10 people suffering from epilepsy in Africa go untreated," said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general for the WHO. The report pointed out that motorcyclists should wear helmets and car passenger should wear seat belts to prevent brain injuries. © 2007 the International Herald Tribune

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 10023 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Marlowe Hood, AFP — Frogs that began life as male tadpoles can be changed into females by estrogen-like pollutants similar to those found in the environment, according to a new study. The results may shed light on one reason up to a third of frog species around the world are threatened with extinction. The study is set to appear in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in May. In a laboratory at Uppsala University in Sweden, scientists exposed two species of frogs to levels of estrogen similar to those detected in natural bodies of water in Europe, the United States and Canada. The results were startling: whereas the percentage of females in two control groups was under 50 percent — not unusual among frogs — the sex ratio in three pairs of groups maturing in water dosed with different levels of estrogen were significantly skewed. Even tadpoles exposed to the weakest concentration of the hormone were, in one of two groups, twice as likely to become females. The population of the two groups receiving the heaviest dose of estrogen became 95 percent female in one case, and 100 percent in the other. © 2007 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 10022 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Perfectionists are more prone to developing irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) after an infection, a study has suggested. University of Southampton researchers asked 620 people with gastroenteritis about stress and their illness. Those who pushed themselves or were particularly anxious about symptoms were more likely to develop IBS. Experts said the study, published in Gut, may explain why only some people develop IBS after a gut infection. Up to one in 10 people develop it after a having a bacterial gut infection, having previously been healthy. Such infections cause inflammation and ulceration in the bowel and can cause severe vomiting and rectal bleeding. In this study, each person was checked three and six months after their initial bout of bacterial gastroenteritis to see if they had developed IBS symptoms such as diarrhoea, constipation, abdominal pain and bloating. In all, 49 people had IBS at both points. Women were more than twice as likely to have IBS as the men. Those with IBS were significantly more likely to have reported high levels of stress and anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms than those who did not develop the condition. They were also significantly more likely to be "driven", carrying on regardless until they were forced to rest, which the researchers say simply makes the initial condition worse and longer-lasting, potentially leading to IBS. (C)BBC

Keyword: Neuroimmunology; Stress
Link ID: 10021 - Posted: 02.27.2007

By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D. If lightning strikes once, then why not again? This irrational logic will tempt the victims of any senseless tragedy to believe in miracles, or so Portia Iversen assures us by way of explaining her long, determined slog toward a miracle of her own. Whether she actually found one or not, readers will have to decide for themselves. Iversen’s second son, Dov, was born in 1992, a normal baby who suddenly was not normal at all. Before he was a year old he was reacting strangely to noises and making strange noises of his own. At 3, nonverbal and mesmerized by objects, he was given a diagnosis of autism. By the time he was 8, Dov still could not talk and was virtually impossible to communicate with. The family home was jammed with his toys, therapists and aides, and Ms. Iversen and her husband had established a foundation to speed autism research. Then Ms. Iversen heard intriguing news about another autistic boy. In Bangalore, India, Soma Mukhopadhyay had single-handedly managed to teach her severely autistic son, Tito, to communicate with such sophistication that he was writing poetry on a laptop computer, and could articulate how it felt to be him. “Men and women are puzzled by everything I do,” Tito wrote. “My parents and those who love me are embarrassed and worried. Doctors use different terminologies to describe me. I just wonder.” Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 10020 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JANE E. BRODY The death of Libby Zion, an 18-year-old college student, in a New York hospital on March 5, 1984, led to a highly publicized court battle and created a cause célèbre over the lack of supervision of inexperienced and overworked young doctors. But only much later did experts zero in on the preventable disorder that apparently led to Ms. Zion’s death: a form of drug poisoning called serotonin syndrome. Ms. Zion, who went to the hospital with a fever of 103.5, had been taking a prescribed antidepressant, phenelzine (Nardil). The combination of phenelzine and the narcotic painkiller meperidine (Demerol) given to her at the hospital could raise the level of circulating serotonin to dangerous levels. When she became agitated, a symptom of serotonin toxicity, and tried to pull out her intravenous tubes, she was restrained, and the resulting muscular tension is believed to have sent her fever soaring to lethal heights. Now, with the enormous rise in the use of serotonin-enhancing antidepressants, often taken in combination with other drugs that also raise serotonin levels, emergency medicine specialists are trying to educate doctors and patients about this not-so-rare and potentially life-threatening disorder. In March 2005, two such specialists, Dr. Edward W. Boyer and Dr. Michael Shannon of Children’s Hospital Boston, noted that more than 85 percent of doctors were “unaware of the serotonin syndrome as a clinical diagnosis.” Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 10019 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Maia Szalavitz "Paradoxically liberating" is how Phil Schwarz has described his Asperger's syndrome diagnosis. He was in his late 30s at the time, and he had number of things on his mind: A software developer in Framingham, Mass., Schwarz had been labeled "gifted" as a child and had graduated third in his high school class. For years he had struggled with depression and a feeling that he was not living up to the promise of his past. What's more, he had begun to worry about his toddler's delayed language development and repetitive play style. But he had no idea how the diagnosis that his son Jeremy would receive might affect his own identity. Jeremy turned out to have a form of high-functioning autism. Later the same year, Schwarz received his own diagnosis with the related Asperger's syndrome. Only then did he realize that his long-standing difficulties with socializing, sensitivity to loud noises and bright light, and what he calls a "syncopated conversational style," were all related, both to one another and to being on the autistic spectrum. "It allowed me to make sense of everything through a new lens," says Schwarz, who is now vice president of the Asperger's Association of New England. © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Autism; Intelligence
Link ID: 10018 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer Everybody knows chocolate can be good for your love life, even if it's not so good for the teeth and waistline. Now there's another excuse to indulge: It may be good for your brain. Scientists funded in part by the Mars Inc. candy company delivered the not-unwelcome news Sunday morning during what was described as the first systematic review of chocolate's effects on learning and memory. A two-hour symposium on the neurobiology of chocolate, billed as a potentially "mind-altering experience," drew a standing-room-only crowd during the annual meeting in San Francisco of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Five years ago, a similar meeting popularized evidence suggesting that flavanols, a chemical found in the beans from which chocolate is made, have beneficial effects on cardiovascular health. Now it seems chocolate might do even more. Sunday's session wasn't sugarcoated, however: Experts cautioned that chocolate usually loses its flavanols during processing. The latest studies used a specially made laboratory drink extra-rich in flavanols. Flavanol-type nutrients also can be found in many fruits and vegetables, such as blueberries and pomegranates. Folk wisdom suggesting that darker chocolates contain more of the good stuff turns out to be false. © 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 10017 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Irene Klotz, Discovery News — Worrying about a math test will do more than set your stomach churning. Researchers say tying up the brain with stress-related emotions actually leaves less short-term memory available for computations. "Worry is more than a common complaint," said University of Nevada psychologist Mark Ashcraft. "It turns out it really does make a difference in how students are doing in math." The researchers found that highly proficient students are more susceptible to math stress than their lesser-able colleagues who typically turn to short cuts, such as guessing and estimating, to solve difficult math problems. When anxiety blocks working memory, however, the talented students are left with fewer resources to correctly answer questions. "They did them quicker but more incorrectly," said Sian Beilock, a University of Chicago associate professor in psychology. "All of a sudden they start looking for the short cuts." People with a high level of working memory depend on it heavily during problem solving, the researchers found. © 2007 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Stress
Link ID: 10016 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CAROLYN SAYRE Neuroscientists have long been convinced that the first few years of life are a crucial period for brain development--a time when connections between neurons are being forged at a prodigious rate as a baby learns to make sense of the external world. Interfere with that process, and you can cause permanent, irrevocable damage. If a child is born blind, for example, it's pretty much over by age 6. You can fix the eyes, and they might be able to perceive light and dark. Without the right visual circuitry in place, though, there's no way to form images--the essence of true sight. But then there's the patient known as S.R.D. Discovered by researchers four years ago in Ahmedabad, India, she was a 32-year-old, dirt-poor maid who had been born with severe cataracts. They were removed surgically when she was 12--and within a year, despite what neuroscientific dogma would have predicted, S.R.D. learned to see. Her case, described in the December issue of Psychological Science, is forcing scientists to rethink their long-held beliefs about vision. "There is a critical period for perfect acuity," says Pawan Sinha, associate professor of neuroscience at M.I.T. and a co-author of the paper. "But there is not a critical period for learning to do complex visual tasks." This surprising insight had its genesis in 2002 when Sinha traveled to his native India --where nearly half a million children suffer from blindness. Many of these cases would have been preventable with the proper medical care, and, says Sinha, "I wanted to help the children get treatment." So with funding from the National Institutes of Health, he launched Project Prakash (it means "light" in Sanskrit), a humanitarian initiative to help expand eye care in India. © 2007 Time Inc.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Vision
Link ID: 10015 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A large proportion of genetically caused deafness in humans may be reversible by compensating for a missing protein, based on discoveries in mice. Emory University researchers have found that in mice, increasing the amount of the protein connexin26 in the ear's cochlea compensates for an absence of another protein, connexin30. The findings come 10 years after scientists first discovered that connexin26 mutations cause much of the deafness diagnosed at birth. Xi (Erick) Lin, PhD, associate professor of otolaryngology and cell biology at Emory University School of Medicine, was lead author of the study, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/4/1337). "There are millions of deaf people affected by mutations in this one gene, connexin26," he says. "Congenital hearing loss is one of the most common human genetic birth defects, and that is why in almost all the states universal newborn hearing screening is mandated by law [including Georgia]." In people without congenital hearing loss, connexin26 and connexin30 work together to form the cochlea's hybrid junction gaps, which facilitate intercellular communication. But when one of the proteins is missing, the hybrid junction gaps fail to work, and the cochlea's hair cells die off, leaving the body incapable of translating sounds into nerve impulses.

Keyword: Hearing; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 10014 - Posted: 02.24.2007

Smoking cigarettes causes the same changes to the brain as using illicit drugs like cocaine, a study suggests. US researchers compared post-mortem brain tissue samples from smokers, former smokers and non-smokers. Their findings, published in Journal of Neuroscience, suggested smoking causes changes to the brain which are evident years after someone has quit. A UK expert said the changes might explain why smokers found it hard to stop - and why they then relapsed. The researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Nida) looked at samples of human brain tissue from the nucleus accumbens and the ventral midbrain - brain regions that play a part in controlling addictive behaviours. Eight samples were taken from people who had smoked until their deaths, eight from people who had smoked for up to 25 years before their death and eight non-smokers. All died of causes unrelated to smoking. The scientists looked at levels of two enzymes - protein kinase A and adenylate cyclase. Both translate chemical signals, such as dopamine, which exist outside the cells, into a form that can be understood inside. Smokers were found to have higher levels of these enzymes in the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain that processes information related to motivation and reward, which virtually all illicit drugs act upon. But levels of both enzymes were also found to be high in the area of the midbrain that responds to dopamine, which acts as a "reward chemical" in smokers and former smokers. (C)BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 10013 - Posted: 02.24.2007

By Nikhil Swaminathan Imagine being deep in conversation at a cocktail party, while all around you other guests are trading war stories and gossip. To make sense of all the noise (that is, properly process the scene and know where to focus one's attention), the brain has to take in and integrate all the sensory clues. Classical neuroscience dictates that information gathered by each sense is synthesized after being processed in proprietary areas. But, recent research suggests that the integration of signals must come earlier, so that, for instance, a face can be matched with a voice, a sound with a touch, a smell with a taste. A German research team is helping to overturn traditional theories by mapping the response to visual stimuli of distinct areas of the auditory (hearing) cortex in the brains of macaque monkeys. The scientists, who report their findings in this week's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, reveal that pockets in the rear of the region used for processing sounds actually show a heightened response to watching a video, even if the sound is muted. This phenomenon could possibly be part of an innate mechanism to localize the source of a sound and may be useful to scientists trying to combat conditions characterized by audition deficits, such as dyslexia. Christoph Kayser, a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, says that his team mapped the auditory cortex in monkeys, segmenting it into 11 fields based on the frequency of sound each section processes. "This allows us to search for what parts of the brain are generally activated by auditory stimuli," he says, "and to separate an auditory field—for example [the] primary auditory cortex from higher auditory fields." © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc

Keyword: Hearing; Vision
Link ID: 10012 - Posted: 06.24.2010