By Rick Weiss Convinced they have sound science on their side, advocates for the medical use of marijuana plan to launch a novel effort today to get the federal government to ease restrictions on the illicit drug. Americans for Safe Access, a Berkeley, Calif., coalition of patients and doctors wanting easier access to pot for research and patient use, plans to file a petition with the Department of Health and Human Services charging the agency with spreading inaccurate information about the drug's medical value. Unlike previous efforts to ease marijuana access, which relied on the courts and have dragged on for years, the petition invokes the Data Quality Act, a little-known but powerful law that gives people the right to challenge scientific information disseminated by federal agencies. The law demands that agencies respond to petitions within two months. The act's use by marijuana advocates represents a peculiar political twist. The act was written by a tobacco industry lobbyist and slipped into a huge piece of legislation after the 2000 election without any congressional discussion or debate. It has been used almost exclusively by corporations challenging the validity of scientific information that they fear might lead to costly regulations. © 2004 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6189 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Research Showing Men and Women Differ in More Than One Area By Amanda Onion — Men and women may really be from the same planet, but research is yielding mounting evidence that our brains are more different than we might think. From the way we record information to how we process language to the size of our brains and different regions of the brain, clear differences have emerged through animal studies and the use of technology such as brain scanning. Scientists are also trying to get at the roots of what may be behind these differences by looking at the effects of chromosomes and hormones at work in lab animals. And this is just the beginning. Jill Goldstein, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, argues that social climates have only recently made such research acceptable. "When I was growing up, to say there were sex differences in the brain, you weren't even supposed to talk about it," said Goldstein. "I think we're living in a time now when we can look at what some of these differences are without saying they are necessarily deterministic."

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 6188 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute announced this morning that the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Richard Axel, an HHMI investigator at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Linda Buck, an HHMI investigator at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The scientists were honored for their discoveries that clarify how the olfactory system works. Axel and Buck discovered a large gene family, comprised of some 1,000 different genes (three per cent of human genes) that give rise to an equivalent number of olfactory receptor types. These receptors are located on the olfactory receptor cells, which occupy a small area in the upper part of the nasal epithelium and detect the inhaled odorant molecules. In 1991 Axel and Buck—who was then a postdoctoral fellow in Axel's lab—discovered a family of genes that encode the odorant receptors of the olfactory epithelium, a patch of cells on the wall of the nasal cavity. The olfactory epithelium contains some 5 million olfactory neurons that send messages directly to the olfactory bulb of the brain. When an odor excites a neuron, the signal travels along the nerve cell's axon and is transferred to the neurons in the olfactory bulb. This structure, located in the very front of the brain, is the clearinghouse for the sense of smell. From the olfactory bulb, odor signals are relayed to both the brain's higher cortex, which handles conscious thought processes, and to the limbic system, which generates emotional feelings. © 2004 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 6187 - Posted: 06.24.2010

You try listening to a tape of mellow ocean sounds, wearing an aromatherapy eye mask, even the old standby, counting sheep. Nothing works. You toss and turn. Toss and turn. Toss and turn. The alarm rings and instead of feeling refreshed and ready for the day, you’re in a fog. One out of three people have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at some point in their lives, according to estimates. This condition, technically termed insomnia, may last for days, weeks, months, or years, and can take a large toll. Individuals with insomnia report symptoms that include fatigue, decreased alertness, irritability, depressed mood, impaired memory, poor concentration, and problems in their work and social life. In the past, the biological underpinnings of sleep were undefined, which hampered the development of treatments that could improve the nights and days of those with insomnia. Now, recent discoveries are lifting this roadblock. Scientists have identified several important components in the body and brain’s sleep-wake system that appear to be prime targets for drug development. This advance is leading to: A better understanding of the biology behind body rhythms and sleep. Improved treatments for troubled sleepers that unlike current medications could tap into specific internal sleep mechanisms. Today’s prescription medications for insomnia target the function of an important brain chemical, GABA, and quiet general brain activity to induce sleep. These drugs are considered safe and effective, but despite their success, they can have a downside. The medications’ widespread actions in the brain, for example, may also trigger unwanted effects, like memory problems. Copyright © 2004 Society for Neuroscience

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 6186 - Posted: 06.24.2010

St. Paul, Minn. – Pregnant women are at higher risk for the occurrence or worsening of restless legs syndrome (RLS), a movement disorder that affects up to 10 percent of the general population, according to a study reported in the September 28 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers in Milan, Italy, recently concluded a large and detailed epidemiological study on RLS during pregnancy and six months post-partum that demonstrates at least one in four pregnant women experience RLS. RLS is characterized by an urge to move the legs, generally accompanied by unpleasant numbness, tingling, or burning sensations; an increase in symptoms during rest and a partial, temporary relief from symptoms through activity; and a worsening of symptoms in the evening or at night. Symptoms tend to progress with age. The association between RLS and pregnancy was noted first in 1940, and confirmed later by a few epidemiological investigations. “While several attempts have been made to study the connection between pregnancy and RLS, ours is the first epidemiological study to use the four standard International RLS committee diagnostic criteria,” noted Mauro Manconi, MD, of the Sleep Disorders Center at Vita-Salute University, Milan.

Keyword: Sleep; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 6185 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WASHINGTON — Scientists may be learning why it’s so hard to stop the cycle of violence. The answer may lie in the nervous system. There appears to be a fast, mutual, positive feedback loop between stress hormones and a brain-based aggression-control center in rats, whose neurophysiology is similar to ours. It may explain why, under stress, humans are so quick to lash out and find it hard to cool down. The findings, which could point to better ways to prevent pathological violence, appear in the October issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA). In five experiments using 53 male rats, behavioral neuroscientists from the Netherlands and Hungary studied whether stimulating the brain’s aggression mechanism raised blood levels of a stress hormone and whether higher levels of the same hormone led to the kind of aggression elicited by that mechanism. The results showed a fast-acting feedback loop; the mechanism works in both directions and raising one variable raises the other. Thus, stress and aggression may be mutually reinforcing, which could explain not only why something like the stress of traffic jams leads to road rage, but also why raging triggers an ongoing stress reaction that makes it hard to stop. In the study, the scientists electrically stimulated an aggression-related part of the rat hypothalamus, a mid-brain area associated with emotion. The rats suddenly released the stress hormone corticosterone (very like cortisol, which humans release under stress) -- even without another rat present. Normally, rats don’t respond like that unless they face an opponent or another severe stressor. © 2004 American Psychological Association

Keyword: Aggression; Stress
Link ID: 6184 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Specially-adapted scanners can be used to help physicians during brain surgery, a study shows. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners are generally used to screen the body for diagnosing cancer. The German study in Radiology said scanning found extra tissue that needed to be removed in a quarter of cases, meaning repeated surgery was avoided. A UK expert said such scans would be beneficial - but he warned the cost of the machines could be prohibitive. There are two types of MRI scanner; low and high field. While low-field scanners - which provide lower clarity images - have been used for some operations, the adapting of high-field scanners has proved hard due to technological restraints. The first open low-field scanners were developed and used during surgery in the mid 1990s. But high-field scanners which produce better images are now available. This is the type of MRI scanner used in the German research. Their design means it is difficult for a surgeon to operate while they are being used. During the study by the team at the University Erlangen-Nurnberg, patients, aged from seven to 84, had to be manoeuvred in and out of the MRI scanner. The researchers assessed the size of the tumour by scanning the patient's brain during the operation, and then decided if their plans for the surgery needed to change. In just over a quarter of the 200 cases, the surgeons found more cancerous tissue needed to be removed. (C)BBC

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 6183 - Posted: 10.02.2004

Colleen Carroll Campbell hen Ronald Reagan slipped the surly bonds in June after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Americans seemed to grieve his manner of dying as much as his death itself. Stories abounded about the indignities that Reagan had suffered in his last years, including his inability to recall his two-term presidency and his failure to recognize Nancy, his wife of 52 years. A decade after Reagan had announced his Alzheimer’s diagnosis in a letter to the American people, he once again brought the horrors of this progressive, degenerative brain disease into the national spotlight. From coast to coast, pundits repeated the conventional wisdom that Alzheimer’s had rendered Reagan a mere shadow of his former self. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper said the former president had been “alive in body, but his spirit was gone.” Boston Globe syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman said Reagan had suffered from a “disease that kills the self.” In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Doug Grow argued that a day of celebration would have been more appropriate than a day of mourning: “[H]ow can there be tears after seeing a person lose everything from memory to dignity?” Law professor Paul Campos wrote in the Rocky Mountain News that Reagan died “a horrible and depressing death.… [W]ould it not have been better for everyone, not least of all Ronald Reagan himself, if he had died of a heart attack several years ago?” An anonymous reader writing to the Seattle Times seemed to think so. “Thinking about (Reagan) and others living ten years with the disease is appalling. If I were ever diagnosed with dementia, I’d want to investigate suicide. Does one need to move to Oregon?”

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 6182 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Matt Ridley Evolution is both a process and a narrative; a science and a history. Richard Dawkins has made himself the foremost philosopher of the process, exploring with ruthless and surprising logic how bodies can be best understood as vehicles for the propagation of genes. But until now he has left the history to others such as Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Fortey: the grand narrative of how (some) microbes became men over three billion years. Now, in this extraordinary book, Dawkins turns chronicler. He does so with a clever twist that avoids the perennial problem of evolutionary history-telling: how not to make it sound like an inevitable progression towards complexity and us. After all, bacteria and worms did not "fail" to evolve into mammals. You could argue the opposite: that they were so good at being what they were that our ancestors had to invent a different way of living. Dawkins's twist is to tell the story backwards, starting with us. If you do this, then the ancestors you meet along the way are indeed the clichés of evolutionary narrative - ape-like, monkey-like, shrew-like, lizard-like, fish-like, worm-like, blob-like. It is not the first time the story has been told backwards: we do it in the exhibition at the International Centre for Life in Newcastle, for instance. But Dawkins, ingenious as ever, has made it idiosyncratically his own by a clever conceit that he is a pilgrim, meeting the ancestors of all other living forms at the point where their lineages join ours and progressing with them towards a sort of primordial Canterbury.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 6181 - Posted: 10.02.2004

Hypnosis has been misunderstood as a nightclub stunt, a loss of control and a type of sleep, but it's been a therapeutic tool for centuries. Dr. David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine describes hypnosis as a "focused state of attention." "Being hypnotized is something like looking through a telephoto lens," Spiegel explains. "What you see you see with great detail, but you're less aware of the surroundings, of the context in which you're experiencing it. So it's like getting so caught up in a good movie that you forget you're watching the movie, you enter the imagined world. That's what a hypnotic state is like. You wake up and pay attention in a highly focused way. So the parts of the brain that are involved in attention, the frontal cortex, for example, are turned on when you're hypnotized." Spiegel uses hypnosis—specifically, he teaches self-hypnosis—to help people control their pain and anxiety during certain surgical procedures. He has treated hundreds of patients undergoing medical and surgical procedures over decades, and has conducted clinical trials of hypnosis in the operating room, reporting dramatic results. "In the last five years we've begun doing randomized trials for acute surgical and medical pain," he says, "and we've got a number a studies now that show that hypnosis reduces pain, reduces anxiety, reduces the amount of medication people need, reduces complications, and makes the procedures shorter, 17 to 20 minutes per procedure." © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 6180 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers are learning whether normal neuron behavior depends on the ability to produce an essential neurotransmitter. Recent studies in living mice indicate that dopamine-producing neurons are capable of triggering nerve impulses even when they are deprived of dopamine. According to the study's senior author, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Richard Palmiter, at the University of Washington, Seattle, these kinds of basic questions are important to ask because dopamine-producing neurons are affected in a number of disorders, including Parkinson's disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, and Tourette's syndrome. Their activity is also implicated in most forms of drug abuse. The results of the experiments, performed by Siobhan Robinson in Palmiter's lab, are published in the September 7, 2004, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a specialized chemical messenger that plays a specific role in the brain. When neurons release neurotransmitters in bursts, they trigger nerve impulses in neighboring neurons. The finding that dopamine-deprived neurons continue to fire normally, including in bursts, even in the absence of dopamine suggests that neuronal inputs from other neurons play a major role in influencing the firing pattern of dopamine neurons. © 2004 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 6179 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Adam Brimelow Women who took epilepsy medication while pregnant are suing for damages, claiming the drug harmed their children. They have foetal anti-convulsant syndrome (FACS), which can involve physical and learning difficulties. Lawyers argue the women had to choose between taking the drug, risking side effects - and not, risking seizures. Sanofi-Synthelabo, which makes the drug, said the risks associated with the drug were well-known to doctors. It says there could be a range of causes for the congenital abnormalities, not just exposure to anti epileptic drugs during pregnancy. (C)BBC

Keyword: Epilepsy; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6178 - Posted: 10.01.2004

When embryonic stem cells prove their medical merits, public support--both social and financial--will probably grow substantially, said National Institutes of Health director Elias A. Zerhouni in a panel discussion held Wednesday in Washington, D.C. by Scientific American. Comparing the state of embryonic stem cell science today to that of organ transplantation during the 1950s and '60s, Zerhouni noted that public consensus in favor of organ transplants only emerged when the "greater good" offered by the treatment had been fully demonstrated. "This is the people's dollars we're talking about," Zerhouni stated, "and that's where the rubber hits the road." Without public consensus, he explained, consensus in Congress to expand funding for embryonic stem cell science is unlikely. "California is going to test that," he added. A November 2nd California ballot initiative seeking to raise $3 billion for stem cell research in that state loomed large in the panel's discussion of the best way for science and society to proceed with regard to embryonic stem cell research. If passed, California's Proposition 71 might break an essential impasse in the debate over using embryos in research. Proponents say that without adequate funding and materials, U.S. scientists cannot fully explore the potential of embryonic cells. Critics counter that without demonstrated medical potential, the ethical risks of expanding embryo research are too great. © 1996-2004 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 6177 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Approximately 15.3 percent of children (ages 6 to 11) and 15.5 percent of adolescents (ages 12 to 19) are considered obese, with 30.3 percent of children and 30.4 percent of adolescents considered overweight. To fight this epidemic, a committee of experts reporting to Congress on a two-year study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences is proposing a national initiative. "Obesity in children and adolescents has reached such an epidemic proportion that we really have no time to wait to try to address this problem," says Thomas Robinson, director of the Center for Healthy Weight at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University School of Medicine, who was on the committee. "There's no single recommendation we make…or no even handful of recommendations that we make, or that others have proposed, that will address this epidemic and start to turn it back upon itself. Instead we need to see a comprehensive national plan to address this epidemic. A lot of the environmental and policy recommendations in this report are pushing towards making lots of very small changes, or moderately-sized changes that will add up over time to large changes in weight." Robinson says the committee did not find a lot of research evidence about what prevention methods actually work, so it also called for the initiatives to be continually evaluated and revised over time. © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 6176 - Posted: 06.24.2010

COLLEGE STATION, - Intense traumatic events, such as maternal separation, occurring early in the life of an infant may weaken its immune system, making it more susceptible to viral infections later in life that could trigger multiple sclerosis, reveals research at Texas A&M University. The research, by a psychologist Mary Meagher from the College of Liberal Arts and an immunologist Jane Welsh from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M, shows that exposure to prolonged maternal separation during the first two weeks of life altered immune, endocrine and behavioral responses to acute "Theiler's virus" infection in mice. Theiler's virus attacks the central nervous system during the first few weeks of infection, which is accompanied by polio-like symptoms. If the virus persists in the central nervous system, a subsequent chronic phase of the disease develops which is similar to multiple sclerosis in humans. Researchers use Theiler's virus to investigate the role of stress in autoimmune diseases, or diseases that cause the body to attack its own cells as if they were foreign pathogens - a similar process occurs in multiple sclerosis, Meagher explains.

Keyword: Stress; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 6175 - Posted: 10.01.2004

A veterinarian analyzes the turf battles that have transformed the animal laboratory By Madhusree Mukerjee The one time I saw the inside of an animal laboratory, at a prestigious university, the veterinarian who showed me around was subsequently fired for that transgression. So it is little surprise that Larry Carbone, a laboratory animal veterinarian, gives us few peeks behind the door: the book has virtually no anecdotes. Instead he takes off the lab's roof to offer a bird's-eye view--distant, measured and worded with sometimes excruciating care--of the battles raging within. A veterinarian's oath binds her to "the benefit of society through the protection of animal health, the relief of animal suffering, the conservation of animal resources, the promotion of public health, and the advancement of medical knowledge." It imposes contradictory tasks on the laboratory animal veterinarian. "So you keep them healthy until the scientists can make them sick," Carbone quotes a skeptic as saying. A lab animal vet can please no one, it seems--certainly not the animal lover, who suspects her split loyalties, nor the animal researcher, who resents her attempts to oversee not just animal care but also experimental practice. Carbone, who holds doctorates in veterinary medicine and in the history and philosophy of science, is a vet in the animal facility at the University of California at San Francisco. In early chapters of What Animals Want, he describes the unending philosophical debates over animal care and use, while in the more interesting later chapters he documents the jostling that determined the rather limited turf of the lab animal vet. © 1996-2004 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 6174 - Posted: 06.24.2010

An ancient virus that likely infected one of our primate ancestors 50 million years ago may contribute to the nervous system damage that causes multiple sclerosis (MS). A snippet of the virus's DNA, now embedded in the human genome, boosts production of damaging compounds in the brains of mice with a condition like MS, according to a report in the October issue of Nature Neuroscience. MS is a debilitating neurological disease caused by the destruction of oligodendrocytes, cells that build the myelin sheaths that surround the signal transmitting axons of neurons. Damaged sheaths lead to the primary symptoms, including muscle spasms, vision impairments, and memory problems. Some scientists have suggested that infectious agents such as viruses or bacteria spark an autoimmune response that causes the disease. The new study suggests a novel alternative: that the culprit could already be hiding in human DNA. Approximately 8% of the human genome is made up of DNA from viruses that slipped in their genetic material as our ancestors evolved. Called human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), the vast majority of these ancient viruses are no longer functional. One exception is HERV-W. It carries instructions for making the protein syncytin, a critical element in the formation of the placenta. But HERV-W may have a dark side too. Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 6173 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New research shows that young people who have been treated for mental health problems, have a history of foster care, or who already abuse other drugs have an increased risk of abusing or becoming dependent on inhalants. In addition, adolescents who first begin using inhalants at an early age are more likely to become dependent on them. The study by Dr. Li-Tzy Wu and her colleagues is published in the October 2004 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services. The most commonly used inhalants reported by participants were glue, shoe polish, and gasoline. Other inhalants used by the participants included nitrous oxide, lighter fluid, spray paints, correction fluid, and paint solvents. Boys were more likely to have ever used gasoline or nitrous oxide, while girls favored glue, shoe polish, spray paints, correction fluid, and aerosol sprays. “These findings suggest inhalant abuse and addiction in young people are associated with a host of co-occurring problems that may be influenced by family and other social factors,” says NIDA Director Dr. Nora D. Volkow. “And, inhalant abuse may be escalating. Data reported in NIDA’s Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey show that past-year use of inhalants rose 14 percent from 2002 to 2003 — the only increase of any substance reported by MTF between 2002 and 2003.”

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6172 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — The mystery of why eyes in certain paintings and photographs appear to move has been solved: it has to do with how we perceive two and three dimensions, a new study finds. According to a paper published in a recent issue of the journal Perception by James Todd, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, and his colleagues, the optical illusion "is in the misleading information provided by the picture," Todd said. No matter what angle you look at a painting from, the painting itself doesn't change, since it's on a flat surface. The patterns of light and dark remain the same. But three-dimensional objects, in life, change with the way light falls on them as viewers move around the object. "When observing real surfaces in the natural environment, the visual information that specifies near and far points varies when we change viewing direction," Todd said. Copyright © 2004 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 6171 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Certain brain changes that are common in normal aging are not the beginnings of Alzheimer's disease. Recent research by cognitive aging experts suggests that changes related to Alzheimer's disease appear in distinct regions of the brain and reflect unique pathology compared with changes that occur in older adults without dementia. “We're getting a better understanding of the complex constellation of factors that change [in the brain] with aging,” said Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Randy L. Buckner of Washington University in St. Louis. “When you start to look across the literature, lots of data points converge suggesting there are certain changes that take place in aging that are not what cause Alzheimer's disease.” Buckner is the author of a review article published in the September 30, 2004, issue of Neuron, that points out recurring distinctions between factors that influence what he calls executive function, which more commonly falters with normal aging, and the decline in long-term memory typical of Alzheimer's. Executive function involves the cognitive processes used to complete complex, goal-oriented tasks. Elderly individuals with no symptoms of dementia may have difficulty attending to one thing when distractions are present, for example, or they may experience difficulties in complex, novel situations. © 2004 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 6170 - Posted: 06.24.2010