The harm caused by alcohol consumption among college students may exceed previous estimates of the problem. Researchers report that unintentional fatal injuries related to alcohol increased from about 1,500 in 1998 to more than 1,700 in 2001 among U.S. college students aged 18-24. Over the same period national surveys indicate the number of students who drove under the influence of alcohol increased by 500,000, from 2.3 million to 2.8 million. The new findings appear in the 2005 issue of the Annual Review of Public Health, now online at http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/loi/publhealth. "This paper underscores what we had learned from another recent study — that excessive alcohol use by college-aged individuals in the U.S. is a significant source of harm," said Ting-Kai Li, M.D., Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "The magnitude of problems posed by excessive drinking among college students should stimulate both improved measurement of these problems and efforts to reduce them," added the report's lead author Ralph W. Hingson, Sc.D, Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health and Center to Prevent Alcohol Problems Among Young People.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 7049 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jessica Ebert For the first time in recent history, researchers are predicting that the life expectancy of Americans may begin a sustained decline. The forecast is based on the sharp rise in obesity in today's youth. By the middle of this century, the increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer that they will face could lessen the average life expectancy by two to five years, some say. In general, longevity predictions are determined by studying historical trends in death rates. Various agencies, such as the US Social Security Administration (SSA), have used this method to predict that the life expectancy of Americans will continue to rise over the next century. But Jay Olshansky, a biodemographer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, argues that they ignore the effect of obesity on future generations. Instead of making predictions by studying what has happened in the past, Olshansky and a team of statisticians and demographers, "looked into the future by looking at today's younger generations," he explains. ©2005 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 7048 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Thomas H. Maugh II Times Staff Writer Texas researchers have found a possible link between autism and mercury in the air and water. Studying individual school districts in Texas, the epidemiologists found that those districts with the highest levels of mercury in the environment also had the highest rates of special education students and autism diagnoses. The study does not prove that mercury causes autism, cautioned the lead author, Raymond F. Palmer of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, but it provides a "provocative" clue that should be further investigated. "Mercury is a known neurotoxin," said Dr. Isaac Pessah of UC Davis' MIND Institute, who was not involved in the study. "It's rather intriguing that the correlation is so positive," meaning that there was a strong, direct relationship between mercury and autism levels. "It makes one worry." California has the highest environmental burden of mercury of any state in the country, and it also has what appears to be the highest rate of autism as well — although some critics attribute this perceived high rate to enhanced surveillance associated with the state's special education program. Autism is a severe developmental disorder in which children seem isolated from the world around them. There is a broad spectrum of symptoms, but the disorder is marked by poor language skills and an inability to handle social relations. Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Times

Keyword: Autism; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 7047 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New York University biologists have uncovered how the innate immune system in mice's brains fights viral infection of neurons. The findings, published as the cover study in the latest issue of Virology, show that proteins in neurons fight the virus at multiple stages--by preventing the formation of viral RNA and proteins, and blocking the virus' release, which could infect other cells in the brain. "There is no magic bullet in fighting viral infections in neurons," said NYU Biology Professor Carol Shoshkes Reiss, the study's senior author. "However, these findings show the redundancy of the immune system--when one response fails to fight infection, others step in." The study was also conducted at NYU, by a post-doctoral fellow, Mark Trottier, Jr., PhD, now at Michigan State, and Beth Palian, currently a doctoral student at the University of Southern California. Recently, the West Nile virus has been responsible for a viral encephalitis outbreak in the northeast. The NYU researchers set out to determine how the body can fight viral encephalitis. Specifically, they examined how type I interferons--proteins made by the body that are released in response to stimuli, notably infection--work in neurons and to determine if nerve cells' response to interferons is similar to that of other cells.

Keyword: Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 7046 - Posted: 03.17.2005

CHAPEL HILL -- Images of brain activity may hold clues to the onset of schizophrenia in people at high risk for the disease, according to a study headed by psychiatry researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. The new findings appear in the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, a journal of the American Medical Association. A decline in function in the prefrontal cortex, the "executive" or front part of the brain, is present in high-risk individuals experiencing early symptoms of schizophrenia and may reflect biological changes that precede the onset of diagnosable illness, the study indicates. Identifying such changes prior to disease onset also may prove useful in determining vulnerability to schizophrenia onset, particularly in those at high risk for the disease, the researchers said. "We know that individuals who experience symptoms that occur before the disease becomes full-blown demonstrate impaired performance in tasks requiring executive function, attention and working memory, but the neurobiological bases of this remains unclear," said Dr. Aysenil Belger, the study's senior author.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Brain imaging
Link ID: 7045 - Posted: 03.17.2005

Genes may help determine how religious a person is, suggests a new study of US twins. And the effects of a religious upbringing may fade with time. Until about 25 years ago, scientists assumed that religious behaviour was simply the product of a person's socialisation - or "nurture". But more recent studies, including those on adult twins who were raised apart, suggest genes contribute about 40% of the variability in a person's religiousness. But it is not clear how that contribution changes with age. A few studies on children and teenagers - with biological or adoptive parents - show the children tend to mirror the religious beliefs and behaviours of the parents with whom they live. That suggests genes play a small role in religiousness at that age. Now, researchers led by Laura Koenig, a psychology graduate student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, US, have tried to tease apart how the effects of nature and nurture vary with time. Their study suggests that as adolescents grow into adults, genetic factors become more important in determining how religious a person is, while environmental factors wane. The team gave questionnaires to 169 pairs of identical twins - 100% genetically identical - and 104 pairs of fraternal twins - 50% genetically identical - born in Minnesota. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 7044 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Janelle Miles A POPULAR treatment for jet lag may hold the key to preventing brain damage and death caused by oxygen starvation to babies during childbirth, Australian research suggests. Monash University scientists have shown giving pregnant sheep the hormone melatonin before depriving the foetus of oxygen can protect the lambs from brain damage which in human babies can result in cerebral palsy, learning difficulties and even death. The research by perinatal physiologist David Walker and others found the treatment caused no harm to the sheep or offspring. Associate Professor Walker said melatonin, secreted by the pineal gland, acted as a scavenger of free radicals, produced in the brain during periods of oxygen starvation. "Starving the brain of oxygen creates free radicals which cause cells to die," he explained. But the melatonin provided protection against brain damage after the Melbourne scientists blocked blood flow in the sheep's umbilical cords for a short period of time. Copyright 2005 News Limited.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 7043 - Posted: 03.17.2005

By SHIRLEY WON As the University of Toronto moves to end mandatory retirement at 65 for its professors and librarians, Brenda Milner says it's about time. "If you are attached to university life and the whole academic tradition, it's a little hurtful to be forced out of it just because of age," says the 86-year-old, full-time professor at Montreal's McGill University. "I know that people suffer a lot when they have to [retire] when they are still doing good work." Prof. Milner speaks from experience. A renowned professor of neuro-psychology at McGill's faculty of medicine and at the Montreal Neurological Institute, Prof. Milner says she was able to stay at work past 65 through a special concession granted by the university. Even now, she works a typical day that stretches from about 9 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m., although her hours are flexible. And about a year later, Quebec abolished its mandatory retirement law, which let her continue to stay on. "It would have been terrible" if she had had to retire, Prof. Milner says. Her work consists of a combination of lectures, research and writing.And she says she'll keep going as long as her work is "scientifically credible" and can continue to get her grants to do her research. © Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 7042 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Primitive structures deep within the brain may have a far greater role in our high-level everyday thinking processes than previously believed, report researchers at the MIT Picower Center for Learning and Memory in the Feb. 24 issue of Nature. The results of this study led by Earl K. Miller, associate director of the Picower Center at MIT, have implications about how we learn. The new knowledge also may lead to better understanding and treatment for autism and schizophrenia, which could result from an imbalance between primitive and more advanced brain systems. Our brains have evolved a fast, reliable way to learn rules such as "stop at red" and "go at green." Dogma has it that the "big boss" lobes of the cerebral cortex, responsible for daily and long-term decision-making, learn the rules first and then transfer the knowledge to the more primitive, large forebrain region known as the basal ganglia, buried under the cortex. Although both regions are known to be involved in learning rules that become automatic enough for us to follow without much thought, no one had ever determined each one's specific role. In this study, Miller, who is the Picower Professor of Neuroscience, and postdoctoral associate Anitha Pasupathy found that in monkeys, the striatum (the input structure of the basal ganglia) showed more rapid change in the learning process than the more highly evolved prefrontal cortex. Their results suggest that the basal ganglia first identify the rule, and then "train" the prefrontal cortex, which absorbs the lesson more slowly.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 7041 - Posted: 03.16.2005

Minor developmental delays early in life, like beginning to walk later than average, may forecast alcoholism, according to a new study. The authors suggest that such problems with early childhood brain development may in fact contribute to the disease. The brain's cerebellum plays a crucial role in motor development and the control of fine, coordinated movements such as walking and playing musical instruments. Some researchers have proposed that the region is also involved in impulse control and that a dysfunctional cerebellum may therefore predispose to addiction. This theory led pharmacologist Ann Manzardo of the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, to ask whether variations in early motor performance might predict alcoholism later in life. To test the theory, Manzardo's team analyzed data from a well-known Danish alcoholism study that followed 330 baby boys--two thirds of whom had alcoholic fathers--through their 40s. Looking at motor development and the frequency of alcoholism in the subjects at age 30, Manzardo and her team discovered that 77% of the alcoholics had not yet been able to walk at 12 months of age, compared to 43% of nonalcoholics. Copyright © 2005 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 7040 - Posted: 06.24.2010

PITTSBURGH--Adults may feel silly when they talk to babies, but those babies will learn to speak sooner if adults talk to them like infants instead of like other adults, according to a study by Carnegie Mellon University Psychology Professor Erik Thiessen published in the March issue of the journal Infancy. Most adults speak to infants using so-called infant-directed speech: short, simple sentences coupled with higher pitch and exaggerated intonation. Researchers have long known that babies prefer to be spoken to in this manner. But Thiessen's research has revealed that infant-directed speech also helps infants learn words more quickly than normal adult speech. In a series of experiments, he and his colleagues exposed 8-month-old infants to fluent speech made up of nonsense words. The researchers assessed whether, after listening to the fluent speech for less than two minutes, infants had been able to learn the words. The infants who were exposed to fluent speech with the exaggerated intonation contour characteristic of infant-directed speech learned to identify the words more quickly than infants who heard fluent speech spoken in a more monotone fashion. Thiessen's study may also explain why many adults struggle to learn a second language even though they are able to use their own language effortlessly. Children, after all, learn to speak practically from scratch, and most experts believe infants are more adept than adults at language learning.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 7039 - Posted: 03.16.2005

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – When you grab a piece of food and put it in your mouth, when you smile in response to the smile of a passerby or squint and grimace in anger, the complex pattern of movements that you make may be hard-wired into your brain. Scientists have long known that many of the behaviors of lower organisms are innate. In the insect world, for example, instinctive behaviors predominate. Birds have a larger repertoire of fixed behaviors than dogs. In primates, voluntary or learned behavior predominates, so neuroscientists have assumed that the hard-wiring in primate brains is limited to simple movements and complex behaviors are all learned. Now, however, studies are finding that a number of surprisingly complex behaviors appear to be built into the brains of primates as well. These are "biologically significant" behaviors that appear likely to improve the primate's ability to survive and reproduce. They include aggressive facial patterns, defensive forelimb movements, and hand-to-mouth and reaching-and-grasping movements.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 7038 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Neanderthals possessed strong, yet high-pitched, voices that the stocky hominins used for both singing and speaking, according to recent British news reports. The theory suggests that Neanderthals, who once lived in Europe from around 200,000 to 35,000 B.C., were intelligent and socially complex. It also indicates that although Neanderthals likely represented a unique species, they had more in common with modern humans than previously thought. Stephen Mithen, a professor of archaeology at Reading University, made the determination after studying the skeletal remains of Neanderthals. His work coincides with last week's release of the first complete, articulated Neanderthal skeleton. Information about the new skeleton is published in the current issue of the journal The Anatomical Record Part B: The New Anatomist. Mithen compared related skeletal Neanderthal data with that of monkeys and other members of the ape family, including modern humans. In a recent University College London seminar, Mithen explained that Neanderthal anatomy suggests the early hominins had the physical ability to communicate with pitch and melody. He believes they probably utilized these abilities in a form of communication that was half spoken and half sung. Copyright © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 7037 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Binge drinking could result in plummeting moods and impair cognitive performance, a new UK study of young alcohol drinkers suggests. And the research indicates that women are more affected than men. Getting drunk by downing large amounts of booze quickly, followed by days of abstinence can be considered as undergoing repeated alcohol withdrawal, say Theodora Duka at the University of Sussex, and Julia Townshend, now at Thames Valley University, both in the UK. This kind of withdrawal is known to affect cognitive ability and emotional responses in alcoholic patients, so the pair set out examine the effects of binge-drinking on these responses. "There is evidence that repeated, abrupt increases of alcohol levels in the brain, followed by abstinence, induces more damage in the brain than the same amount of alcohol taken uninterrupted in the same length of time," says Duka. The study found that young people whose questionnaires revealed them to be binge-drinkers were generally less upbeat than regular drinkers and did less well on short-term memory tests. "It also seemed to be the women binge drinkers that were worse affected," says Townshend. "The binge drinking population used to be mostly men and boys - but now they are very much being caught up by women. If it's the case that their cognitive function is more impaired then this is something to worry about." © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 7036 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It may be possible to develop a simple blood test to diagnose multiple sclerosis, scientists believe. MS is currently diagnosed through a combination of scans, tests and physical examination, and can be difficult to spot. But researchers found people with relapsing-remitting MS have a distinct pattern of proteins in their blood. The Wake Forest University study features in the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience. MS is a progressive disease of the central nervous system that affects the brain and spinal cord. Common signs can include fatigue, psychological changes, weakness or paralysis of limbs, numbness, vision problems, difficulties speaking or walking, bladder problems, and sexual dysfunction. Eventually, patients may become totally paralysed and wheelchair-bound. The Wake Forest team compared blood samples from 25 patients newly diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS with samples from 25 healthy people. Relapsing-remitting MS is the most common form of the disease, and is characterised by attacks interspersed with stable periods. The researchers found that the MS patients had a different pattern of proteins - and their building blocks, peptides - in their blood. Lead researcher Dr Jagannadha Avasarala said: "We found a distinct pattern in the MS group that revealed the existence of three markers for the disease. (C)BBC

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 7035 - Posted: 03.15.2005

By MARY DUENWALD Tysabri had been on the market such a short time that Jane Dentis was able to have only one intravenous treatment. But the drug seemed to diminish her symptoms of multiple sclerosis almost immediately. The persistent sensation of tremors - "like my whole body was shaking on the inside" - disappeared by the time she made the one-hour drive from Omaha to her home in Lincoln, Neb. Ms. Dentis, who is 40 and learned that she had M.S. four years ago, found Tysabri "absolutely miraculous," especially compared with the two other drugs she had tried. Two weeks ago, Tysabri was pulled off the market, and Ms. Dentis's doctors canceled her second monthly treatment. The companies that market Tysabri, Biogen Idec and Elan, halted sales and tests of the drug after two patients who had been taking it developed a rare but deadly neurological illness. The two, a man and a woman in their 40's, had been taking Tysabri, along with Avonex, an older multiple sclerosis treatment, for more than two years as part of a clinical trial. Both developed progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or P.M.L., an illness, usually fatal, that impairs nerve function. One has died. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 7034 - Posted: 03.15.2005

Animal trainer Mike Rueb always appreciates when people come into the Bide-A-Wee animal shelter to adopt a dog. But he knows the choice they make could go astray. “We want to make sure that it’s going to be compatible for the dog and for the owner. Otherwise it will be quite difficult for everybody involved.” Difficult because different dogs have different needs and often times people will choose a dog based simply on what they look like. University of Texas at Austin psychologist Sam Gosling thinks that's like marrying someone based on looks alone. He presented evidence at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., suggesting that dogs have distinct characteristics that make up personalities just like people, including energy, anxiety, intelligence and affection. “From our reviews of animal personality, we have seen that there are animal versions of these human traits,” says Gosling, who took a standard personality test for people and applied it to dogs. “This is a direct application of human methods. If I wanted to learn about your personality what I would do is I would ask people to tell me about you.” Gosling asked 78 people to rate their dogs on those traits, and then had strangers who observed the dogs do the same. He found strong agreement between these groups, and large personality differences even among dogs of the same breed. © ScienCentral, 2000-2005.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 7033 - Posted: 06.24.2010

When it comes to brains, it seems evident that bigger is better. But scientists are still debating just what the evolutionary benefit of having a big brain really is. Now, a study across a range of bird species suggests that a larger brain may confer at least one important advantage: being better able to survive in new, non-native environments. Compared to nearly all other mammals, including our primate cousins, we humans have the greatest brain size relative to our body mass. As for why, one popular hypothesis holds that enlarged brains--not just in humans but in other animals as well--are an adaptation to new or changed environmental conditions. Yet there has been little firm evidence for this idea. So recently an international team of researchers set about testing this hypothesis in birds, a class of animals with widely varying habitats and relative brain sizes. The team, which included biologists Daniel Sol of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Louis Lefebvre of McGill University in Montreal, analyzed a previously compiled global database that documents the results of 645 attempts by humans to introduce 195 bird species to entirely new locations, such as islands or different continents. The measure of success was whether the birds could establish a new, self-sustaining population. Copyright © 2005 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 7032 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tenn. – Laws and public policy will often miss their mark until they incorporate an understanding of why, biologically, humans behave as they do, scholars from Vanderbilt and Yale universities argue in the March issue of Columbia Law Review. “The legal system tends to assume that either people are purely rational actors or that their brains are blank slates on which culture and only culture is written. The reality is much more complicated and can only be appreciated with a deeper understanding of behavioral biology,” said Vanderbilt law professor and biologist Owen Jones. He co-authored the article with Timothy Goldsmith, Yale professor emeritus of molecular, cellular and developmental biology. All laws at their foundation are designed to influence human behavior, from how we interact with one another, to how we relate to our own property and that of others, to how government agencies interact with each other and with citizens, Jones said. When developing laws, legislators and legal scholars have traditionally relied heavily on the social sciences, such as economics, psychology and political science, often responding to the popular or political trends of their time. They have rarely looked to incorporate the latest findings from fields such as biology, neuroscience and cognitive psychology, which have grown exponentially in recent years and have shed brand new light on how the human brain is structured and how it influences behavior. Copyright 2004 Vanderbilt University

Keyword: Miscellaneous; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7031 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Deirdre Lockwood A brain scan developed in mice could herald a safe and affordable way to screen patients for Alzheimer's disease before they show any symptoms. Currently, doctors can diagnose the disease only after patients develop traits such as forgetfulness and confusion. But 10 to 20 years before these symptoms appear, toxic clumps of protein called amyloid plaques form in the brain. Researchers have characterized these tiny plaques in brain tissue after death, but they have struggled to capture images of them in living patients. Now Takaomi Saido and colleagues at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Wako City, Japan, have developed a way to view these plaques in the brains of live mice using MRI, a magnetic imaging technique widely available in hospitals. Previous MRI studies used signals from hydrogen, which occurs naturally in the body. But this made it hard to see the pinpoint-sized plaques against the background noise of other structures in the brain. ©2005 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 7030 - Posted: 06.24.2010