Findings point to a different way to treat sleep disorders and anxiety Irvine, Calif. — UC Irvine pharmacology researchers have found how a recently discovered brain protein plays a major role regulating sleep and stress – a discovery that can lead to a new class of drugs for treating ailments ranging from sleep and anxiety disorders to attention deficit disorder. The UCI team conducted tests to see how neuropeptide S (NPS) affected behavioral responses in rodents. They found that NPS increases alertness, suppresses sleep and even controls stress responses. This establishes NPS, which was first discovered in 2002, as an important modulator of sleep and alertness. This study also suggests NPS has potential as a target for new drugs to treat sleep disorders. The study appears in the Aug. 19 issue of Neuron. "Since our knowledge of NPS is so new, we may be at the tip of the iceberg in understanding its function," said Rainer Reinscheid, assistant adjunct professor in pharmacology and lead researcher in the study. "We've found NPS to be so active with sleep and anxiety behavior that it can be a very attractive drug target, both to enhance and to suppress its function." In testing how NPS is involved with both sleep regulation and stress behaviors, the researchers found that NPS is produced by previously unidentified neurons in a brain stem region known for regulating arousal and anxiety. Further tests demonstrated that rats injected with NPS showed increased alertness and reduced slow-wave and REM sleep over untreated rats.

Keyword: Sleep; Emotions
Link ID: 6000 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Language may shape human thought – suggests a counting study in a Brazilian tribe whose language does not define numbers above two. Hunter-gatherers from the Pirahã tribe, whose language only contains words for the numbers one and two, were unable to reliably tell the difference between four objects placed in a row and five in the same configuration, revealed the study. Experts agree that the startling result provides the strongest support yet for the controversial hypothesis that the language available to humans defines our thoughts. So-called “linguistic determinism” was first proposed in 1950 but has been hotly debated ever since. “It is a very surprising and very important result,” says Lisa Feigenson, a developmental psychologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, US, who has tested babies’ abilities to distinguish between different numerical quantities. “Whether language actually allows you to have new thoughts is a very controversial issue.” © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 5999 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The idea that studying music improves the intellect is not a new one, but at last there is incontrovertible evidence from a study conducted out of the University of Toronto. The study, led by Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg, examined the effect of extra-curricular activities on the intellectual and social development of six-year-old children. A group of 144 children were recruited through an ad in a local newspaper and assigned randomly to one of four activities: keyboard lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons, or no lessons. Two types of music lessons were offered in order to be able to generalize the results, while the groups receiving drama lessons or no lessons were considered control groups in order to test the effect of music lessons over other art lessons requiring similar skill sets and nothing at all. The activities were provided for one year. The participating children were given IQ tests before and after the lessons. The results of this study revealed that increases in IQ from pre- to post-test were larger in the music groups than in the two others. Generally these increases occurred across IQ subtests, index scores, and academic achievement. Children in the drama group also exhibited improvements pre- to post-test, but in the area of adaptive social behavior, an area that did not change among children who received music lessons.

Keyword: Intelligence; Hearing
Link ID: 5998 - Posted: 08.21.2004

WASHINGTON — Smoking may be on the rise again, especially among adolescents and young adults. The statistics are alarming: About one in five high school seniors smoke cigarettes daily. Yet nearly half a million Americans die prematurely from tobacco-related disease and smoking is projected to in some way kill one third of all smokers. Two new studies report on how well nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) helps two important groups: teenagers and women. The research appears in the August issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA). In the first study, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found that the nicotine patch seems to work as well, at least initially, for teens as it does for adults. In addition, the patch, the top delivery form of NRT (followed by gum, an inhaler and a nasal spray) worked equally well with or without supplementation by an anti-depressant given to the teens. The study may be the first randomized controlled trial of drug therapy to help teens stop smoking. © 2004 American Psychological Association

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5997 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS An obese Massachusetts woman and her 8-month-old fetus died of complications 18 months after the woman had stomach-stapling surgery, an apparent first that is leading to warnings about the risks of pregnancy soon after the surgery. The deaths, in 2002, raise concerns because most of the 110,000 people who have gastric, or stomach, bypass surgery each year in the United States are women in their child-bearing years, say doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who tried to save the woman and fetus. They reported on the case in a letter in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Edward E. Whang cared for the 41-year-old woman nearly two years ago, when she was brought to the Brigham emergency department after two days at another hospital, where the cause of sudden pain in her upper stomach had been misdiagnosed. "She was nearly dead," said Dr. Whang, who noted the woman had the gastric bypass and prenatal care at other hospitals. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 5996 - Posted: 08.15.2004

Development of a molecular timetable by analysis of circadian gene expression – A look inside a wristwatch reveals that timekeeping is a complex affair, involving the coordination of mechanical parts providing the impulses and feedback needed to achieve precisely recurring movement. Biological clocks are equally complex, regulated by a network of genes and transcriptional factors that interact to stabilize the rhythms of numerous physiological systems. Unlike the wristwatch, however, there is no visible readout or display showing an individual's body time, a lack which has stood as one of the major barriers to realizing the promise of chronotherapy, which seeks to deliver drug treatments at optimal body times. A new study by Hiroki R. Ueda (Laboratory for Systems Biology, RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology; Kobe, Japan) and colleagues has provided proof of principle that just such a display of individual body time may one day possible. The report, published in the August 3 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes the analysis of the expression of more than 100 time-indicating genes in the mouse. The results of this genome-wide study enabled the authors to develop a "molecular timetable" that provides an accurate representation of the animal's body time based on the sampling of gene expression levels at a single point in time.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 5995 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Cannabis extracts may shrink brain tumours and other cancers by blocking the growth of the blood vessels which feed them, suggests a new study. An active component of the street drug has previously been shown to improve brain tumours in rats. But now Manuel Guzmán at Complutense University, Spain, and colleagues have demonstrated how the cannabis extracts block a key chemical needed for tumours to sprout blood vessels – a process called angiogenesis. And for the first time, the team has shown the cannabinoids impede this chemical in people with the most aggressive form of brain cancer - glioblastoma multiforme. Cristina Blázquez at Complutense University, and one of the team, stresses the results are preliminary. “But it’s a good point to start and continue,” she told New Scientist. “The cannabinoid inhibits the angiogenesis response - if a tumour doesn’t do angiogenesis, it doesn’t grow,” she explains. “So if you can improve angiogenesis on one side and kill the tumour cells on the other side, you can try for a therapy for cancer.” © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5994 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A type of protein which helps increase lifespan in yeast and worms could offer hope for new treatments in diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Researchers from Washington School of Medicine say it appears to help prevent damage to nerve cells in the brain which occur in such diseases. The team say it may be possible to create drug or gene treatments which can mimic this action. The research is published in the magazine Science. The scientists, based in St Louis, looked at nerve cells in mice. They looked at axons, which connect nerve cells to other cells. In diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, it is thought these axons may start to "self-destruct" before the nerve cells actually die. It was found that a protein called SIRT1 appeared to block some or all of this process. The effect was confirmed when the scientists administered a drug which shuts down the activity of this type of protein to the nerve cells - and found the protective effect disappeared. The proteins have previously been linked to extending the lifespan in yeast and the tiny worm C. elegans. Jeffrey Milbrandt, professor of medicine and of pathology and immunology at the medical school, who led the research, said: "It's becoming clear that nerve cell death in these disorders is often preceded by the degeneration and loss of axons. (C)BBC

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 5993 - Posted: 08.13.2004

Dolphin groups, or "pods" rely on socialites to keep them together, scientists have claimed. Without these individuals, the cohesion of the dolphin group falls apart, researchers have discovered. The finding may mean that capturing wild dolphins or killer whales for marine parks could have a serious impact on their companions left behind. Details of the study, by a UK and US research team, are outlined in New Scientist magazine. Ecologist David Lusseau, from the University of Aberdeen, UK, studied the social interctions of a community of 62 bottlenose dolphins living in Doubtful Sound, New Zealand. From 1994 to 2001, he tracked individual animals and worked out which ones appeared together more often than would be expected by chance. His colleague, Mark Newman from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, US, then applied a mathematical technique used for probing complex networks. What emerged were two sizeable sub-communities joined together tenuously by just a few common members. (C)BBC

Keyword: Animal Communication
Link ID: 5992 - Posted: 08.13.2004

NYBORG, DENMARK--The next time you step on a cockroach, you may be committing an act of mercy. At least its end will come quicker than it would have if the insect fell prey to the parasitic wasp Ampulex compressa, which delivers a paralyzing sting to the brain so that its hungry brood can devour the living roach from the inside out. Now researchers have found receptors on the wasp's stinger that may guide the neurotoxic strike. The sting of A. compressa paralyzes its prey, the cockroach Periplaneta Americana, for 4 or 5 weeks--enough time for the wasp's eggs to hatch, feed, and pupate inside their helpless host. For this strategy to work, the wasp must deliver its venom--a cocktail of neurotoxins--directly to the roach's brain. To investigate what guides the sting, Ram Gal and Frederic Libersat of Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, Israel, first introduced the wasp to roaches whose brains had been removed. Normally, it takes about a minute for the wasp to find its target, sting, and fly off. But in the brainless roaches, the wasps searched the empty head cavity for an average of 10 minutes. A radioactive tracer injected into the wasps revealed that when they finally did sting, they used about 1/6 the usual amount of venom. The wasps knew something was amiss, says Gal, who presented the findings here on 10 August at a meeting of the International Society for Neuroethology. Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Neurotoxins
Link ID: 5991 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Theory May Increase Understanding of Eye Disease, Sleep Disorders The pineal gland — which regulates the cycles of sleep and waking — appears to have evolved as an indirect way to improve vision, by keeping toxic compounds away from the eye, according to a new theory by a researcher at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health. The theory has implications for understanding macular degeneration, a condition causing vision loss in people age 60 and older. The theory is described in the August Journal of Biological Rhythms and represents the work of David Klein, Ph.D., Chief of NICHD's Section on Neuroendocrinology. Dr. Klein studies melatonin, the pineal hormone that regulates sleep and wake cycles. Briefly, the theory holds that melatonin was at first a kind of cellular garbage, a by-product created in cells of the eye when normally toxic substances were rendered harmless. Roughly 500 million years ago, however, the ancestors of today's animals became dependent on melatonin as a signal of darkness. As the need for greater quantities of melatonin grew, the pineal gland developed as a structure separate from the eyes, to keep the toxic substances needed to make melatonin away from sensitive eye tissue.

Keyword: Vision; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 5990 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Rats can emulate three key signs of addiction in humans, new research has shown. The findings provide the first-ever animal model showing a transition from drug usage to drug addiction, which could in future enable the development of new therapies. Animals have been shown to have a preference for drugs since early studies in the 1960s. But it was not clear whether the animals simply derived pleasure from the substances or whether they were actually addicted to them. So Pier Vincenzo Piazza and colleagues at the Bordeaux Institute for Neurosciences, France, set up an experiment in which freely moving rats could obtain traces of cocaine by poking their noses into a hole. After a three-month period the rats were not only extremely reluctant to cut down on their drug use, they had an unusually high desire for the cocaine and would seek it even when it was accompanied with an electric shock to the foot. “This tells us addiction is not a social phenomenon, but a brain disease,” Piazza told New Scientist. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5989 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Two factors help children escape problems People diagnosed with either fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) or fetal alcohol effect (FAE) are more likely to escape social and relationship problems if they are diagnosed early in life and raised in a stable and nurturing environment, according to research by University of Washington Professor Ann Streissguth. In an article published in the Aug. 12 edition of the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Streissguth, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the UW School of Medicine, said that her study of 415 subjects showed that of all the factors that might positively or negatively affect a child with FAS or FAE, these two factors are most important in helping them escape negative experiences. Those negative experiences can include confinement for criminal violations and other reasons, trouble with the law, inappropriate sexual behavior, alcohol or drug problems and disrupted education. "This is the first study to show that despite the prenatal brain damage caused by their mothers' consumption of alcohol during pregnancy, these children can grow up to have relatively more successful lives," Streissguth said. "Our interviews with the caregivers of our study subjects, who ranged in age from 6 to 51 years, showed that the odds of escaping these adverse life experiences are improved two-to-four-fold by being diagnosed with FAS or FAE at an early age and by being raised in a good stable environment

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5988 - Posted: 08.13.2004

Arlington, Va.--An international team of scientists has traced the evolution of hearing in modern cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). "This study of the early evolution of whales demonstrates the changes that took place in whales' outer and middle ears, required for the transition from a land-based to a marine-based existence," said Rich Lane, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s geology and paleontology program, which funded the research. The findings are published in the Aug. 12 issue of the journal Nature. The ear is the most important sense organ for modern toothed whales, say scientists, because these whales locate their prey using echolocation. Directional hearing is critical: A blind such whale could find food without much trouble; a deaf one would starve. The study documents how hearing in these whales evolved. The research is based on cetacean fossils representing four groups of early whales. The earliest cetaceans, pakicetids (those that swam in ancient seas 50 million years ago), used the same sound transmission system as did land mammals, and so had poor underwater hearing. More recent cetaceans, remingtonocetids and protocetids (those that lived 43-46 million years ago), retained the land-mammal system, but also developed a new sound transmission system.

Keyword: Hearing; Evolution
Link ID: 5987 - Posted: 08.12.2004

Helen Pilcher Procrastinating primates can be turned into workaholics, thanks to gene therapy. The discovery, which sheds light on the workings of the brain's reward centre, may further our understanding of mood disorders, such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Like many humans, monkeys tend to slack off when their goal is distant, then work harder as a deadline looms. But when a key gene is turned off, the primates work hard from the word go, researchers report in PNAS Online1. "The gene knockdown triggered a remarkable transformation in the simian work ethic," says Barry Richmond of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, who studied the animals. Richmond's team trained four monkeys to release a lever when a spot on a computer screen turned from red to green. The animals had to complete several trials correctly before they received a reward. To give them an idea of how many trials were left, a grey bar on the screen became progressively brighter as the task progressed. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5986 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Boys exposed to persistent levels of cocaine in the womb are more likely to have behavioral problems like hyperactivity in their early school years, new research suggests. But girls who had prenatal exposure to similar amounts of cocaine were not more likely to suffer from the same problems, Virginia Delaney-Black, M.D., of Children's Hospital of Michigan and colleagues found. The study results are published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. While no specific cause of the gender-specific findings was identified, the researchers note that the study confirms animal studies that also suggest gender plays a role in the effects of cocaine exposure. Delaney-Black and colleagues say human studies have been "inconsistent" on the question of whether prenatal cocaine exposure has gender-specific effects on children's development. The study looked at 473 children in the Detroit area ages 6 to 7 whose mothers had received prenatal care and drug testing. About 200 of the children in the study were prenatally exposed to cocaine. Children were considered "persistently" exposed if they or their mothers tested positive for traces of cocaine in their urine at the time of birth. To determine whether these children had a higher likelihood of behavioral and other cognitive problems, Delaney-Black and colleagues collected information on the children's behavior from their teachers.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5985 - Posted: 08.12.2004

Researchers at the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have identified a relationship between a small section of one gene, the brain chemical messenger glutamate, and a collection of traits known to be associated with schizophrenia. The finding confirms the gene responsible for management of glutamate is a promising candidate in determining risk for schizophrenia. The study, conducted by Michael Egan, M.D., Daniel Weinberger, M.D., and colleagues, is published in the August 9, 2004, of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Glutamate is a key neurotransmitter long thought to play a role in schizophrenia. The gene identified in this study makes the glutamate receptor (GMR3) which is responsible for regulating glutamate in synapses—spaces in between brain cells"—"where chemicals like glutamate transfer information from cell to cell. The amount of glutamate remaining in the synapse may have a downstream impact on cognition. "Because of the small effects of individual genes in complex genetic disorders like schizophrenia, it is difficult to make significant associations with any one particular marker. However, this study brings us closer to unlocking the genetic clues that increase the risk for schizophrenia," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. Researchers know that schizophrenia affects several regions in the front part of the brain that are involved in higher order thinking and decision-making and neurotransmitter systems like glutamate. Many of the genes already identified as likely candidates for the disorder have been thought to affect the glutamate system. The study implicates the GMR3 gene as well.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5984 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Drugs Linked to More Suicides Among Children, Unpublished Analysis Says By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer Six months after the Food and Drug Administration withheld an internal finding that antidepressant medications were associated with an increased risk of suicide among children, a second staff analysis has arrived at the same conclusion. The agency has not publicly disclosed either report, despite growing pressure from critics and Congress. Agency officials say they do not plan to discuss the data until a scheduled meeting in September, which would come nine months after British authorities warned physicians not to prescribe Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa and similar drugs to depressed children, and more than a year after the first concerns emerged. The new analysis has renewed the complaints of critics that the FDA is moving too slowly to address the concerns about suicide. One leading expert who reviewed the two internal analyses said they had changed his thinking about the risks. "I didn't have access to the proprietary data" reflected in the FDA analyses, said Steven Hyman, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who initially thought British regulators had overreacted. Hyman reviewed the analyses at the request of The Washington Post. © 2004 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5983 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Anabolic steroids, abused by athletes to increase performance, weaken the body's natural defence against infections and cancer, tests show. Australian scientists found that, even at doses 50 times lower than those commonly used by abusers, the drugs dampened the immune system. Volunteers testing the drugs for Southern Cross University also reported changes in their personality. The reduced empathy they felt may explain the condition 'roid rage'. This is when people taking steroids become overly aggressive. For six weeks, a group of 24 athletes from different countries agreed to take anabolic steroids for the purpose of the investigation. At the beginning of the study the volunteers took part in a series of athletic events to measure their personal as well as their competitive performances, and their strength, speed and endurance. They were divided into two groups, one group receiving injections of the anabolic steroid testosterone enanthate (3.5 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight per week) and the other receiving harmless dummy injections. Neither group nor the scientists overseeing the experiment, commissioned by New Scientist and Channel 4, knew who was given what. (C)BBC

Keyword: Aggression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 5982 - Posted: 08.11.2004

Genes could explain why women are more prone to stress-related anxiety and mood disorders. US researchers have pinpointed a variation in a gene which controls regulation of a key brain chemical linked to mood. Their work, on monkeys, suggests people with this variant may be more likely to react badly to negative experiences. The US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers focused on a particular variant of the gene, known as the s allele. People with this variant produce less of a protein that is involved in regulating levels of a chemical called serotonin in the brain. Previous research has suggested that people were more likely to become depressed after going through a bad experience if they carried this gene variant. For the latest study, the researchers measured stress hormone levels in 190 infant rhesus macaque monkeys when the animals were the equivalent of about nine to 24 months old in human development terms. Some of the measurements were made after the animals had been socially separated for 30 minutes - a situation which causes stress among monkeys which are used to each other's company. The scientists found that, after social separation, the highest levels of stress hormones were found among female animals that both carried the s allele, and had a history of adversity. They say that if their results can be applied to humans they suggest that females who carry the s allele may be particularly vulnerable to developing mood disorders after being exposed to stress early in life, such as childhood abuse or neglect. Researcher Dr Christina Barr told BBC News Online it was unclear why men and women should react differently. However, she said it was possible that sex hormones also play a role. (C)BBC

Keyword: Emotions; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 5981 - Posted: 08.11.2004