BOSTON- Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have compiled the first atlas showing the locations of crucial gene regulators, or switches that determine how different parts of the brain develop – and, in some cases, develop abnormally or malfunction. The scientists say the map will accelerate research on brain tumors and neurological diseases that result from mutations in these switch genes – called "transcription factors." When these genes are altered, the genes they control can go awry, causing abnormalities in the development or function of nerves and related structures. Although the gene regulators were pinpointed using mouse brains, the map applies to the human brain as well. "This is the first systematic mapping of all of the major brain areas that shows what regulatory genes are expressed in those specific locations," said Quifu Ma, PhD, of Dana-Farber's Cancer Biology Department. He is senior author of a paper appearing in today's online issue of the journal Science, along with Charles D. Stiles, PhD, also of Dana-Farber. Transcription factors are genes that control the expression, or activity, of "target" genes. These factors play a pivotal role in brain development by direction the formation of neurons and supporting cells called glia from uncommitted progenitor cells. Until now, brain transcription factors had not been systematically isolated and their locations within different parts of the brain pinned down.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 6617 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have discovered that a system in our brain which responds to actions we are watching, such as a dancer's delicate pirouette or a masterful martial arts move, reacts differently if we are also skilled at doing the move. The University College London (UCL) study, published in the latest online edition of Cerebral Cortex, may help in the rehabilitation of people whose motor skills are damaged by stroke, and suggests that athletes and dancers could continue to mentally train while they are physically injured. In the UCL study, dancers from the Royal Ballet and experts in capoeira - a Brazilian martial arts form - were asked to watch videos of ballet and capoeira movements being performed while their brain activity was measured in a MRI scanner. The same videos were shown to normal volunteers while their brains were scanned. The UCL team found greater activity in areas of the brain collectively known as the 'mirror system' when the experts viewed movements that they had been trained to perform compared to movements they had not. The same areas in non-expert volunteers brains didn't care what dance style they saw.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 6616 - Posted: 12.26.2004

Sudden cardiac death from emotional stress may be triggered by uneven signals from the brain to the heart, according to a study by University College London (UCL) scientists published in the January issue of Brain . UCL researchers have discovered that a system which normally coordinates signalling from the brain to different parts of the heart may be disrupted in some people, making them vulnerable to potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythms during mentally taxing tasks or emotional events such as family gatherings. This is particularly true of people who already have heart disease, but it is the brain that may be most responsible. The new study suggests that uneven brain activity, in a region where nerves link directly to the heart, seems to result in an uneven distribution of signals across the heart, which stops the heart from contracting normally. Around a third of the 300,000 sudden cardiac deaths which occur each year in the US arise from a blood clot in a major artery, which leads to a fatal heart attack. Mental stress is thought to be responsible for a further 20 per cent of these deaths, but scientists have been baffled by the exact mechanisms by which stress can bring on a fatal short-circuiting of the heart. Copyright © 1999-2004 UCL

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 6615 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Acupuncture provides pain relief and improves function for people with osteoarthritis of the knee and serves as an effective complement to standard care. This landmark study was funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), both components of the National Institutes of Health. The findings of the study — the longest and largest randomized, controlled phase III clinical trial of acupuncture ever conducted — were published in the December 21, 2004, issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine *. The multi-site study team, including rheumatologists and licensed acupuncturists, enrolled 570 patients, aged 50 or older with osteoarthritis of the knee. Participants had significant pain in their knee the month before joining the study, but had never experienced acupuncture, had not had knee surgery in the previous 6 months, and had not used steroid or similar injections. Participants were randomly assigned to receive one of three treatments: acupuncture, sham acupuncture, or participation in a control group that followed the Arthritis Foundation's self-help course for managing their condition. Patients continued to receive standard medical care from their primary physicians, including anti-inflammatory medications, such as COX-2 selective inhibitors, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and opioid pain relievers. "For the first time, a clinical trial with sufficient rigor, size, and duration has shown that acupuncture reduces the pain and functional impairment of osteoarthritis of the knee," said Stephen E. Straus, M.D., NCCAM Director. "These results also indicate that acupuncture can serve as an effective addition to a standard regimen of care and improve quality of life for knee osteoarthritis sufferers. NCCAM has been building a portfolio of basic and clinical research that is now revealing the power and promise of applying stringent research methods to ancient practices like acupuncture."

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 6614 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today that research investigators suspended, until further notice, the use of two drugs, naproxen (220 mg twice a day) and celecoxib (200 mg twice a day), in a large, three-arm, national Alzheimer’s disease prevention trial sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a part of the NIH. The trial, called the Alzheimer’s Disease Anti-Inflammatory Prevention Trial (or ADAPT) was designed to assess the potential benefit of long-term use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) — naproxen (Aleve™) and the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib (Celebrex™ ) in decreasing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease in people 70 years of age or older who were considered to be at increased risk because of family history, but did not have symptoms of the disease. Approximately 2400 volunteer participants were randomly assigned to receive naproxen, celecoxib, or placebo for periods of time up to three years. Although no significant increase in risk for celecoxib was found in this trial, the use of these drugs in the study was suspended in part because of findings reported last week from a National Cancer Institute (NCI) trial to test the effectiveness of celecoxib in preventing colon cancer. In addition, however, data from the ADAPT trial indicated an apparent increase in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events among the participants taking naproxen when compared with those on placebo. “This step is being taken as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of the study’s participants,” said NIH Director, Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. “The investigators made their decision based on the risk/benefit analysis specific to this trial,” added Dr. Zerhouni.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 6613 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ELIZABETH WOLFE WASHINGTON - Nearly three-fourths of older Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use, according to a poll done for the nation's largest advocacy group for seniors. More than half of those questioned said they believe marijuana has medical benefits, while a larger majority agreed the drug is addictive. AARP, with 35 million members, says it has no political position on medical marijuana and that its local branches have not chosen sides in the scores of state ballot initiatives on the issue in recent elections. But with medical marijuana at the center of a Supreme Court case to be decided next year, and nearly a dozen states with medical marijuana laws on their books, AARP decided to study the issue. "The use of medical marijuana applies to many older Americans who may benefit from cannabis," said Ed Dwyer, an editor at AARP The Magazine, which will discuss medical marijuana in its March/April issue appearing in late January. © 2004 The Associated Press

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6612 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By PAUL ELIAS, AP Biotechnology Writer IRVINE, Calif. - So far, not a single person has been helped by human embryonic stem cells. But in cramped university labs, a young neurobiologist with movie star good looks, a Carl Sagan-like fondness for the popular media and an entrepeneur's nose for profits is getting tantalizingly close. Hans Keirstead is making paralyzed rats walk again by injecting them with healthy brain cells sussed from a reddish soup of human embryonic stem cells he and his colleagues have created. Keirstead hopes to apply his therapy to humans by 2006. If his ambitious timetable keeps to schedule, Keirstead's work will be the first human embryonic stem cell treatment given to humans. "I have been shocked, thrilled and humbled at the progress that I have made," Keirstead, 37, said in an interview in his University of California-Irvine office, which is dominated by a 4- by 8-foot collage of famous rock stars created by his artist brother. "I just want to see one person who is bettered by something that I created." Keirstead has been turning stem cells into specialized cells that help the brain's signals traverse the spinal cord. Those new cells have repaired damaged rat spines several weeks after they were injured. For the last two years, he has shown dramatic video footage of walking healed rats to scientific gatherings and during campaign events to promote California's $3 billion bond measure to fund stem cell work, which passed in November. Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press. Copyright © 2004 Yahoo! Inc.

Keyword: Regeneration; Stem Cells
Link ID: 6611 - Posted: 06.24.2010

St. Paul, Minn. – Anger and other negative emotions may be triggers for ischemic stroke, according to a study published in the December 14 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study found that people who had strokes were more likely to have experienced anger or negative emotions in the two hours prior to the stroke than at the same time the day before the stroke. They were also more likely to have reacted quickly to a startling event, such as getting out of bed suddenly after hearing a grandchild fall down and cry or standing up from a chair quickly after hearing an unexpected loud noise. The people were also more likely to have experienced anger, negative emotions, or sudden changes in body position in the two hours before the stroke than they were, on average, in the year before the stroke. “We know a lot about risk factors that make people more likely to have a stroke in their lifetime, such as smoking and high blood pressure, but until now we haven’t had any information on what causes a stroke to occur at a particular time,” said study author Silvia Koton, PhD, MOccH, RN, of Tel Aviv University and the Israel Center for Disease Control. “These findings may help us understand how these triggers result in stroke. We can also investigate whether people at a high risk of stroke can make behavior changes. The possibility of preventive medications to lessen the risk of stroke among specific high-risk groups might also be studied.”

Keyword: Stroke; Emotions
Link ID: 6610 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have devised a way of checking brain fluid levels which they say should eventually reduce the need for painful lumbar punctures. The Southampton University team say the technique, which uses headphones linked to a computer, could be particularly useful in treating children. Existing methods for measuring pressure in the brain can be painful, hazardous and distressing, they say. Details of the research were presented to a Physiological Society conference. Doctors who need to measure fluid pressure currently only have the choice of carrying out a lumbar puncture - where a sample of cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the spinal cord is removed using a needle - or surgically implanting a pressure sensor in the head. The scientists say their research, which also involved experts in London, could offer a non-invasive aid to the diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as meningitis, head injury and sleeping disorders. They say the technology could also help monitor raised pressure in the brain and its potentially damaging effects in patients with conditions such as high blood pressure, people undergoing coronary bypass heart surgery, or patients who are in comas. They say it could even be used by astronauts in space. They experience changes to the fluid pressure to redistribute itself, causing space sickness and changes to understanding. The researchers have developed a device called a cerebral and cochlear fluid pressure (CCFP) analyser. The patient wears headphones with an earplug that is linked to a computer and monitors the fluid pressure in the brain. The CCFP analyser monitors brain pressure activity in the cochlear aqueduct, a small channel that connects the inner ear with the brain. Pressure waves from the brain are transferred through the minute structures within the ear and can be measured at the ear drum. (C)BBC

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 6609 - Posted: 12.18.2004

PHILADELPHIA -- Are we ready for a future where brain scans invade our private thoughts? Will we have to alter our brains chemically to keep competitive at our jobs? Could science determine that "souls" do not exist, and, if so, what does that mean for how we think of ourselves as human beings? The cover story in this month edition of the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, released today, tackles these questions about the growing influence of neuroscience on 21st-century life. University of Pennsylvania researcher Martha Farah outlines advances in knowledge about the brain and how new technology enables us to monitor and manipulate it. "What the late 20th century was for molecular genetics a time of great scientific breakthroughs and unprecedented ethical challenges the early 21st century is proving to be for neuroscience," said Farah, a professor in Penn Department of Psychology and director of Penn Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. "There is so much activity in this area now, it has gotten its own name, separate from bioethics more generally. It called 'neuroethics.'" Copyright © 2004, University of Pennsylvania

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 6608 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Is the pain relief that magnetic bracelets appear to provide to people with conditions like osteoarthritis just one more example of the placebo effect? Probably, suggests the latest study. Attracted by the promise of cheap, safe pain relief, people around the world spent an estimated $5 billion on magnetic bracelets in 1999. "The public wants medication with no side effects," says Mark Caselli of the New York College of Podiatric Medicine in the US, who has carried out work on the possible use of magnets to treat heel pain. Even if they do work, many questions remain unanswered, including what strength magnet is best, which conditions can be treated and how regularly the bracelet should be worn. But studies to answer these questions are hampered because people can easily determine whether they been given have a real magnetic bracelet or non-magnetic placebo - either their bracelet sticks to their keys, or it does not. To try to tackle this problem, a study led by Tim Harlow of the College Surgery in Cullompton, Devon, UK, used a second type of control bracelet. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 6607 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Devices to monitor and correct abnormal heart beats could prevent unexpected epilepsy deaths, researchers suggest. As many as 1,000 cases of Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) occur each year in the UK. Some are thought to be due to spells of irregular heart rate during seizures, which can be missed by routine checks. An implant can continuously monitor the heart and show which patients need a pacemaker, the University College London team told the Lancet. Professor John Duncan's team at the Institute of Neurology fitted 20 epilepsy patients with the loop recording device, which monitored heart rhythms for up to 22 months. Heart rhythms were recorded during 377 of a total of 3,377 seizures reported by the patients. The implants, inserted just above the heart, picked up eight episodes of serious drops in heart rate during the seizures. Four patients, who were subsequently given pacemakers, all experienced periods in which the heartbeat ceased temporarily or went very slowly. In three of these instances the heart irregularity would have been fatal had they not been fitted with the pacemaker, the researchers believe. Professor Duncan said: "Most of the cardiac events detected by the device would not have been picked up during routine ECG monitoring, meaning these loop recorders offer a substantial improvement in spotting potentially fatal heart arrhythmias in these patients. (C)BBC

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 6606 - Posted: 12.17.2004

By BENEDICT CAREY Scientists studying depression reported yesterday that they had found evidence that a common genetic variation affecting how people manage stress predicts how much benefit they get from taking antidepressants. Psychiatrists have long known that about half the people found to be suffering from depression also show signs of elevated anxiety. Researchers have tried to explain the correlation, as well as why the same drugs can relieve both conditions. In the new study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, doctors from Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles, treated with drugs a group of 54 Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles who were both depressed and highly anxious. (Limiting the study to one demographic group was a control tool.) They found that 60 percent of the group had a common genetic variant that helps govern the body's response to stress. The researchers found that after being treated with antidepressants, patients with the genetic variation were far less anxious and depressed than when they began the study, said the lead author, Dr. Julio Licinio of the Neuropsychiatric Institute of the University of California. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 6605 - Posted: 12.17.2004

SINGAPORE--Fears that escapee zebrafish, genetically engineered to glow in fluorescent color, would interbreed with their drab brethren in the wild, may be unfounded. A study presented at the Biology in Asia conference here last week suggests that the mutant fish don't shine with sex appeal. The zebrafish Danio rerio, native to streams in southern Asia, is normally silvery-grey with dark stripes. But in the 1990s, scientists in Taiwan and Singapore genetically modified strains with genes from jellyfish and anemones, giving the fish a green or red "glow" under UV or even visible light. Originally developed to aid in the detection of water pollutants (with a switch gene added, the fish would glow whenever the target pollutant was in the water), these and similar fish have been popular in the aquarium trade in the U.S. since late last year, with the red variety marketed under the name GloFishTM. But environmentalists have expressed concern that the modified fish will escape and interbreed with wild zebrafish, particularly in their native tropical Asia. Wee-Khee Seah, Zhiyuan Gong, and Daiqin Li of the National University of Singapore made aquariums where a normal or green fluorescent zebrafish female would be confronted with the choice between a normal and a glowing green male behind glass. They found that both types of female spent more than 80% of their time with their noses glued to the glass of the unaltered males' compartments, with the green males jealously courting in vain. Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 6604 - Posted: 06.24.2010

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- New research provides the strongest evidence to date that infants and young children – unlike adults -- are more drawn to sounds than they are to visuals in their environment. In fact, when 4-year-olds are presented with sounds and pictures at the same time and told to pay particular attention to the pictures, they can’t – the sounds dominate their attention. “We found that sounds are dominant over visuals from infancy, and only slowly through childhood do visuals become more important,” said Vladimir Sloutsky, professor in the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State University. “The younger the children are, the more dominant their auditory system seems to be.” Earlier work by Sloutsky and his colleagues also showed this preference for sounds over visuals among children. But this new research offers a clearer picture of the nature of this auditory preference and how it changes over time.

Keyword: Hearing; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6603 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi Mice living in exciting environments still produce reliable and reproducible results when used in scientific experiments, according to a new study. The finding suggests that researchers could offer their lab animals more interesting surroundings. Previous work has shown that mice living in standard, barren cages may suffer greater stress or exhibit abnormal repetitive behaviours1. This uninspired housing has caused concerns over animal welfare, and the validity of experiments. Stress, for example, is known to interfere with learning and memory, as well as the immune system. But regardless of this, scientists have hesitated to add exciting elements to mouse cages for fear that doing so would influence the precision and reproducibility of test results. Although the reluctance is widespread, not everyone believes in this logic. "There have been no data substantiating these fears," says Hanno Würbel, an ethologist at the University of Giessen in Germany. He and a team of researchers decided to investigate whether enriched cage environments compromised experimental outcomes. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 6602 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People's brains react to a photograph of a frightened face, even when it is flashed on a screen too quickly to be consciously recognized, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The team at Columbia University in New York found responses in the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with emotional responses, as well as the attention and vision regions of the cerebral cortex. "What we think we've identified is a circuit in the brain that's responsible for enhancing the processing of unconsciously detected threats in anxious people," said Amit Etkin, who led the study. "Our study shows that there's a very important role for unconscious emotions in anxiety," Etkin said. Many studies have shown people register subliminal images -- those flashed on a screen too quickly to be noticed consciously. Writing in the journal Neuron, the researchers said they used high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging, a way of scanning brain activity in real time, on 17 undergraduate university students. While the volunteers were looking at a computer, the researchers displayed a fearful face on the monitor for 33 milliseconds, immediately followed by a similar neutral face. Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited. Copyright © 2004 Yahoo! Inc.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 6601 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Sparrows can piece together a complete song by only hearing parts of it, scientists have found. The findings could help researchers establish how memory works in humans, especially in relation to how we learn languages. Professor Gary Rose, of the University of Utah, US, found that white crown sparrows learned a complete song, in the correct order, despite only ever hearing overlapping segments of it. It is hoped that working in this way with groups of young sparrows will shed light on the mechanisms of memory and learning. "The experiment was set up to determine whether or not birds could produce a normal song, having only heard components of the song - having never heard the whole song," Dr Rose told the BBC World Service. "That was to test something specific with respect to the representation of the memory of the song - is the memory a full account of a song in its normal cadence, or is the memory little bits of snippets?" he said on the Science In Action programme. Dr Rose taught the birds by playing back segments of the song twice a day. He took the original song - recorded from a sparrow in the field - and used a computer to fragment it. When played back, each bird was acoustically isolated from the others. "It wouldn't have been of much interest if they couldn't put it together - but they did," he said. "Our hypothesis was that if we provided information about the linkages between phrases... then the birds could potentially use that information to reconstruct the song." Each segment ended with an overlap to the beginning of the next. This overlap was the information the sparrows needed to piece the song together. (C)BBC

Keyword: Hearing; Language
Link ID: 6600 - Posted: 12.16.2004

By ANDREW POLLACK The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new sleeping pill that some specialists say could pave the way for longer-term use of such medications. The drug, developed by Sepracor, a pharmaceutical company in Marlborough, Mass., will be called Lunesta. It had been called Estorra during its development, but the F.D.A. deemed that name too similar to that of another drug. Spokesmen for the company and the F.D.A. confirmed the approval last night. The F.D.A. now recommends that sleeping pills be used for no longer than 7 to 10 days. That is because there are concerns that the pills can lose effectiveness over time or become addictive. But Sepracor had participants in a clinical trial take Lunesta for six months and found that it did not lose its effectiveness and remained generally safe. David Southwell, Sepracor's chief financial officer, said in an interview yesterday, before the company had received its approval, that the drug's label would not contain the usual language about restricting use to 7 to 10 days. If that were the case, doctors would be more willing to prescribe Lunesta for longer periods, doctors said. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 6599 - Posted: 12.16.2004

Researchers have known that mutations in a key gene called parkin are a major cause of Parkinson's disease (PD). Now they have discovered a new mechanism by which the parkin gene can be compromised, a finding that they say could lead to new drugs for the disorder. Andrea Lozano, Senior Scientist at the Toronto Western Research Institute, of University Health Network and Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto and colleagues found that the protein produced by a gene called BAG5 inhibits parkin activity and the action of another protein, called Hsp70, a "chaperone" that works with parkin. They found in studies with rats that BAG5 enhances the death of the dopaminergic neurons targeted by Parkinson's and that inhibiting the gene reduces such death. Parkin is part of the cell's "garbage disposal" system that rids the cell of unwanted proteins by degrading them. Mutations of parkin eliminate its ability to chemically "tag" such proteins to designate them for destruction in the cell's proteasome--a process called ubiquitinylation. Loss of such ability causes such protein garbage to aggregate into lethal clumps in neurons--a hallmark of many neurodegenerative diseases. In the brain, the parkin protein works with Hsp70, which helps correct the folding of misfolded proteins.

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 6598 - Posted: 12.16.2004