No one can learn how to play solitaire by simply watching a player's hands. The trick is knowing where a particular card is supposed to go. In new research, monkeys learned a task almost as sophisticated--they learned a sequence of images by figuring out the successful strategy of another monkey. The results suggest that rhesus macaques learned with their thinking cap rather than merely copying the hand movements of other monkeys. For more than 100 years, scientists have tried to determine whether animals learn by copying what they see others do or by suffering through trial and error. Although many experiments have shown that they can mimic others, they might not be actively thinking about the process. Anthropologist Herbert Terrace of Columbia University in New York City and colleagues decided to remove the motor aspect of behavior imitation and find out if monkeys could imitate by thinking. To do so, the team put two rhesus macaques into side-by-side soundproofed chambers, each with a touch-screen computer. One monkey learned to touch four images on the screen in a particular order, earning a banana snack. Each time the images came up, however, they were placed differently on the screen. Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 5828 - Posted: 06.24.2010

What can studies of pornography, prostitutes, and seedy truck stops contribute to society? By Barry Yeoman Yorghos Apostolopoulos was at his office at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta last October when his red voice-mail light started glowing. When he picked up the phone, he heard a somber voice. “We need to speak,” said the caller, a program officer at the National Institutes of Health, which funds Apostolopoulos’s research on infectious disease. Her voice was drained of its usual casualness. “Don’t have any of your assistants call,” she said. “I want to speak with you personally.” Apostolopoulos is a confident Athenian with a mop of salt-and-pepper hair and an intensity that belies his compact frame. With the NIH’s help, he has been pursuing a cutting-edge question about human behavior: How do networks of people—in particular, long-haul truck drivers—work together to accelerate the spread of an epidemic, even when some of them don’t know one another? Epidemiologists have long connected the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa with truckers who get infected on the road and bring the virus home to their wives and girlfriends. But does the same hold true in the United States? Working with a team of ethnographers, who study different cultures, Apostolopoulos and his partner Sevil Sönmez burrowed into the hidden world of truck stops, first in Arizona, then in Georgia. They began mapping the overlapping groups of people who come into contact with drivers: prostitutes (sometimes called lot lizards), drug suppliers, cargo unloaders, and male “truck chasers,” who fetishize drivers. The researchers conducted extensive interviews to understand how truckers’ occupational stresses led to depression, drug abuse, and unprotected sex. And they have collected blood, urine, and vaginal swabs from drivers and members of their social network to map how infection travels from state to state. © 2003 The Walt Disney Company. All

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 5827 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Despite promising new studies, concerns abound over high-fat diets Janet Raloff One in six U.S. households includes a low-carbohydrate dieter, according to an ACNielsen poll conducted earlier this year. Until last October, Jody Gorran of Delray Beach, Fla., was among them. Despite having followed a sensible, low-fat diet most of his life, Gorran says that by his 50s, "middle-age spread" was developing. So, he decided to try a new diet. Picking up a book by Robert Atkins, Gorran embraced the low-carb lifestyle and avoided foods containing sugars and starches. For 2 1/2 years, he says, he lost weight, felt great, and bragged about his diet to anyone who would listen. That was until Gorran experienced chest pain last fall, and an X-ray scan of his heart showed 99 percent blockage in a coronary artery that had been clear a few months before he started on the Atkins diet. Gorran underwent balloon angioplasty to clear the artery, and then on May 26, he filed suit against the Atkins company and Atkins' estate. The Atkins diet "gave me heart disease," he claims. Gorran, a millionaire businessman, isn't asking for much money, and he pledges that anything he receives will go to charity. He says he mainly wants to force labels onto Atkins products that low-carb diets can cause heart disease in susceptible individuals. Copyright ©2004 Science Service.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 5826 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News — Hidden behind the Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile could be a trick of the light, according to new research on so-called visual noise. The equivalent of snow on a TV screen, visual noise is a major but poorly understood part of the daily input into our minds. The noise can have many sources, including changes in the number of light particles hitting cells in the eye, which can alter people's perception of facial expression, Chistopher Tyler and Leonid Kontsevich at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco wrote in Visual Research. The researchers digitally manipulated an image of Leonardo's masterpiece, superimposing it with filters of random flecks. "The portrait was chosen because it is the best known example of an expression at the ambiguity point between a happy and a sad dimension," wrote the researchers. In the experiment, they asked 12 volunteers to look at the image of Mon Lisa modified with a greyish filter of random visual noise and rate her expression on a four-point scale: sad, slightly sad, slightly happy and happy. Copyright © 2004 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 5825 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Docosahexaenoic acid, or "DHA," is a nutritional compound (an essential fatty acid, or lipid) that has many effects in the body, including the development of the eyes and brain. Prior to birth, fetuses obtain DHA from their mothers, with DHA primarily accumulating in the brain during the third trimester. DHA is also found naturally in breast milk and has recently been added to some U.S. commercial infant formulas. Some research indicates this postnatal DHA improves vision and some cognitive functions in infants and toddlers, although the evidence is mixed. In this study, we measured DHA levels in mothers' blood when their infants were born. We then followed those infants for the first two years of their life, evaluating them on different tests of attention during the first and second years. We found that infants whose mothers had higher blood levels of DHA at birth showed more mature forms of attention during their first two years. We also found these infants were less distractible during play and tended to be more engaged over time with toys than infants whose mothers had lower blood levels of DHA at delivery.

Keyword: Attention; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 5824 - Posted: 07.17.2004

A study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine revealed that physicians sometimes misattribute ill-defined physical symptoms to causes other than what may actually be depression. Patients complaining of physical ailments related to depression may not receive appropriate treatment from their doctors, as compared to patients who present with psychological symptoms. Palpitations, hot flashes, chest pains, or problems with appetite, can be overlooked as signs of depression, according to a study of 200 adults. The study focused on a secondary analysis of patients beginning a new treatment episode for depression, and evaluated the effects of treatment as a result of physical versus psychological symptoms presented. "While we are aware that current depression treatment is most often ineffective," offers author Dr. Robert D. Keeley, "we attempted to define the patient group that does not receive appropriate treatment, or does not respond to adequate treatment, by returning to the basic medical tenet of listening to the patient." The findings pointed out that physicians sometimes misattribute ill-defined physical symptoms to causes other than depression. The most effective treatments, regardless of symptoms, were successful because they matched patient preference. Patients who had physical symptoms of depression were less likely to agree with a medical diagnosis of depression and thus tended to be nonaccepting of antidepressants, while 72% of patients with psychological symptoms who were presented with antidepressants as a treatment showed improved outcomes.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 5823 - Posted: 07.17.2004

Bruce Bower A rodent mother can't scold or praise her offspring, but her approach to mothering lays a genetic foundation for her pups' life-long response to threats, neuroscientists have found. Rats raised by moms who frequently lick and groom them undergo permanent changes in patterns of gene activity, leading to a penchant for exploratory behavior in stressful situations, say Michael J. Meaney and his colleagues at McGill University in Montreal. In contrast, rats raised with little maternal contact end up with gene activity that fosters fearfulness in the face of stress, the researchers report in the August Nature Neuroscience. From an evolutionary perspective, having both behaviors in a population is beneficial. "Early experience can have lifelong consequences on behavior, and [this new report] reveals the genetic scaffolding of this phenomenon to an unprecedented extent," remarks neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University. Meaney's group previously showed that female rats express either a high- or a low-contact mothering style. Animals raised with lots of physical contact later react to stress by secreting small amounts of glucocorticoids, a class of stress hormones. These rats also possess large numbers of glucocorticoid receptors in an inner-brain structure called the hippocampus. Rats raised with little physical contact secrete large amounts of glucocorticoids when stressed and possess relatively few receptors for these hormones. Copyright ©2004 Science Service.

Keyword: Stress; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5822 - Posted: 06.24.2010

BY JAMIE TALAN, STAFF WRITER Scientists say they have unearthed a clue to solving the mystery of obsessive-compulsive disorder - the trait characterized with humor on the TV detective series "Monk." But OCD, as it's known, is rarely a laughing matter. Rather, its hallmarks are three behaviors: hand-washing, checking and hoarding, each carried out in the extreme. Now a study points to an understanding of the condition - and goes on to say the different behaviors may actually represent distinctly different syndromes. Scientists have demonstrated that each of the three behaviors activated a different brain region. Their study was published in the latest issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. They found that patients with hand-washing obsessions experienced activity in one brain region when presented with thoughts of dirty toilets and other germ-infested objects. The brains of patients characterized as "hoarders" experienced activity in a different brain region when presented with piles of papers. And "checkers," who compulsively check on such things as whether appliances have been turned off, experienced activity in yet another brain region when shown pictures of kettles and irons. Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 5821 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new genetic model for a motor disorder that confines an estimated 10,000 people in the United States to walkers and wheelchairs indicates that instability in the microscopic scaffolding within a key set of nerve cells is the cause of this devastating disability. The study, which is published in the July 13 issue of the journal Current Biology, provides a provocative new insight into the molecular basis of the disease called hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) and suggests a new way to treat the inherited genetic disorder. HSP--also known as familial spastic paraparesis and Strumpell-Lorrain syndrome--causes the ends of the nerves that control muscle activity to deteriorate. These nerve cells run from the brain's cerebral cortex to the spinal cord where they connect to "downstream" nerve cells that excite muscles throughout the body to control coordinated movement. HSP causes weakness, spasms and loss of function in the muscles in the lower extremities. More than 20 genes have been linked to HSP. However, more than 40 percent of all cases have been traced to a single gene (SPG4) that produces an enzyme called spastin. Previous studies have shown that this enzyme interacts with microtubules, the tiny protein tubes that provide structural support and transport avenues within most cells. Microtubules are dynamic structures, continually growing and shrinking, and their stability is closely regulated by a number of associated proteins. In nerve cells, microtubules carry cellular components to distant regions of the cell, regulate the growth of cellular branches and provide a substrate for important protein interactions. All of these functions are critically dependent on dynamic changes in microtubule stability.

Keyword: Movement Disorders; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5820 - Posted: 07.16.2004

A small fish with a remarkable hearing system that enables females to zero in on the love hums broadcast by males during the breeding season is providing scientists with clues that someday might provide a treatment for people with high-frequency hearing loss. Researchers from the University of Washington and Cornell University have duplicated a natural physiological change that occurs in the female plainfin midshipman fish (Porichthys notatus) during the breeding season. Working with non-reproductive females, the researchers boosted hormone levels that alter the fish's inner-ear hearing sensitivity for a short period so they can better hear the males' humming calls. "This is the first time anyone has been able to hormonally induce a change in hearing sensitivity in a vertebrate," said Joseph Sisneros, a UW assistant psychology professor who studies the neural basis of behavior. He is the lead author of a paper being published in the July 16 edition of the journal Science. Sisneros and a Cornell research team headed by Andrew Bass, found that a spike in levels of the hormones testosterone and estradiol (an estrogen) triggers changes in the females' inner ear so they are capable of detecting higher frequencies in the males' multi-harmonic humming. This process couples the transmission of sound by the males and reception by the females.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hearing
Link ID: 5819 - Posted: 07.16.2004

The idea that a woman's emotional state during pregnancy affects her unborn child has persisted for centuries and has, in recent years, been supported by science. Called the "fetal programming hypothesis," it theorizes that certain disturbing factors occurring during certain sensitive periods of development in utero can "program" set points in a variety of biological systems in the unborn child. This, then, affects the ability of those biological systems to change later in life, resulting in difficulties adapting physiologically and ultimately predisposing a child to disease and disorder. We decided to investigate the affect of high levels of anxiety during a woman's pregnancy on her child's susceptibility for attention deficits, hyperactivity, acting out and anxiety disorders in childhood. We also wanted to learn whether there are specific vulnerable periods during the pregnancy in which this anxiety "programs" the child's biological system, thus increasing the fetus' susceptibility for such disorders. We evaluated data collected on 71 normal mothers and their 72 first-born children during pregnancy and when their children were 8 or 9. The mothers completed questionnaires to measure their anxiety levels throughout their pregnancy. When the children were 8 or 9, the mothers, a teacher, and an impartial observer completed questionnaires to measure the child's attention and hyperactivity, acting-out behavior and anxiety level.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; ADHD
Link ID: 5818 - Posted: 07.16.2004

Cysts in Rats Develop Two-Way Communication with Brain TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-Researchers know what causes endometriosis, but how the cysts that are characteristic of the disease maintain themselves and produce severe pain in some women has remained a mystery. New research led by Florida State University Professor of Neuroscience Karen Berkley indicates that endometrial cysts develop their own nerve supply that could contribute both to the pain symptoms and the body's ability to maintain the disease. "The new nerves likely sprout from those that supply the blood vessels that grow along with and nourish the cysts," Berkley said. "It has been well known that the cysts need a blood supply to survive. It also has been well known that blood vessels have their own nerve supply. Surprisingly, no one before us had put the two ideas together - that the cysts would be supplied by nerves that grow and extend from those that supply the cyst's blood vessels." Berkley and colleagues Natalia Dmitrieva and Kathleen Curtis, both of FSU, and Raymond Papka, of Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, drew the conclusion after studying rats with surgically induced endometriosis. Their findings will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 5817 - Posted: 07.16.2004

The research does not reveal the cause of the anomalies. By Dorsey Griffith -- Bee Medical Writer A new study by the UC Davis MIND Institute has found that two areas in the brain are larger in boys with autism than in boys who are developing normally. The study, published in Wednesday's edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, represents the most comprehensive examination yet of brain volume in children with autism. The findings, which confirm some earlier studies, do not explore what caused the brain abnormalities or when the growth began to go awry but will better direct future autism research, said David Amaral, the study's principal investigator and research director at the MIND Institute. "It's beginning to point to the idea that in certain children with autism there is a defect that allows the brain to develop too quickly," he said. "This gives us a target to carry out fundamental neuroscience." Autistic people generally have difficulty speaking, relating to others and responding appropriately to their environment. The disorder typically is diagnosed in early childhood; some parents report their children were developing normally before symptoms appeared. Copyright © The Sacramento Bee

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 5816 - Posted: 06.24.2010

St. Paul, Minn. – People with vertigo can get relief by doing maneuvers at home, according to a study published in the July 13 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study involved people with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, an inner ear problem that causes a feeling of spinning or whirling when you move your head into certain positions. The vertigo usually lasts less than a minute. It can be mild or severe enough to cause nausea. It affects an estimated 64 people in every 100,000. This type of vertigo is believed to be caused by loose particles floating in the inner ear canal, which maintains the body’s equilibrium. Certain head and body movements can clear the particles from the ear canal. In general, the maneuvers are performed by a doctor or therapist. “For most people, one treatment is all it takes to stop the vertigo,” said study author Andrea Radtke, MD, a neurologist with Charité Campus Virchow Clinic in Berlin, Germany. “But some people need repeated treatments before it resolves completely. For these people, it would be beneficial to have the option to treat themselves at home.”

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 5815 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The air in the meeting room had grown stale as the afternoon wore on, but Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch listened intently, puzzling his way through the data. Leaning forward at the head of the oak table that dominated the room, he asked, "Are you saying there is still mercury in vaccines today?" After a quick glance at his attaché case, Dr. Mark Geier replied, "In several of them-we have the bottles here to show you." "I thought the Federal and Drug Administration required it to be removed," countered Hatch. Mark Geier sighed. "They recommended it be removed. Many of our children are still being injected with mercury at their well-baby checkups." Mercury is the main component of thimerosal, an antibacterial preservative that until recently was used in most vaccines. It has become a lightening rod in an escalating debate over the cause of the nation's rising rates of autism. It has entangled parents, health care providers, legislators, attorneys, public health officials, and drug makers, prompting them to ask one central question: Is thimerosal the mark of colossal government negligence or merely a symbol of parental desperation? © 2004 Seed Magazine.

Keyword: Autism; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 5814 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Any dog owner can tell you about the benefits of spending time with a furry friend. But now there's some science to back it up. "We have known for a long time that people like to interact with dogs and that it makes them feel happy and they enjoy it," says Rebecca Johnson, a gerontologist at University of Missouri-Columbia's Sinclair School of Nursing. "But it's important to know how this affects the changes in their bloodstream, so we can see which patients might be the best to benefit from this kind of interaction." In her on-going study, Johnson asks 50 dog owners and 50 non-pet owners, with ages ranging from 19 to 73, to play with a live dog and a robot dog. Before and after the interactions, she draws blood samples from human and dog, to compare hormone levels. "One of the hormones that we are interested in, which is called serotonin, is the hormone that controls depression in people," Johnson explains. Johnson's preliminary results show that serotonin increases when people pet their own dogs. "We think this is very important because of the large numbers of people in this country and abroad that are depressed, particularly the elderly, that we think may benefit from this kind of interaction," says Johnson. However, interaction with an unfamiliar dog didn't affect serotonin levels. © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 5813 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By studying fruit fly ovaries, Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that a protein known to block cell death also has the completely independent role of enabling normal cell movement. The discovery creates an unexpected new path to follow in the effort to understand the biochemical steps behind cells' movement, a critical aspect of embryonic development and the spread of cancer. The work is described in the July 8 issue of Cell. By studying fruit flies engineered to make extra use of random genes, the Hopkins team discovered that a protein called "inhibitor of apoptosis-1" (or IAP) can restore the tightly choreographed cellular movement that naturally occurs in fruit fly ovaries as egg cells mature. "This discovery was completely unexpected," says Denise Montell, Ph.D., professor of biological chemistry in Johns Hopkins' Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. "Based on what was known about this protein's function in blocking cell death, there would have been no way to predict its involvement in cell migration."

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Apoptosis
Link ID: 5812 - Posted: 07.15.2004

Michael Hopkin It is no coincidence that so many piano-tuners are blind. Folklore says their lack of sight gives them acute hearing, ideally suited to the task. Now neuroscientists in Canada have shown that the sightless really do hear notes more precisely if they went blind when they were very young. The idea that blindness can aid musical development is an old one, says Robert Zatorre of McGill University in Montreal, a member of the study team. Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, who both lost their sight at an early age, were among the twentieth century's most influential musicians. But previous attempts to quantify the effect have met with mixed results. Zatorre thinks this is because they did not take account of the age at which subjects went blind. The researchers therefore divided their 14 blind subjects into two groups: those who were blind at birth or lost their sight during the first two years of life, and those for whom blindness came later. The team also tested fully sighted people to see which of the three groups performed best at pitch-recognition tasks. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group |

Keyword: Hearing; Vision
Link ID: 5811 - Posted: 06.24.2010

BABIES exposed to sign language babble with their hands, even if they are not deaf. The finding supports the idea that human infants have an innate sensitivity to the rhythm of language and engage it however they can, the researchers who made the discovery claim. Everyone accepts that babies babble as a way to acquire language, but researchers are polarised about its role. One camp says that children learn to adjust the opening and closing of their mouths to make vowels and consonants by mimicking adults, but the sounds are initially without meaning. The other side argues that babbling is more than just random noise-making. Much of it, they contend, consists of phonetic-syllabic units - the rudimentary forms of language. Laura-Ann Petitto at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, a leader in this camp, has argued that deaf babies who are exposed to sign language learn to babble using their hands the way hearing babies do with their mouths. Petitto believes that the hand-babbling is functionally identical to verbal babbling- only the input is different. But critics counter that deaf children cannot be directly compared with their hearing counterparts. Now Petitto and her colleagues have tested three hearing babies who, because their parents are deaf, were exposed only to sign. Three control infants had hearing, speaking parents. To analyse the hand movements of the six children, the researchers placed infrared-emitting diodes on the babies' hands, forearms and feet.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 5810 - Posted: 07.15.2004

PORTLAND, Ore. -- An Oregon Health & Science University research team has uncovered a novel form of transmission between neurons in the brain that is mediated by dopamine. The neurons are found in parts of the brain associated with movement, substance abuse and mental disorders. Scientists at the Vollum Institute, OHSU School of Medicine, reported in a study published in the journal Neuron that the neurotransmitter dopamine is released from midbrain nerve cells in a much more precise, targeted manner than previously thought. They discovered that dopamine molecules are released as packages from stores, or vesicles, in branch-like extensions of neurons called dendrites. The dopamine travels to dopamine receptors on tiny terminals within milliseconds. Until now, scientists had only detected the release of dopamine in the midbrain and suspected that the neurotransmitter was dispersed over wide areas to reach receptors. "We've demonstrated that this synaptic current is over and done within a second," said John Williams, Ph.D., senior scientist at the Vollum Institute, OHSU School of Medicine, and a study co-author. "We knew dopamine was released in this place, we knew the cells were sensitive to dopamine, but nobody had been able to put the two together."

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 5809 - Posted: 07.15.2004