Researchers have produced what they say is the best evidence to date that food additives aggravate hyperactive behavior in children. To many parents that's an article of faith. But numerous studies over the past 30 years have failed to provide conclusive evidence. John Warner, a pediatric allergist at the University of Southampton, U.K., and colleagues studied what they say is the largest group of subjects ever assembled from the general population for such a study: 277 3-year-olds on the Isle of Wight, about half of whom were diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In the monthlong trial, each child spent a week drinking juice spiked with food colorings and sodium benzoate, a common preservative. After a week of drying out, they spent another week drinking identical-tasting juice with no additives. Parents were blind to the study design. The additives in the juice were "no more than what you would expect in a reasonable child's diet," says Warner. Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 5543 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ALS is an incurable paralysing muscle disorder affecting five in every one hundred thousand people. The disease mainly strikes healthy people in the most active period of their life, without any warning or family history. Researchers from VIB (the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology), lead by Prof. Peter Carmeliet (K.U.Leuven) already indicated the importance of the VEGF protein in this illness, on the basis of genetic studies. In cooperation with Oxford BioMedica, an Oxford-based biotech company, a new study of the VIB researchers indicates that gene therapy with VEGF appears to be one of the most promising therapies. By administering the gene that produces VEGF in the nerve trajectory of ALS mice, the researchers were able to slow down the development of the illness and increase their life expectancy by 30% - the largest therapeutic effect ever achieved for ALS. ALS can affect anyone. Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung, Russian composer Dimitri Sjostakowitz, legendary Yankee baseball player Lou Gehrig and astrophysicist Stephen Hawkins were all affected by ALS. A large number of Italian top football players, pilots and soldiers in the Gulf War were also affected by this fatal disease. Around half of them die within three years, some even within a year, mostly in full possession of their faculties as a result of asphyxiation.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease ; Trophic Factors
Link ID: 5542 - Posted: 05.28.2004

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Despite the highly publicized closing of the Women's Health Initiative study, the scientific community should not rule out that women may benefit from hormone therapy after menopause, say researchers at UC Davis, Duke and Harvard Universities. Their review of the scientific literature on the biology of estrogens and progestins appears in the May 28 issue of the journal Science. "It was right to close the Women's Health Initiative trial," said Judith L. Turgeon, professor of internal medicine at UC Davis School of Medicine and senior author of the Science article. "But we should not generalize the results of this trial and overlook the real potential that other forms of hormone therapy may offer to postmenopausal women." The Women's Health Initiative trials used the steroid formulation most frequently prescribed in the United States at the time, given to women in pill form on a daily basis. New information gleaned from basic research in the biology of ovarian hormones, however, indicates that not all estrogens and progestins are alike, nor do they behave identically in different tissues in the body. "As our understanding of the biology of these hormones grows, the more we realize how important certain factors are -- such as formulation, dosage, whether they're given by a pill or a patch, and characteristics of women being treated," said co-author Phyllis M. Wise, dean of the division of biological sciences and distinguished professor of neurobiology, physiology and behavior at UC Davis. "More targeted therapies may yield important health benefits."

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 5541 - Posted: 05.28.2004

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor An international team of scientists, seeking to track the course of human evolution and the ancient roots of genetic diseases, has completed the first highly accurate map of the genes in a single chimpanzee chromosome and compared them gene-by-gene with their human counterparts. The result, the scientists say, reveals surprising differences between the species, even though they are the closest of relatives in the primate family. The international team completed the first sequence of the genes in chimp chromosome pair No. 22, one of 24 chromosome pairs in the chimpanzee. That pair is the counterpart of chromosome 21 in the human array of 23 chromosome pairs. The sequencing feat was accomplished by a consortium of scientists working at genetics centers in five nations headed by Yoshiyuki Sakaki and Asao Fujiyama of Japan's Genomics Sciences Center in Yokohama. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Evolution; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5540 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— Experiments by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have revealed it might be possible for randomness in gene expression to lead to differences in cells — or people, for that matter — that are genetically identical. The researchers, HHMI investigator Erin K. O'Shea and colleague Jonathan M. Raser, both at the University of California, San Francisco, published their findings May 27, 2004, in Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science. According to O'Shea, the original notion that random noise in gene expression — the processes by which proteins are synthesized from the information contained in DNA — arose from a paradox. “While processes such as gene expression involved in the development of organisms proceed in a very orderly fashion, paradoxically, they depend on chemical reactions that are inherently probabilistic, like flipping a coin,” said O'Shea. “And since these processes involve small numbers of molecules, they should be significantly affected by chance, just as flipping a coin a few times will be more heavily affected than flipping it many times.” ©2004 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5539 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists may have developed a gene therapy treatment for the most common form of motor neurone disease (MND). In lab tests on mice the therapy slowed onset and progression of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). It also extended life expectancy by 30%. Writing in the journal Nature, the research team at biopharmaceutical firm Oxford BioMedica stressed the work is at an early stage. MND affects about 5,000 people in the UK and there are 1,000 new cases a year. The disease is caused by the death of cells - called motor neurones - that control movement in the brain and spinal cord. There is currently no known cure. ALS is a form of the disease which affects adults, leading to paralysis and death within five years for most patients. The new treatment - called MoNuDin - essentially consists of a gene which triggers production of a chemical called a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The gene is injected into the muscles, but stimulates VEGF production in the nerve cells of the spine. (C)BBC

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 5538 - Posted: 05.27.2004

Measuring brain cell activity in dogs with a genetic form of narcolepsy, neurobiologists Jerome Siegel and his colleagues have presented evidence that wakefulness is maintained by the activity of neurons triggered by the neurotransmitter histamine. The discovery will be appreciated by anyone in whom antihistamines in allergy or over-the-counter sleep drugs cause drowsiness. The findings offer new insights both into normal sleep and narcolepsy. To "dissect" the neurological components of sleep, the scientists studied the phenomenon of cataplexy -- the abrupt loss of muscle tone while maintaining a state of complete wakefulness. The majority of narcoleptics suffer from this malady, in which a strong emotion, even a funny joke, can cause them to drop into a state of paralyzed awareness ranging from a few seconds to half an hour. Similarly, in narcoleptic dogs, emotional excitement, play, or even receiving a favorite food can trigger cataplexy. The researchers have been using cataplexy as a unique natural "experiment" to distinguish the neural basis of loss of consciousness from that of skeletal muscle paralysis during sleep. In their studies, they have concentrated on the role of three kinds of neurons in the brain's hypothalamus -- the central controlling region for sleep and wakefulness.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 5537 - Posted: 05.27.2004

They were meant to show that gender was determined by nurture, not nature - one identical twin raised as a boy and the other brought up as a girl after a botched circumcision. But two years ago Brian Reimer killed himself, and last week David - formerly Brenda - took his life too. Oliver Burkeman and Gary Younge unravel the tragic story of Dr Money's sex experiment Until a few years ago, the name David Reimer meant little to those outside his immediate circle, and by the time he killed himself last Tuesday in unknown circumstances in his hometown of Winnipeg, it was already slipping back towards obscurity - a name belonging to nobody more remarkable than a local odd-job man, a 38-year-old former slaughterhouse worker who was separated from his wife, and enjoyed shopping at flea markets and tinkering with his car. In fact, to anyone taking an interest in the development of psychology in the 1970s and 1980s, Reimer's life story would have long been infamous, but also pseudonymous. Going by the name "John", and subsequently "Joan", David Reimer had been an unwitting guinea-pig - along with his identical twin brother Brian - in a medical experiment at first celebrated, then notorious. Masterminded by a prominent Baltimore physician, John Money, it was an attempt to settle, once and for all, the fraught nature-versus-nurture debate: to prove that gender was so fluid that by a mere change in childrearing practice, plus a little surgery, a boy could be turned into a girl, while his twin developed as a male. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 5536 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have discovered that the brain's centre of reasoning is among the last areas to mature. The finding, by a team at the US National Institute of Mental Health, may help to explain why teenagers often seem to be so unreasonable. Researchers used imaging techniques to show "higher order" brain areas do not develop fully until young adulthood. The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The decade-long study used magnetic resonance imaging to follow the development of the brains of 13 health children every two years as they grew up. The aim was to get a better picture of how the brain develops so that it would be easily to pin down abnormalities that occur in conditions such as schizophrenia. The researchers found that grey matter - the working tissue of the brain's cortex - diminishes in a back-to-front wave over time. They believe this is a key part of the maturation process, whereby unused and unneeded connections between brain cells are gradually destroyed. They found the first areas to mature were those with the most basic functions, such as processing the senses and movement. Next came areas, such as the parietal lobes, involved in spatial orientation and language. (C)BBC

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 5535 - Posted: 05.27.2004

Humans and their closest relatives, chimpanzees, may be more different than geneticists have realised. Previously, scientists have estimated that humans and chimps differ in about 1.5 per cent of the DNA letters that spell out their genomes. However, these estimates have been based on studies of only small subsets of the two genomes, because the chimp genome has not been sequenced precisely enough to allow a large-scale, base-by-base comparison. That has now changed, thanks to the International Chimpanzee Chromosome 22 consortium, a team of researchers based in Asia and Europe that has sequenced a single chimpanzee chromosome in unprecedented detail. The group then compared this sequence against its human counterpart, chromosome 21. They found that the two differ at only 1.44 per cent of the DNA bases that the two chromosomes have in common - a minuscule difference that confirms earlier estimates. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 5534 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tampa, FL -- Werewolves notwithstanding, the full moon does not influence the frequency of epileptic seizures, reports a University of South Florida study. "Contrary to the myth, epileptic seizures are not more common during a full moon," said Selim Benbadis, MD, associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the USF College of Medicine. "In fact, we found the number of epileptic seizures was lowest during the full moon and highest in the moon's last quarter." The study, to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Epilepsy & Behavior, is posted in the journal's online version. Dr. Benbadis said he decided to investigate the possible relationship between phases of the moon and the frequency of seizures after repeatedly hearing patients claim that their seizures were triggered or worsened by the full moon. "Even some health care professionals believe this, but it's never been scientifically tested," he said.

Keyword: Epilepsy; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 5533 - Posted: 05.27.2004

How the brain stores those meaningful memories Smells trigger memories but can memories trigger smell, and what does this imply for the way memories are stored? A UCL study of the smell gateway in the brain has found that the memory of an event is scattered across sensory parts of the brain, suggesting that advertising aimed at triggering memories of golden beaches and soft sand could well enhance your desire to book a seaside holiday. By reversing the premise used in Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, UCL researchers established that the memory of an event is spread across different areas of the brain such as the hippocampus and the olfactory cortex - the smell gateway of the brain. In Proust's story, protagonist Charles Swann is transported back to his childhood when the smell of a biscuit dipped in tea triggers memories from his past.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 5532 - Posted: 05.27.2004

A study in the May 26 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggests that prenatal cocaine exposure was not associated with lower full scale IQ scores, or verbal or performance IQ scores at age 4 years. However, the study also found that prenatal cocaine exposure was associated with specific cognitive impairments and a lower likelihood of an above average IQ, but that home environments could make a difference for better outcomes for some children. "Cocaine readily crosses the placental and fetal brain barriers and has a direct effect on the developing fetal brain …" the authors provide as background information in the article. The authors add that "a number of methodologically sound studies have found a relationship between fetal cocaine exposure and negative child developmental outcomes in the first years of life, although others have not." In this study, Lynn T. Singer, Ph.D., from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and colleagues assessed the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure and the quality of the caregiving environment on cognitive outcomes. The participants included 376 children (190 cocaine-exposed and 186 non-exposed) from a high-risk population who were enrolled in a longitudinal study from birth (September 1994 – June 1996). They were screened for drug exposure as infants, assessed at 6, 12 and 24 months of age and then tested at 4 years old for cognitive developments.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5531 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A team of U.S. and Irish researchers has come one step closer to understanding why a high proportion of the population is genetically at risk for neural tube defects, according to a genetic study by researchers in Ireland and at two of the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Human Genome Research Institute. Specifically, the researchers learned that having only one copy of a variant gene is enough to increase the chances of being born with a neural tube defect. Previously, researchers believed that two copies of the gene were needed to increase someone's risk of being born with a neural tube defect. The finding underscores the need for all women of childbearing age to follow the current recommendation to take 400 micrograms of the vitamin folic acid each day. The study appears on the Web site of the British Medical Journal, at http://bmj.com and will appear in the print edition of the journal at a later date. Neural tube defects are a class of birth defects affecting the brain and spinal cord. In one type, spina bifida, a piece of the spinal cord protrudes from the spinal column, causing paralysis below the protrusion. In anencephaly, a fatal neural tube defect, the brain and skull are grossly underdeveloped.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5530 - Posted: 05.26.2004

Specialist individual music lessons could hugely benefit children with autism, according to researchers Dr Pamela Heaton and Dr Francesca Happe at the University of London. The study, which was funded by ESRC, suggests that many children with this disorder have outstanding abilities in tone recognition. "A lot of work has been done on musical savants with exceptional musical memory and rarely found absolute pitch ability" says Dr Pamela Heaton who led the research. "But our research shows that even children without these special talents and no musical training can have highly developed musical 'splinter skills'. If we could develop effective non-verbal music teaching methods, we might be able to understand more about the way these children learn and process other information." A series of music workshops in which children with autism will be taught to read musical notation are currently being planned. The research compared the skills of six to 19 year old individuals with autism, and a control group with matching age, IQ and level of musical background, on a series of tasks into tone memory and discrimination. Using a touch-screen laptop computer, they were asked to identify musical notes by moving the image of a boy up and down a flight of stairs.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 5529 - Posted: 05.26.2004

By Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online —The power of music to convey a certain emotion can now be predicted by a mathematical model, an Australian psychologist has found. Emery Schubert of the University of New South Wales will report the first study of its kind to mathematically quantify the emotional impact of music at the International Conference on Auditory Display in Sydney in July. Schubert has developed a formula that relates features such as the music's loudness, tempo and pitch to an emotion perceived by the listener. "With my formulas I can play a piece of music and predict what emotional impact it will have," Schubert told ABC Science Online. He found that the loudness of a piece of music was the most powerful predictor of whether the music was arousing. Next in line was tempo: the faster the music, the more arousing the music. Copyright © 2004 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Hearing; Emotions
Link ID: 5528 - Posted: 06.24.2010

If you recall this sentence a few seconds from now, you can thank a simple network of neurons for the experience. That is the conclusions of researchers who have built a computer model that can reproduce an important aspect of short-term memory. The key, they say, is that the neurons form a "small world" network. Small-world networks are surprisingly common. Human social networks, for example, famously connect any two people on Earth - or any actor to Kevin Bacon - in six steps or less. Properties like this have made them the focus of much research. It turns out that regardless of the size of these networks, any two points within them are always linked by only a small number of steps. Now it looks as if working memory, which allows short-term recall of fleetingly remembered information such as phone numbers, relies on the same property. This type of memory resides in an area at the front of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in learning, planning and many higher cognitive functions. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 5527 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Alcoholism tends to run in families, suggesting that addiction, at least in part, has an underlying genetic cause. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered a gene linked to alcohol dependency. Laboratory mice deficient in the gene were found to consume excessive amounts of alcohol, preferring ethanol to water and evincing highly anxious behavior in a maze test. Results of the study are published in the May 26 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. The gene the researchers investigated manufactures a protein called CREB, or cyclic AMP responsive element binding protein, which is known to regulate brain function during development and learning. "This is the first direct evidence that a deficiency in the CREB gene is associated with anxiety and alcohol-drinking behaviors," said Subhash Pandey, associate professor of psychiatry and director of neuroscience alcoholism research at the UIC College of Medicine. When CREB is activated, it regulates the production of a brain protein called neuropeptide Y. Low levels of active CREB or of neuropeptide Y correlate with symptoms of anxiety and excessive alcohol consumption, the scientists showed in a previous study.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5526 - Posted: 05.26.2004

By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D. Just before surgery to repair an inguinal hernia, my friend and colleague Justin said he wanted to be the first one to greet me in the recovery room. His enthusiasm made me suspect that there might be more to his offer than just compassion. "I want to ask you some tough questions I'm dying to know the truth about," he joked. It made me wonder, though. Do people spill their secrets on the operating room table under the influence of anesthesia? From Mesmer, an early pioneer of hypnosis, to "The Manchurian Candidate," with its brainwashed killers, the idea of techniques or drugs that could usurp human will has captured people's imaginations. Truth serum, common wisdom has it, should simply make us dish up our darkest secrets. A tantalizing idea, but is it true? Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 5525 - Posted: 05.25.2004

By MARY DUENWALD Now that the Food and Drug Administration has warned Americans taking antidepressants to be on the lookout for potentially harmful side effects, including severe restlessness and suicidal thinking, some people may end up stopping the drugs. But going off antidepressants can bring its own problems. Stopping cold turkey can cause an array of troublesome symptoms, the most common being dizziness, which can last for days on end. Flu-like feelings, including nausea, headache and fatigue, are also common, as are intense feelings of anxiety, irritability or sadness. Some patients experience alarming sensations of tingling or burning in various parts of the body; ringing in the ears; blurred vision; or flashing lights before the eyes. Some people even describe a feeling of shock waves pulsing through their arms and legs, as if they had been zapped with a jolt of electricity, a condition sometimes called lightning-bolt syndrome. "The feeling can be really abrupt, like a quick jerk of the muscle," said Dr. Richard C. Shelton, a professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University. "It's not painful, but it can be very frightening to people." Internet bulletin boards and Web sites devoted to antidepressant withdrawal chronicle the crying spells, vertigo and nightmares that people sometimes experience. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 5524 - Posted: 05.25.2004