Columbia University Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine researchers have identified a possible cause of an inherited form of Parkinson's disease, which may be related to more common forms of the disease. The findings are reported in the August 27, 2004 issue of Science. While the cause of most cases of Parkinson's disease is unknown, a few cases are inherited and can be traced to mutations in four different genes, including the alpha-synuclein gene. This is the first study that may pinpoint the mechanism by which the mutant gene initiates a cascade of events that causes this devastating neurological disease. "This discovery could aid in the development of new, targeted treatments to slow or stop the disease progression," said David Sulzer, Ph.D., professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and senior author of the study. "This is an extension of the genetic research that discovered the mutant alpha-synuclein gene and it is exciting to see how this information can be used to possibly determine the cause of Parkinson's disease."

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 6029 - Posted: 08.27.2004

Mice “rewired” to receive visual cues in the hearing region of their brains learned to respond to a fear-inducing flashing light as if they had heard it instead of seen it, researchers from MIT’s Picower Center for Learning and Memory report in the Aug. 22 online issue of Nature Neuroscience. This research shows that even the adult brain is far more plastic, or adaptable, than previously believed. If extended to humans, this may mean that in the future, individuals with brain damage from aging, disease or injury may be able to have stimuli from the outside world routed in new ways to major brain structures—even those responsible for emotional responses and learning. This work also sheds light on how emotional responses are learned, illustrating the ability of widely different external stimuli to elicit a common emotion such as fear. The research is the result of a collaboration between the laboratories of Mriganka Sur, the Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience and head of the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Susumu Tonegawa, director of the Picower Center and professor of biology.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Emotions
Link ID: 6028 - Posted: 06.24.2010

In an effort that may someday lead to the treatment of hearing loss and balance disorders, which currently affect about 28 million Americans, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) visiting investigators Jeffrey Corwin and Stefan Heller are working this summer to make large numbers of mouse stem cells "grow" into inner ear sensory hair cells-acoustic receptors that are a critical part of the auditory system. The work is important because, in humans, inner ear sensory hair cells are a precious commodity. Humans are born with only about sixteen thousand of these sound detectors in each ear, which can be easily damaged by age, certain illnesses, exposure to loud sounds, and some medications. Once damaged, the cells do not easily grow back. And with the cell loss comes so-called irreversible hearing loss. The two scientists are collaborating to develop new methods to expand and maintain adult stem cells isolated from the mouse inner ear to establish long-term stable cell lines. This is the first step toward the ultimate goal of creating implantable human hair cells that will grow happily; eventually repairing damaged hearing and restoring balance. © 2004 by The Marine Biological LaboratoryTM

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 6027 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Many men dream of having a larger member, and penis envy is at the root of much popular psychology - witness all those unwanted e-mails. But the idea of having a penis so large that it is an encumbrance is horrific. Penis length in humans generally varies from 10-20cm (erect), but there is a tribe in Africa in which the male member is much longer, and its owners tie it into a loose knot while walking. But for these people, it is big, but not quite an encumbrance. Among animals, penises show a startling variation in both size, shape and number. Some flatworms have dozens of penises - essential because, in the competition over mates (which is complex because they are all hermaphrodites), individuals bite off each others' penises at every opportunity. The record for size must go to another hermaphroditic beast, the Corsican slug, whose fully extended member is 60cm long, four times longer than its body. The human equivalent would be an 8m-long penis. Penises are important. Not just because they bring us joy and make us laugh, but because they provide a beautiful example of evolution in action. Competition between males to sire offspring results in the rapid evolution of animal genitalia - both male and female, since they tend to co-evolve. Male genitalia are more obvious because they are often on show, and the diversity in penis design is so remarkable that biologists can often discriminate between otherwise indistinguishable species on this characteristic alone. © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 6026 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Physical symptoms are nearly as common as emotional ones in patients suffering from depression, according to Indiana University School of Medicine research published in the August issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Patients with depression frequently talk to their physicians about symptoms such as headache, back or muscle pain, stomach ache and dizziness instead of symptoms more commonly associated with depression such as fatigue, lack of motivation and moodiness, says Kurt Kroenke, M.D., professor of medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at IU and a research scientist at the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. "Depression is a risk factor for symptoms of pain," he said. "The most reports of pain – such as muscle pain, headaches, leg pain – are two or three times more common in people with depression." Physical symptoms also may serve as a barometer for physicians to gauge the effectiveness of common antidepressant treatments, he said. "Physical symptoms may not respond to common antidepressant treatment as much as the emotional symptoms," says Dr. Kroenke. "Even though the physical symptoms may be related to or aggravated by the depression, they can linger longer than the emotional symptoms."

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 6025 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Normally, a network of nerve fibers effortlessly sends messages between the brain, spinal cord, and the rest of the body. Not so in multiple sclerosis (MS). The immune system, an internal defense team designed to attack foreign invaders like germs, is thought to mistakenly attack the message system and damage myelin, a substance that insulates nerve fibers and speeds up message conduction. Communications start to resemble an erratic cell phone call that fades in and out. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Underlying fibers may also suffer damage, severing communication lines. Click, the phone call goes dead. As more and more messages fail to transmit properly, people with MS face an array of problems, including blurred vision, poor coordination, impaired balance, numbness, and fatigue. Some 400,000 Americans are affected. Treatment strategies generally have aimed at blocking future immune attacks to help prevent additional harm. Now scientists have made headway in fighting the disease from another angle. One line of study indicates that cell transplants hold promise in repairing the existing damage so that communication lines can get back up and running. This research is leading to: Copyright © 2004 Society for Neuroscience

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 6024 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Like workaholic employees, worker bees, ants, and wasps give up families of their own for the good of the hive. But every company has its cheats, and some workers try to sneak eggs of their own into the queen's brood. That chutzpah puts their peers in a tizzy, and researchers have long thought that the outrage stemmed from blood loyalty to the queen. A new study, however, casts doubt on that theory. In many species of social insects, workers try to lay eggs on the side, says evolutionary biologist Laurent Keller of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. The unfertilized eggs develop into males, which can then abandon the colony and find a queen of their own. Usually, a police force of other workers cracks down on these freeloading co-workers by killing them or eating their illegal eggs. Accepted wisdom among sociobiologists has always been that such policing happens because workers are more related (and hence more loyal) to their queen's offspring than to other workers' sons. To test this hypothesis, Keller and his colleague Robert Hammond combed the scientific literature for data on 50 species of ants, wasps, and bees. For each, they recorded the proportion of working-class males in the royal brood and the average number of males a queen mates with. When queens have many consorts, workers are less related to the bastard sons of other workers (their half-nephews) than when the queen mates just once. (In that case, the workers are full sisters, and their sons are full nephews.) So policing ought to be especially evident in species in which the queen is a swinger. But, as the researchers report in next week's Public Library of Science, Biology, they found no such relationship: The numbers of males produced by workers was independent of the colony's family ties. Keller thinks the real reason behind policing may be that egg-laying workers are slacking off on their regular chores, to the colony's detriment. Evolutionary biologist Heike Feldhaar, who studies ants at the University of Würzburg, Germany, says the new study is interesting because it highlights the growing awareness that factors other than just relatedness are important in the lifestyle of social insects. --MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Evolution; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 6023 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Growing up in a chaotic home could be bad for a child's developing mind. An association between disorganised, noisy and cramped homes and lower childhood intelligence has been observed before. But whether socio-economic status (SES), genetics or the environment itself is the cause has never been clear. So Stephen Petrill at Pennsylvania State University and his colleagues turned to a database of twins born in the UK between 1994 and 1996. By noting differences between genetically identical twins, and fraternal twins, who share only half their genes, the researchers hoped to tease apart the influence of genes and environment. The team collected information about nearly 8000 3- and 4-year-old twins, on SES, household chaos and cognitive ability, which they measured with quizzes and vocabulary and grammar tests. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Intelligence
Link ID: 6022 - Posted: 06.24.2010

- Hormone-fueled songbirds are steadily forcing out a rival species in North America's Northwestern fir forests and threatening the more timid warblers with extinction, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. They said high levels of testosterone may explain the aggressiveness of the Townsend's warbler, which has been steadily displacing its more timid sister species, the hermit warbler, for thousands of years. "The hermits have slowly been pushed out of Alaska and British Columbia, and now they are being pushed out of Washington," said Luke Butler, a biologist at the University of Washington. "They are running out of places to go." The Townsend's warbler outshines the smaller, less-flashy hermit warbler on several levels. It has dramatic yellow and black streaks, compared to the darker, less striking plumage of the related hermit warbler. Tests showed the Townsend's males have higher levels of male hormones, notably testosterone. © Reuters 2004. All rights reserved. © 2004 Microsoft Corporation.

Keyword: Aggression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 6021 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Sandi Doughton, Seattle Times staff reporter The woman treated at Harborview Medical Center this summer for a mysterious brain ailment related to mad-cow disease has died. An autopsy was performed, and should help national experts in their quest to identify the disease, said epidemiologist Dr. Jo Hofmann, of the Washington Department of Health. "There will be brain tissue obtained from multiple parts of the brain, that will definitely provide more information," Hofmann said. The tissue will be sent to the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The woman, who Hofmann said was under the age of 60, was not a resident of Washington and did not die here. The woman has not been identified to protect her family's privacy. She was treated at Harborview, where doctors performed a brain biopsy, collecting a tiny sample of brain tissue they hoped would help them diagnose the baffling illness, characterized by dementia.

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 6020 - Posted: 08.26.2004

By BENEDICT CAREY Debates about the safety and effectiveness of treatments for depression miss a basic reality about the disease: most people affected by it do not seek help at all, and those who do commonly neglect to complete counseling or drug regimens recommended by doctors. For at least a third of the people who try them, treatments of any kind fall short, surveys show. But improving success rates may be a matter of picking up the phone, according to a report today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In a large-scale, 18-month study, doctors in Seattle found that they could significantly increase recovery rates for patients taking antidepressants by providing several 30- to 40-minute counseling sessions over the phone. In previous studies, researchers showed that phone calls from nurses or other clinic staff members providing emotional support could help people trying to quit smoking, stay on medication or shake low moods. The Seattle study is the first to test the effect of a standardized form of counseling, cognitive behavior therapy, delivered entirely over the phone. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 6019 - Posted: 08.25.2004

By HENRY FOUNTAIN People yawn because they're tired, bored or nervous, but sometimes they yawn just because they've seen someone else do it. This behavior, contagious yawning, has now been documented for the first time in another species, chimpanzees. Dr. James Anderson of the University of Stirling in Scotland and colleagues in Japan demonstrated that a third of adult chimps exposed to videos of yawning chimps will yawn themselves. While no one knows precisely why people yawn contagiously, recent research suggests that the roughly 50 percent of adults who show the trait are more empathetic and score higher on self-recognition tests. Dr. Anderson said there is evidence that chimps demonstrate empathy, too. "And I knew that chimps showed self-recognition in a mirror or a photograph," he added. "So if they showed self-recognition, they were likely to show contagious yawning." In the study, six female chimps at the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute watched the videotapes while in an experimental cubicle. All the chimps yawned somewhat, which was not unexpected, Dr. Anderson said. "Usually when they go into this experimental setup they are asked to do a cognitive task," he said. "Here they were asked to do nothing, so they may have been bored. But in two of the adult chimps, there was just an overwhelming increase in the frequency of yawning." Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 6018 - Posted: 08.25.2004

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Researchers in Italy have observed significant reductions of gray matter volume in areas of the brain associated with language processing among people with a family history of dyslexia in comparison with controls with no reading problems. Published in the August 24 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, the study also lends support to previous studies suggesting intensive reading therapy activates areas of the brain necessary for word de-coding. The study of 10 people with familial dyslexia and 11 controls was the first to employ an advanced testing method – voxel-based morphometry (VBM) – which allows more in-depth detection and measurement of gray-white tissue volume and density differences than other testing tools, including magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. The brain is made up of gray matter, where the brain cells reside, and white matter, where the nerve tracts that allow connections between different parts of the brain and spinal cord reside. The study also was the first to account for variabilities in whole brain volume, age of the subjects and differences in brain shape. Each of the subjects with dyslexia had at least one close relative with either clinically evident dyslexia or a long history of reading problems.

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 6017 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Ethan Remmel When I teach about the mind/body issue, I am often struck by how many of my students are dualists. I'm not talking about modern hedged positions such as property dualism or explanatory dualism; I'm talking about good old–fashioned Cartesian substance dualism, which maintains that our physical bodies/brains are inhabited by immaterial souls/minds and that body and soul are intimately linked, yet distinct and dissociable (at death, for example, when the soul may depart the body). And these students are not wild–eyed religious evangelists; they are sober–minded science majors. I pose what seem to me to be serious problems with this position: For example, how could material and immaterial substances interact? But many of these students seem unable even to see the problem. I end up perplexed by their lack of perplexity. Paul Bloom has an explanation. In his new book, Descartes' Baby, he maintains that dualism is innate—that is, not learned. We naturally see the world as containing both material objects, which are governed by physical laws, and mental entities, whose behavior is intentional and goal–directed. Some things in the world, such as people, can be seen either way, as physical bodies or as intentional agents. However, as Bloom describes, we tend toward the latter interpretation whenever possible, even attributing intentions to animated shapes on a computer screen if they move in certain ways. According to Bloom, dualism is the product not of nurture but of nature—specifically, evolution by natural selection. It was adaptive for our ancestors to be able to predict the behavior of physical objects and social creatures (especially conspecifics). © Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society

Keyword: Intelligence
Link ID: 6016 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Last month, the case against Patrizia Reggiani was reopened in Italy. She is serving a 26-year jail sentence for having ordered the killing of her husband, the fashion supremo Maurizio Gucci. At the first trial in 1998, expert witnesses dismissed her lawyers' claims that surgery for a brain tumour had changed her personality. The new trial has been granted because her lawyers believe that brain imaging techniques developed since then will reveal damage that was previously undetectable, and strengthen their case for an acquittal. The idea that someone should not be punished if their abnormal neural make-up leaves them no choice but to break the law is contentious but not new. However, one prominent neuroscientist has sparked a storm by picking it up and turning it round. Writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's leading newspapers, Wolf Singer argued that crime itself should be taken as evidence of brain abnormality, even if no abnormality can be found, and criminals treated as incapable of having acted otherwise. His claims have brought howls of outrage from academics across the sciences and humanities. But Singer counters that the idea is nothing but a natural extension of the thesis that free will is an illusion - a theory that he feels is supported by decades of work in neuroscience. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Keyword: Aggression
Link ID: 6015 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Huntington's Disease is a devastating inherited disorder in which brain cells are genetically programmed to degenerate. The disease, which can cause dementia, memory loss, loss of movement control, and ultimately death, can strike people as young as 30; there is currently no cure. But now, genetics researchers at the University of Iowa have shown they can rescue mice from a disease similar to Huntington's using gene therapy. Humans have two copies of most genes. Huntington's disease is one of several neurodegenerative diseases in which an error in the DNA code of just one copy of a gene causes the disease. While the normal gene tells brain cells how to build a needed protein, and the bad copy results in a toxic protein that kills brain cells. Beverly Davidson, professor of internal medicine, physiology and biophysics, and neurology at the University of Iowa, and her group treated young mice with another dominant genetic neurodegenerative disease called spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1). They reported in the journal Nature Medicine that they treated the mice with a technique called RNA interference, or RNAi, which uses small sequences of the genetic material RNA designed to block the cell's machinery from making a protein encoded by a specific gene—in this case, halting the production of the toxic protein. The researchers used a harmless virus to carry the RNA into brain cells. © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Huntingtons; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 6014 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It strikes without warning, harpooning its prey and injecting a toxic cocktail that paralyzes its victim. Despite its small size—only a few inches in length—predatory cone snails wield a venom weapon deadly enough to kill a human. Together, the chemicals in a cone snail's venom do serious damage, but each one on its own can actually do some good. Cone snail venom is just one example of toxic tinctures researchers are turning into therapeutic treatments for chronic pain. One such drug, called Prialt, is poised for approval by the US Food and Drug Administration this fall. Roughly 50 million people in the United States suffer from pain lasting more than three to six months. "There's been a big venom movement in the chronic pain field," says Michel Dubois, director of NYU Medical Center's Pain Program. "That's some kind of reflection on the fact that our patients are quite desperate for treatment." According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, chronic pain is usually caused by nerve signals misfiring in the central nervous system that continuously send pain messages to the brain. © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 6013 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Heather Catchpole, ABC Science Online — Robots need to think like cockroaches if they want to walk up and down stairs, an international conference will hear this week. Neuroscientist Roy Ritzmann and robot researcher Roger Quinn, both from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, present their research this week at the Insect Sensors and Robotics conference in Brisbane, Australia. The researchers found that cockroaches can't walk over ramps and barriers without using their brain. This means that to climb up stairs, robots will need a brain. Current robots have limited locomotion and most can only walk over flat surfaces using a system of sensors in their legs, the researchers said. Insects are good models for understanding how to make a robot walk, according to Ritzmann. Insects have their skeleton on the outside, so researchers can see how their exoskeleton moves without using X-rays; they have sensors on the outside of their bodies that can be used to measure strain; and they have fewer motor neurones per muscle than vertebrates, making it easier to see which neurones are activated as the insects walk. Copyright © 2004 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 6012 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Fruit flies have sex for longer if their internal body clock is impaired, reveals a new study. The finding is the first time that so-called “clock genes” have been shown to affect activity on the minute-by-minute timescale. The chance discovery came while researchers were looking at the effect on fruit flies’ reproduction of the removal of the genes timeless or period, which are involved in regulating daily wake-sleep cycles known as circadian rhythms. A student noticed the mutant males copulated for 30 to 50 per cent longer than the 15 minutes that other fruit flies mated. “They lost track of time,” says Jaga Giebultowicz of Oregon State University, Corvallis, US, who led the study. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 6011 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin Sometimes it can be worth judging by appearances: it seems that people with less symmetrical features are likely to be more aggressive. In a study of stressful telephone conversations, those with uneven faces and bodies were more prone to angry reactions. A lack of symmetry is known to be a hallmark of slightly imperfect development, so the researchers speculate that people with ill-matched external features may also have small defects in their nervous systems, which impair their ability to control aggressive impulses. A link between asymmetry and aggression has been suggested before but never properly tested. Previous attempts have relied on subjects to report faithfully their own levels of aggression, or used violent offenders who are often abnormally aggressive. Zeynep Benderlioglu of Ohio State University in Columbus and her colleagues got around the problem by recruiting 100 volunteers and tricking them. After measuring their ears, wrists, palms, ankles, feet and elbows to quantify their symmetry, the researchers told the subjects that they were testing the influence of symmetry on persuasive skills. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Aggression; Laterality
Link ID: 6010 - Posted: 06.24.2010