Tracy Staedter, Discovery News — Forget the remote control — scientists are learning how to let you control a robot with signals straight from your brain. Eventually, the technique could lead to semi-autonomous robots able to assist disabled people or perform routine tasks in the home. "We're using a well-known, well-characterized response that occurs in the brain to control a physical device in the world," said research leader Rajesh Rao, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. That brain "response" is the same one triggered whenever you lose and then find your car keys, said Rao. As you scan tables, desks and bureaus for lost keys, you're focused on a mental image of them. When you finally spot your keys, your brain's reaction is known to scientists as a P300 response ("P" is for positive and 300 for the number of milliseconds it takes your neurons to produce the reaction). The P300 response is strong and distinctive, and therefore can be picked up by external sensors. And because it is such a well-characterized response, it can be used reliably again and again. Rao and his team wrote software that allows a computer to recognize the P300 response, and use it to guide a robot. © 2007 Discovery Communications Inc

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 9831 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Erin Wayman Being colorblind can be a good thing. Researchers studying capuchin monkeys in the forests of Costa Rica have shown that colorblind individuals are better at detecting camouflaged insects than are those that see a wider spectrum of colors. The finding is the first evidence from the wild that colorblindness confers advantages during foraging. Capuchin monkeys and other New World monkeys of Central and South America vary in their ability to see color. Some capuchins, for example, have dichromatic vision--or are red-green colorblind--and see the world in shades of blue and yellow, whereas others have trichromatic vision similar to that of humans, allowing them to distinguish red, orange, yellow, and green. Biologists have long thought that better color vision is, well, better, especially because primates ostensibly use color to determine the ripeness of fruit, for example. So why has colorblindness persisted in these populations? The answer may lie in tasks that don't depend on seeing in color. Experimental evidence from both humans and captive monkeys shows that being colorblind is useful when trying to identify a camouflaged object, so Amanda Melin, a graduate student at the University of Calgary in Canada, and her colleagues set out to test this in wild monkeys. They spent 9 months following two groups of capuchins in Santa Rosa National Park in Costa Rica, observing the dietary habits of 34 monkeys. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 9830 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin Of all the ingredients that make up the ideal female form, it isn't the most obvious winner. But researchers claim that, for enduring popularity down the ages, nothing beats a narrow waistline. A team in the United States surveyed accounts of female beauty in British literature from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and found that the only feature that consistently got authors' pulses racing was a slender midriff. "The waist does not sound an intuitively sexy body part," admits Devendra Singh of the University of Texas, Austin, who led the study. But nevertheless, it was the one thing on which the hundreds of writers surveyed seemed to be unanimous. They didn't even agree on whether large breasts, that modern staple of sexual attractiveness, are nice or not. A preference for a slim waist is also found in first-century Indian writings and fourth-century Chinese works, Singh's team previously found. The popularity of a slender middle might be due to what it reveals about a woman's health and fertility, Singh says. Healthiness is associated with low levels of abdominal fat, and high levels of female sex hormones such as oestrogen pinch the waistline and give the body an hourglass shape. Singh and his colleagues scanned a database containing some 345,000 works of British and American literature, selecting only older British writings, and cross-referenced terms such as 'waist', 'breast', 'hips' and 'buttocks' with words such as 'plump' and 'slim'. They report their results in Proceedings of the Royal Society B1. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 9829 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bigger brained birds have a better chance of survival, according to a study that looked at the mortality rates of 200 bird species around the world. Daniel Sol at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain and colleagues looked for a correlation between two factors. The first factor was the birds' mortality – a measure of how likely individuals are to survive from one year to the next using data from tagged birds – and their brain-to-body-weight ratio. Statistical analysis showed that birds with bigger brains relative to their weight were more likely to survive, which could explain why birds with small brains, such as pheasants, find it harder to avoid a moving car than those with larger brains, such as magpies. The finding may seem intuitive, but it is not necessarily about birds with bigger brains being “smarter” than others. In fact, Sol is not sure what makes bigger-brained birds more likely to survive, but reckons it has something to do with their ability to better adapt to changes to their environment. This idea is called the "cognitive buffer hypothesis" and was originally put forward to explain why animals – humans included – have evolved larger brains, despite the resource cost of developing and maintaining that brain. Previous research suggests that species with larger brains have more flexible behaviours, Sol says. Indeed, in 2005 he and colleagues observed birds inventing new foraging behaviours to adapt to changing environments: swallows feeding on insects attracted to street lights, for instance, or birds adopting new types of food (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, DOI:10.1073/pnas.0408145102). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 9828 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Trusting your instincts make help you to make better decisions than thinking hard, a study suggests. University College London found making subconscious snap decisions is more reliable in certain situations than using rational thought processes. Participants in the study were given a computer-based task and performed better when they were given less time to make their decisions. The psychological research is published in Current Biology. Ten volunteers were showed a computer screen covered in over 650 identical symbols, including one rotated version of the symbol. There were asked to decide which side of the screen the rotated image was on. Given a fraction of a second to look at the screen, the subjects were 95% accurate. But when they were allowed to scrutinize the image for over second, they were only 70% accurate. Dr Zhaoping, of UCL's Department of Psychology said: "This finding seems counter-intuitive. You would expect people to make more accurate decisions when given the time to look properly." The researchers said that in their test, the instinctive decisions were more likely to be correct because the subconscious brain recognised a rotated version of the same object as different from the original, whereas the conscious brain could identify the two objects as identical, albeit in different orientations. (C)BBC

Keyword: Emotions; Attention
Link ID: 9827 - Posted: 01.09.2007

By Jane Hughes A project that has helped a small group of autistic children understand more about human emotions is being launched nationwide. The project uses cartoons narrated by the actor Stephen Fry to help teach the youngsters about facial expressions. People with autism often struggle to identify and understand feelings, and to look others in the eye. Denis Murphy, six, is one of those who has been taking part, and his family have already noticed changes in him. He is typical of a child with autism because he is fascinated by trains and cars, but finds it much harder to relate to human emotions. That may be because vehicles have very predictable motion, while people are far more unpredictable. The DVD animation series, named The Transporters, capitalises on this fascination with vehicles by grafting real people's faces onto cartoons of vehicles. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen is director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University. He said: "We've got to somehow find a way to get autistic children to overcome their fear of looking at people's faces so that they can start learning about how expressions arise. This is a way to ease them into reading faces." Denis began watching the cartoons before Christmas. He was asked to look at them for 15 minutes every day over the course of four weeks. But the first time he saw them, he liked them so much, he watched all 15 five minute episodes at once. Each episode introduces the idea of new emotions, like happiness, anger, fear, kindness and pride. (C)BBC

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 9826 - Posted: 01.09.2007

The binge-eating disorder bulimia may, in some cases, be linked to a sex hormone imbalance, research suggests. Bulimia is normally viewed as a mental condition and treated with psychological therapies. However, Dr Sabine Naessén, from the Karolinska Institutet suggests some women with the condition may have too much of the male hormone testosterone. Half the bulimics treated for this imbalance reported less hunger, and fewer cravings for fatty, sugary food. Dr Naessén claims that three out of 21 bulimics treated this way became completely free of the eating disorder. Bulimia involves compulsive overeating, and is probably the most common form of eating disorder. It is approximately 10 times more common in women as men. Normal treatments involve cognitive behavioural therapy, psychological counselling which looks to uncover deep-rooted causes for problems. Antidepressants are often prescribed for the illness. However, some outward signs of hormonal imbalance were apparent in a group of 77 bulimics examined by Dr Naessén. The bulimics were more likely to report menstrual problems, excess body hair, and polycystic ovarian syndrome than women without the eating disorder. The theory was tested in 21 women who had outward signs of hormone imbalance, and were given the a version of the contraceptive pill containing the female sex hormone oestrogen. (C)BBC

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 9825 - Posted: 01.09.2007

By Kara Baskin I'm 27 years old, newly married, happily employed -- and, for two months this fall, I was petrified to leave my house. I have panic disorder. According to statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), panic disorder afflicts roughly 6 million Americans, and women are twice as likely to suffer from it as men are. The attacks usually begin in one's 20s. Trembling, sweating, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, chest tightness and nausea are a few of the symptoms that come on like a lightning storm, out of the blue. I know. I'm a textbook case: My first attack happened a week before my graduation from college. I was in bed, painting my nails bright red, when my heart began racing. I had the sensation that I was watching myself from above -- not alive but not quite dead. (I'd later learn that a sense of dreamlike unreality -- depersonalization -- is a hallmark of panic.) I wondered at first if I were being punished for drinking too much at a party the night before. Perhaps someone had spiked my drink. (Nobody had.) What if I were actually dying? (I wasn't.) This is panic's flailing logic. Other sufferers I know count coins to ground themselves; some clean out their closets. Back then, when the attacks were new to me, I used to match celebrities with their home towns. (I recall murmuring, "Rosie O'Donnell, Merrick, Long Island," repeatedly.) © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 9824 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By KATIE ZEZIMA EAST BURKE, Vt. — Amber Powers, 13, thought about sleep only when she didn’t get enough, which was most of the time. A trip to a remote barn here, however, left her spending many of her waking hours mulling over the time she spends sleeping. The barn’s owner, Dr. J. Allan Hobson, a psychiatry professor and sleep researcher at Harvard Medical School, has converted part of it into a small, interactive sleep museum that students visit after four weeks of lessons on brain function and sleep. Dr. Hobson is working with the Caledonia North school district in the northeast corner of the state to develop a sleep curriculum that he hopes to eventually distribute nationwide to different grade levels. The museum is a resurrection of Dreamstage, a multimedia exhibition on sleep and dreams that Dr. Hobson took on an international tour from 1977 to 1982. The museum includes a sleep chamber, a small, windowed room where subjects sleep as their brain rhythms are recorded; a preserved brain; and multimedia presentations about the brain and dreams. It is also, in many ways, a showcase for the brain as a work of art, with scientists’ detailed sketches and a framed painting of a human brain. Dr. Hobson, 73, said the museum “won’t truly be a public institution,” but rather an opportunity for students to supplement classroom lessons with a three-dimensional view of the brain and its activities, helping them grasp its complexity and its functions. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 9823 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Noreen Parks Once spawned, reef fish larvae are at the mercy of the ocean's currents, which propel them far from their birthplaces. At least that was the theory. New evidence, however, indicates that some reef fish species recognize the odor of their natal reef and use it to sniff their way home. This behavior may help explain the incredible biodiversity of fish seen on the ocean's reefs. Biologists have had a tough time explaining how reef fish have become so biodiverse, considering that larval dispersal should scatter relatives far from each other. New species form when populations become isolated from one another and develop their own genetic identities over time. In order for this to occur, the subpopulation must have enough genetically similar members--such as close relatives--who can interbreed. Biologists Gabriele Gerlach and Jelle Atema of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, wondered if these fish were somehow able to find their way back to home reefs and their closest kin. Drawing on previous studies, which showed that juvenile salmon "imprint" on odors associated with their native streams, the team tested the homing ability of three species of reef fish living on five closely spaced reefs of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The researchers captured late-stage larval fish of each species, including the spiny damselfish and a cardinalfish, that were either freshly settled, or about to settle, at various reef sites. Using a specially constructed flume, they then exposed each fish to water samples from the different reefs and compared how long it spent in water from its home reef versus that of the other reefs. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 9822 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ST. PAUL, Minn -- Women with chronic headache, especially migraines, are more likely to be depressed, feel tired, and have a host of other severe physical symptoms, according to a study published in the January 9, 2007, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study involved 1032 women at headache clinics in five states. Of the women surveyed, 593 reported episodic headache (fewer than 15 headaches per month) and 439 had chronic headache (more than 15 headaches per month). Ninety percent of the women were diagnosed with migraines. The study found women with chronic headache were four times more likely than those with episodic headache to report symptoms of major depression. Chronic headache sufferers were also three times more likely to report a high degree of symptoms related to headache, such as low energy, trouble sleeping, nausea, dizziness, pain or problems during intercourse, and pain in the stomach, back, arms, legs, and joints. Among patients diagnosed with severely disabling migraine, the study found the likelihood of major depression increased 32-fold if the patient also reported other severe symptoms. "Painful physical symptoms may provoke or be a manifestation of major depression in women with chronic headache, and depression may heighten pain perception," said study author Gretchen Tietjen, MD with the University of Toledo-Health Science Campus and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "This relation between migraine and major depression suggests a common neurobiology."

Keyword: Depression; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 9821 - Posted: 01.09.2007

By CARA BUCKLEY MAYBE some people are more hard-wired for heroism than others. Like, for example, Wesley Autrey, the man behind a stunning rescue last week in a Manhattan subway station. People wondered, because they had asked themselves, “Could I have done what he did?” and very often the answer was no. Mr. Autrey, 50, a construction worker and Navy veteran, leapt in front of a train to rescue a stranger who had suffered a seizure and fallen onto the tracks. He covered the stranger’s body with his own as the train passed overhead. Both men lived. Mr. Autrey, who left two young daughters on the platform when he jumped, later chalked up his actions to a simple compulsion to help another in distress. But is there something in Mr. Autrey that the rest of us lack? Probably not, experts say. Except for sociopaths, humans are built to feel and act out of empathy, said Stephen G. Post, a professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University’s medical school and co-author of “Why Good Things Happen to Good People,” scheduled to be published in May. Social support has always been important to survival, and people with strong social networks thrive more than those who are isolated. New science also suggests that people have “mirror neurons,” which make them feel what someone else is experiencing, be it joy or distress. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 9820 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By D.T. MAX One Tuesday last fall I sat in on a positive-psychology class called the Science of Well-Being — essentially a class in how to make yourself happier — at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. George Mason is a challenge for positive psychologists because it is one of the 15 unhappiest campuses in America, at least per The Princeton Review. Many students are married and already working and commute to school. It’s a place where you go to move your career forward, not to find yourself. The class was taught by Todd Kashdan, a 32-year-old psychology professor whose area of research is “curiosity and well-being.” Kashdan bobbed around the room or sat, legs dangling, on his desk beneath a big PowerPoint slide that said “The Scientific Pursuit of Happiness” as he took the students, a few older than he, through the various building blocks of positive psychology: optimism, gratitude, mindfulness, hope, spirituality. Though the syllabus promised to “approach every topic in this class as scientists” and the assigned readings were academic, the classroom discussion was Oprah-ish. The students seemed intrigued by the research Kashdan presented mostly in relation to their own lives. The focus of Kashdan’s class that day was the distinction between feeling good, which according to positive psychologists only creates a hunger for more pleasure — they call this syndrome the hedonic treadmill — and doing good, which can lead to lasting happiness. The students had been asked first to do something that gave them pleasure and then to perform an act of selfless kindness. They approached the first part of the assignment eagerly. One student recounted having sex with her boyfriend 30 feet underwater while scuba diving. Another said he “went to Coastal Flats and got hammered.” A third attended a Nascar race in North Carolina, smoked, drank and had sex. Some also watched favorite TV shows; others chatted with friends. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 9819 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nikhil Swaminathan After seven years of toiling, scientists at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Harvard School of Medicine report they have isolated stem cells from a new source: amniotic fluid. The researchers not only succeeded in separating the progenitor cells from the many cells residing in the watery fluid in the placenta surrounding an embryo, but were also able to coax the cells to differentiate into muscle, bone, fat, blood vessel, liver and nerve cells. According to lead author Anthony Atala, director of Wake Forest's Institute of Regenerative Medicine, 99 percent of the U.S., population could conceivably find genetic matches for tissue regeneration or engineered organs from just 100,000 amniotic fluid samples. In its research, the team isolated stem cells via amniocentesis--a common procedure performed about 16 weeks into pregnancy during which amniotic fluid is drawn to test for genetic disorders in a fetus--as well as from the placenta after birth. The researchers write in their paper--published in this week's Nature Biotechnology--that stem cells make up 1 percent of all the cells in amniotic fluid samples. "It's been known for decades that there are cells in amniotic fluid," Atala says. "The embryo is constantly shedding all these cells, as it's developing, to the amniotic fluid. The baby's actually breathing in, swallowing the fluid, and it's all coming out through all the pores and gets trapped in the placenta." © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 9818 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Better data on the long-term effects of anti-obesity drugs is needed before more widespread use of the therapies, a Canadian study says. Researchers said such drugs would become more important in the future to combat the growing obesity crisis. But the University of Alberta Hospital said in the Lancet that data on drugs already in use was limited particularly over cardiovascular outcomes. They said there should be better testing of anti-obesity therapies. The team analysed articles published over the last six years on three drugs - hunger suppressant sibutramine, orlistat, which restricts the absorption of fat, and rimonabant, a relatively new drug being targeted at people with diabetes. They said the long-term impact of the drugs was not clearly known with side effects including increased blood pressure and pulse rate for sibutramine and mood-related disorders for rimonabant reported. The three drugs are used in the UK - where one in five adults are classed as obese - although they are restricted for clinically obese people or those at risk through conditions such as diabetes. Doctors normally only prescribe them in tandem with exercise and dietary regimes and they are not often used for longer than a year. But the researchers said as the obesity crisis escalates, as it is predicted to do, clinicians will have to increasingly rely on drug treatment programmes. Lead researcher Raj Padwal said: "In light of successful weight-loss treatments and the public health implications of the obesity pandemic, the development of safe and effective drugs should be a priority." But he said trails should show reductions in both weight loss and clinical outcomes "should be required either before these drugs are approved for widespread use or as a condition for on-going approval". (C)BBC

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9817 - Posted: 01.06.2007

By Alison Snyder Fasting to start the New Year may also kick off a complex cascade of chemical interactions that keep brain cells alive and appetites up in the absence of food. Until now, researchers believed that neurons or nerve cells survived fasting thanks to leptin, a hormone secreted by fat when the body is starved. But a new study suggests that the process is actually similar to another mechanism in the body linked to obesity and diabetes, and could provide insight into the molecular processes behind those conditions. Neurobiologists at Yale University School of Medicine recently found that the thyroid hormone triiodothyronine increased in fasting mice, activating an "uncoupling" protein that disrupts the breakdown of food into energy. In turn, the number of mitochondria, the cellular factories that convert food into energy, increased in neurons responsible for stimulating appetite. When the ravenous mice were fed, they ate more food than they needed. On the other hand, says Sabrina Diano, lead author of the study published in this months issue of Cell Metabolism, there was no increase in mitochondria in fasting mice that lacked the uncoupling protein, and they ate less than their littermates when food was reintroduced to them. Diano says the findings suggest that the uncoupling protein's effect on mitochondria in brain cells plays a critical role in regulating the neurons that direct energy metabolism. The dysfunctional mitochondria in the brain may also be important players in obesity and diabetes, conditions that are influenced by the ability of mitochondria to metabolize food into energy in muscle, liver and other tissue in the body. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 9816 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Elizabeth Pennisi PHOENIX, ARIZONA--Shipwrecked sailors shouldn't drink ocean water no matter how thirsty they get. And neither should sea snakes. Contrary to the current dogma, at least some of these serpentine mariners must have freshwater to survive. Research shows that without it, at least one group of sea snakes--and likely others--will gradually waste away, researchers reported here yesterday at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. The need for access to fresh water may limit where these snakes can live, explaining their patchy distribution along certain coastlines. All organisms must work to keep dehydration in check. Kidneys concentrate urine to conserve water, and many marine animals have special adaptations for getting rid of the excess salt taken in from the surrounding environment. Sea snakes--dozens of species of which live in the open ocean, while a few others hang out inshore--have a gland under their tongues for this purpose. Researchers have long assumed that this gland worked so well that the snakes could get away with sipping salt water whenever they needed a drink. But Harvey Lillywhite, an ecological physiologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, began to suspect otherwise when he had trouble keeping file snakes, which live almost fulltime in the ocean, alive in his lab. He discovered the snakes did fine once he put them in fresh water and began to wonder if the same was true of other marine snakes. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 9815 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Greg Miller Call your dog's name, and he may picture your face. That's the conclusion of a new study that suggests a canine has more than treats on his mind when summoned by his master's voice. In the 10,000 years or more since domestic dogs diverged from their wolf ancestors, man's best friend has developed a variety of social skills to help him get along with people. Compared to wolves and even apes, for example, dogs excel at interpreting human gestures--especially ones that convey the location of hidden food (Science, 22 November 2002). Cognitive scientist Ikuma Adachi and colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan suspected that dogs also might have evolved the ability to form mental images of individual humans. To investigate, the researchers recruited 28 pooches and their owners. In each experimental session, the dog's owner or another familiar person positioned the dog about a meter away from a computer monitor hidden behind a screen. Then, the researchers played a recording of either the owner or a stranger saying the dog's name five times through speakers in the monitor. Finally, the researchers removed the screen to reveal a still image of either the owner's face or the face of a stranger. Video cameras recorded the dogs' reactions. When the owner's voice preceded the owner's face, dogs looked at the screen for about 6 seconds on average. The same was true when the researchers paired a strange voice with a strange face. But when a stranger's face followed the owner's voice (or vice versa), the dogs spent an extra second or two staring at the monitor, suggesting that they realized something was amiss, Adachi says. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 9814 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tom Simonite Tutoring software that knows when students' are losing interest in a lesson and can adjust to keep them on track is being tested by researchers in China and the UK. The system keeps track of students' attention by measuring physical signs of emotion. It then varies the speed and content of a lesson based on an assessment of their level of interest. Ultimately, it could improve electronic tutoring programmes, say the researchers involved, thus helping developing countries deliver education to remote areas that lack educational institutions. "In China, they are around 300 universities short of demand," says Vic Callaghan, a researcher from Essex University, UK, who co-developed the system with Liping Shen from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and others. "They are very interested in using e-learning to educate students over large distances." Shanghai Jiao Tong University already supplies video streams of lectures and presentation material via the internet, as well as software that lets students interact with a distant lecturer by voice or text through a computer. "But these systems are unable to take into account the needs and response of the student in the same way a teacher in a classroom can," says Callaghan, "that's what we are trying to do, by making a system that can sense emotion." © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Attention; Emotions
Link ID: 9813 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The link between binge drinking and depression is stronger in women than men, a study suggests. US and Canadian researchers quizzed 6,009 men and 8,054 women about alcohol intake and their history of depression. They found women who were binge drinkers were more likely to be clinically depressed than men. But moderate drinking was not likely to increase the risk in either sex, the journal, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, reported. The study measured alcohol intake for the previous week and the last year, including the frequency of drinking, how much was usually drunk each time and the maximum, overall quantity and whether there were periods of binge drinking. Depression was also measured for the study and defined as whether a person met the criteria for clinical depression, or had experienced recent depressed feelings. The research, carried out by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Canada and the University of North Dakota, said the difference between men and women was noticed only in those suffering from clinical depression. The researchers believe that could be because women suffering major depression drink as a way out of their problems. Professor Sharon Wilsnack, from the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, said: "This pattern of associations is more consistent with women using alcohol to counteract depression - by high-quantity drinking and intoxication - than with chronic alcohol consumption tending to make women depressed. However, a vicious circle could possibly begin with drinking in response to depression." (C)BBC

Keyword: Depression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9812 - Posted: 01.04.2007