University of Utah scientists taught baby sparrows to sing a complete song even though the birds were exposed only to overlapping segments of the tune rather than the full melody. The study provides clues about how musical memories are stored in the brain and how those memories help birds learn to sing. The results also may have implications for how people learn language, says Gary J. Rose, a University of Utah professor of biology and principal author of the study published in the Dec. 9 issue of the journal Nature. "There are strong parallels between song learning in birds and speech learning in humans," he says. "Like humans, songbirds learn particular regional dialects, so they represent excellent opportunities to study the physiological basis of language. If we can understand something about how song is represented in their brains, then maybe we can better understand how speech learning occurs in humans and, when it goes awry, how we might go about fixing it." Study co-author Stephanie Plamondon, a doctoral student in neuroscience, added: "We were able to give the birds just pieces of the song, and they were able to assemble a complete song from those pieces. … A full song or a complete sentence isn't required to learn the song, only an association between phrases [segments] of the song."

Keyword: Language; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 6557 - Posted: 12.09.2004

Why is it that we can look at something, know what it is and still call a rose by a different name? Breaking from conventional wisdom, new research suggests that it isn't a rushed pace or distraction that makes us slip up, but rather a hiccup in how we plan what we're going to say that messes things up. People usually look at things before they name them. For instance, before they say "a hammer," they look at the hammer for a second. But what about when they see a hammer and unintentionally call it "an axe"? Zenzi M. Griffin, Georgia Institute of Technology, assumed people made the mistake when they didn't look at the hammer long enough, which could reflect rushed word preparation, forgetting to check the name they had mentally prepared against the object, or paying too much attention to other objects. But Griffin discovered that people who say "axe" when they mean "hammer" look at the hammer just as long as they do when they say "hammer." However, they look at the hammer longer after they call it "an axe," apparently as they prepare to correct their mistake. In her study, "The Eyes Are Right When the Mouth Is Wrong," Griffin concluded that, as with a gesture, a person's gaze may accurately reflect what he intends, even if his words do not. The study will be published in the December issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the American Psychological Society.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 6556 - Posted: 12.09.2004

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — A forthcoming book claims that the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was a homosexual, based on evidence ranging from a post-assassination interview with Lincoln's stepmother to a poem about gay marriage written by the Civil War leader. The book, entitled "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln," will be published on Jan. 11 by The Free Press, a Simon & Schuster company. It was authored by C.A. Tripp, associate professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York, and a researcher who worked closely with Alfred Kinsey on studies concerning human sexuality. Tripp died at the age of 83, just two weeks after finishing the book, which he worked on over the last 14 years of his life. To argue his case that Lincoln (1809-1865) was gay, Tripp gathered biographical texts contemporary to Lincoln's time, private correspondence, and other books and documents culled from his database of more than 600 Lincoln-related texts, which now are housed at the Lincoln Institute in Springfield, Ill. Copyright © 2004 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 6555 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DAN NEPHIN, Associated Press Writer PITTSBURGH - A researcher studying sleep for NASA (news - web sites) has found the body has more difficulty adjusting to different sleep times than previously thought. The space agency has been advising astronauts to begin going to bed two hours later than normal over a period of time to prepare for their desired sleep schedule, according to Timothy Monk, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center psychiatry professor who is leading a study to find the best way to shift sleep cycles. That may not be the best approach, however. "There's no doubt that changing your biological clock is difficult," Monks said Tuesday. "What we're trying to do here is basically address the question of how you cope with something that is difficult." Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press. Copyright © 2004 Yahoo! Inc.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 6554 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer British health officials advised doctors yesterday not to prescribe antidepressants for about 70 percent of the patients who show up complaining of depression without first trying exercise, self-help, talk therapy or just waiting a couple of weeks to see if they got better. In issuing new treatment guidelines for doctors, the British regulators and a standards-setting panel said patients with mild depression who are able to go to work and function normally, even if they complain of symptoms such as a lack of interest in things, low energy, dark mood, difficulty sleeping or difficulty concentrating, should avoid widely used antidepressants at first because of the possibility of side effects and withdrawal symptoms. The regulatory panel is the same one that last year triggered a major reevaluation of the use of antidepressants in children after it concluded that the drugs were associated with an increased risk of suicidal tendencies in children. The recommendations that the drugs not be used as first-line treatment for mild depression are the latest evidence that some experts are reexamining the widespread enthusiasm for the medications. © 2004 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 6553 - Posted: 06.24.2010

What can cellular neuroscientists learn about the human brain from studying a marine snail? Much more than one might suspect. "On a cell biological level, the mechanisms of learning and memory are identical, as far as we can tell," said David Glanzman, a UCLA professor of physiological science and neurobiology, whose research has strengthened the view that the human brain and that of a snail named Aplysia are surprisingly similar. "Human brains have many more neurons than the Aplysia's, but it doesn't look like there is any difference on a molecular or synaptic level. "When this animal learns," Glanzman said, "many changes take place in its nervous system. I want to understand what causes these changes for certain forms of learning; I want to understand everything there is to understand. This knowledge will inform us about the kinds of changes that take place in our brains when we learn." Glanzman's quest for this knowledge will be helped by his selection in November as one of eight scientists awarded the prestigious Senator Jacob Javits Award in the Neurosciences, which provides up to seven years of research funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The Jacob Javits Award is presented to investigators who have "demonstrated exceptional scientific excellence and productivity in research areas supported by the NINDS and who are expected to conduct cutting-edge research over the next seven years."

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 6552 - Posted: 12.08.2004

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — An electrode-covered hat can translate brain waves into computer commands, a non-invasive thought decoder that could someday let the disabled communicate by using their brains alone, according to a new study. The hat may someday also be used to operate word processing programs or control movement of a robotic prosthesis. The study is published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jonathan Wolpaw, lead author of the study and chief of the Laboratory of Nervous System Disorders at the Wadsworth Center within the New York State Department of Health and the State University of New York, described the mind-reading hat to Discovery News. "It looks sort of like a light-weight elastic version of an old-fashioned rubber swimming cap, with small metal disks that are connected by a ribbon cable to EEG amplifiers and the computer," Wolpaw said. Copyright © 2004 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 6551 - Posted: 06.24.2010

COLLEGE STATION, Dec. 7, 2004 - Teen-agers suffering from bulimia may in fact be fighting a two-front war, coping with the effects of a devastating eating disorder while struggling with a chronic form of depression, reveals research by Texas A&M University psychologist Marisol Perez, who says the finding has critical implications for the way the disorder is treated. Often masked by the bulimia itself, dysthymia - a lower-level, chronic form of depression - is often present in bulimics and may even predispose them to the eating disorder, shows the research by Perez and her colleagues Thomas E. Joiner Jr. of Florida State University and Peter M. Lewinsohn of the Oregon Research Institute. Dysthymia, Perez explains, is different from the more familiar major depression in terms of its duration, severity and persistence of mood disturbance, all factors that can impact the course and treatment of eating disorders. "As pernicious as major depression can be, it tends to remit, even if untreated," she notes. "By contrast, dysthymia is unrelenting, often lasting decades, with the average episode length lasting more than 10 years."

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia; Depression
Link ID: 6550 - Posted: 12.08.2004

Michael Hopkin Left-handed people thrive best in the most murderous societies, according to a study of tribes across the world. The discovery may help to answer the riddle of why a minority of left-handers persist in human populations. Being a southpaw is an advantage in a host of confrontational situations. Lefties are far more common at the top of sports such as boxing and fencing than in normal society. The benefit comes from the element of surprise: most opponents will be less used to facing a left-handed adversary. But left-handedness comes at a cost. Developmental experts think that stress during development or birth may divert the nervous system from its default, right-handed path. And developmental stress is also linked to reduced lifespan, low birthweight and increased incidence of immune and nervous disorders, meaning that natural selection might be expected to weed out lefties altogether. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Aggression; Laterality
Link ID: 6549 - Posted: 06.24.2010

David Cyranoski A lens resembling an octopus eye has been created by US researchers. The sphere consists of hundreds of thousands of layers of plastic and could revolutionize cameras, telescopes and spectacles. Traditional glass lenses use a curved surface to focus incoming light towards a central point. The stronger the lens, the more curved its surface must be and therefore the thicker and heavier it is. In nature, eyes avoid this problem by using materials whose density varies in a certain way. Light is bent, or refracted, when it travels between two substances that have different densities (or refractive indices), such as air and water. The greater the difference between the two materials, the more the light is refracted. So a flat object that has a greater refractive index towards its edges can focus light like a curved lens. Many biological lenses consist of up to hundreds of thousands of nanolayers, each of which has a slightly different refractive index. The layers form a smooth density gradient that helps to focus light. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 6548 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have developed a treatment which may be effective against the most common and deadly form of brain cancer. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) usually grows so quickly that it kills within a year of diagnosis, and neither surgery, drugs or radiotherapy can stop it. But a team from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles has boosted survival of lab rats with the tumour by injecting them with a protein. Details are published in the journal Molecular Therapy. The researchers used a genetically modified virus to deliver a small protein called hsFlt3L into the brains of lab rats who had developed GBM. They found that the protein increased the number of immune cells in the brain, and significantly slowed tumour growth. Seven out of 10 rats given a high dose of the protein survived for over a year. There were no signs of adverse side effects. In contrast, rats treated with a dummy injection died from their tumours within one week. Among rats treated with hsFlt3L, 33% were completely tumour free at three months, while all those who survived for six months or longer had no tumours at all. (C) BBC

Keyword: Glia
Link ID: 6547 - Posted: 12.07.2004

Children born in May have an increased risk of going on to develop multiple sclerosis, research has suggested. The analysis of MS rates among over 42,000 people born in the northern hemisphere showed a significantly lower risk for those born in November. The effect was most evident in Scotland, where the prevalence of MS was the highest. The study, published online by the British Medical Journal, was carried out by Oxford University researchers. The team suggest that complex interactions between genes and the environment before or shortly after birth may help to explain the links they found. They analysed data on the birth month, medical and family histories of 17,874 Canadian patients and 11,502 British patients with MS. They were compared with a matched group of people from the general population and unaffected brothers and sisters of those with MS In Canada, significantly fewer people with MS were born in November compared with the general population or sibling groups. And in Britain, fewer people with MS had been born in November and significantly more had been born in May. The number born in December was also significantly lower. The researchers also looked at data from Denmark and Sweden, which again showed a May peak and a November fall. (C)BBC

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 6546 - Posted: 12.07.2004

Drawing on experiments with blue jays, a team of University of Minnesota researchers has found what may be the evolutionary basis for impulsive behavior. Such behavior may have evolved because in the wild, snatching up small rewards like food morsels rather than waiting for something bigger and better to come along can lead to getting more rewards in the long run. The work may help explain why many modern-day humans find it so hard to turn down an immediate reward--for example, food, money, sex or euphoria--rather than investing and waiting for a bigger reward later. The work will be published in the Dec. 7 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society (London). In experiments with blue jays, David Stephens, a professor of ecology, evolution and behavior in the university's College of Biological Sciences, found that birds presented with a choice of getting a small food reward immediately or waiting a short time for a bigger one could not be trained to wait, even after a thousand repetitions. Many researchers have explained such impulsiveness as the result of the bird "discounting" the value of a delayed reward--that is, instinctively realizing that a reward delayed may be a reward denied because conditions can change while the bird is waiting. But the birds' impulsiveness was simply too strong to explain that way, Stephens said. "I think we were asking them the wrong question," he explained. "In nature, they don't often encounter a situation where they must give up a better, but delayed, food morsel when they grab a quick meal. So we designed an experiment that better modeled real life in the wild."

Keyword: Evolution; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6545 - Posted: 12.07.2004

By MARY DUENWALD The women in the television commercial pull up their shirts to display the words "abdominal pain," "bloating" or "constipation" scrawled in black marker on their abdomens. Some viewers probably respond by reaching for the remote control. But others may be prompted to ask their doctors whether Zelnorm, the Novartis drug in the advertisement, can actually ease the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. The answer, experts say, is, "It depends." Zelnorm is one of two drugs - the other is Lotronex from GlaxoSmithKline - approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome, or I.B.S., a disorder that is estimated to affect about 45 million Americans. Twice as many women as men suffer from it. Their search for relief is often frustrating, because it has no single cause and no cure, and doctors are sometimes dismissive of patients' complaints. The symptoms vary. About a third of sufferers have constipation, another third have diarrhea and the rest alternate between the two. Bloating after meals and lower abdominal pain are also common, as are severe fatigue, sleep difficulties, low interest in sex, hopelessness and tension, a recent study in The Archives of Internal Medicine says. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 6544 - Posted: 12.07.2004

By LAURIE TARKAN By listening intently to movements and heartbeats, researchers are finding that the fetuses of mothers who are stressed or depressed respond differently from those of emotionally healthy women. After birth, studies indicate, these infants have a significantly increased risk of developing learning and behavioral problems, and may themselves be more vulnerable to depression or anxiety as they age. The studies, researchers caution, are preliminary. Stress or depression during a mother's pregnancy is only one among many influences that affect an infant's development. Even among mothers who are depressed or highly stressed, the rate of emotional and behavioral problems in children is still very low. "The last thing pregnant women need is to have something else to worry about," said Dr. Janet DiPietro, a developmental psychologist at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. The studies reflect growing evidence that stress and depression can have early and lasting effects on a child's life. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6543 - Posted: 12.07.2004

Not getting enough shut-eye could be interfering with your ability to shed unwanted pounds. Previous research has shown that sleep could be a key regulator of body weight and metabolism. New findings link changes in two important appetite-regulating hormones to the amount of sleep people regularly get. Shahrad Taheri, now at the University of Bristol, and colleagues analyzed data collected on 1,024 volunteers as part of the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study. Starting in 1989, the subjects filled out questionnaires and kept diaries that logged their sleep habits. In addition, once every four years they had their blood sampled and underwent tests that measured physiological variables while they slept. The researchers report today in the journal Public Library of Science: Medicine that people who consistently slept less than five fours a night had significant differences in the hormones leptin and ghrelin as compared with people who slept an average of eight hours a night. Leptin is produced by fat cells. Low levels of it are a signal of starvation and a need for a bigger appetite. Ghrelin, meanwhile, is produced by the stomach and is an appetite stimulant--the more ghrelin you have, the more you want to eat. The study subjects suffering a lack of sleep had 16 percent less leptin and nearly 15 percent more ghrelin than those who were well rested did. "In Western societies, where chronic sleep restriction is common and food is widely available, changes in appetite regulatory hormones with sleep curtailment may contribute to obesity," the team reports. © 1996-2004 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Sleep; Obesity
Link ID: 6542 - Posted: 06.24.2010

More than fifteen thousand people in the U.S. die each year in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, accounting for around 40 percent of all traffic-related deaths. In 2003, a quarter of drivers aged 15 to 20 who died in traffic accidents had been drinking. As part of the on-going Seattle Social Development Project, sociologist Sabrina Oesterle and her colleagues at Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington in Seattle looked at the long-term health effects of adolescent binge drinking. "We already know that binge drinking in adolescence has immediate health consequences for teenagers," says Oesterle. "So we were especially interested in whether drinking, especially heavy drinking in adolescence, has long-term health consequences that we could see in young adulthood." They also found that about a quarter of the children fell into a group who were more likely to drive drunk or under the influence of drugs. Conducting a series of interviews on alcohol, tobacco and drug use, the study followed more than 800 children in 18 elementary schools from the 5th grade through to the age of 24. Oesterle defined bingeing, or heavy episodic drinking, as five or more alcoholic drinks on one occasion in a month. "Our findings show that a history of binge drinking in adolescence has long-term health outcomes in young adulthood at age 24," she says. © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6541 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Roxanne Khamsi The inhabitants of China appreciated a tipple as much as 9,000 years ago, according to an analysis of pottery shards from the period. Chemical residues reveal that the pots were used to hold a drink made with rice, honey and fruit, and are the earliest direct evidence for brewed beverages. Throughout history, human societies have used the process of fermentation to create alcoholic drinks. But how this practice first evolved has remained elusive. In some areas, ancient texts provide clues. The oldest surviving recipe in the world comes from a 3,800-year-old clay tablet of Sumer, a civilization from the area that is now southern Iraq. Part of a hymn to the goddess of brewing gives details about how to make beer. Oracle inscriptions dating back China's late Shang dynasty (about 1200-1046 BC) also describe alcoholic beverages. Experts believe that fermented drinks probably existed in China and elsewhere much more than 3,000 years ago. But until now they have relied only on the shape and styles of pottery vessels to support this idea. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6540 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Monkeys may visualise a predator or food in response to calls from other monkeys, US researchers say. Alex Martin and colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland, US, played coos and screams recorded in the wild to captive rhesus monkeys - held stationary - and used a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner to monitor their brain activity. The calls elicited increased activity in areas of the brain associated with vision, visual memory and movement in humans - the posterior visual-processing regions and the middle temporal and medial superior temporal areas. Screams also activated parts of the brain which in humans are linked to emotion. Although it is not certain this mental activity corresponds to images flashing through a monkey's mind, Martin says it shows both rhesus monkeys and humans have a similar basic framework for responding to calls. So rhesus monkeys could perhaps provide insight into the evolution of conceptual thought - and even language - in the human brain, he adds. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 6539 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Molly Masland As concern over Alzheimer’s disease grows, more Americans are turning to expensive and potentially unsafe supplements that claim to enhance memory. But prevention of age-related memory loss may be no further away than your refrigerator, and no more expensive than a bag of groceries, experts say. With the aging population of baby boomers in the United States, more research is being done than ever before on diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Scientists are developing a better understanding of why memories fade, and along the way they are finding new ways to combat the decline. For one thing, research increasingly suggests that diet may be important in preventing Alzheimer's. As the brain ages, it loses the ability to protect itself from the barrage of commonplace dangers it faces every day, particularly inflammation and oxidation, a process which allows damaging free radicals to attach themselves to cells. While it's not entirely clear what causes Alzheimer's disease, amyloid plaque — a goopy, fibrous substance akin to fur balls in the brain — plays a key role. As the plaque builds up, it causes more oxidation and inflammation, and begins to kill off brain cells. © 2004 MSNBC Interactive

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Alzheimers
Link ID: 6538 - Posted: 06.24.2010