Two-stage surgery for high risk obese patients could drastically improve their health, surgeons say. Doctors first removed part of the stomach and then, in a separate operation, inserted a bypass in the intestines. The first stage allowed significant weight loss so the second stage could go ahead. A study of 75 patients was presented to the Society of American Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons. The morbidly obese patients, aged from 23 to 72, first had a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. This removes a large part of the stomach. They were later given a gastric bypass, which involves constructing a pouch and bypassing a small segment of the intestines. University of Pittsburgh researchers found this reduced the average body mass index (BMI) of patients by 19 points to 49 points after six months. (C)BBC

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 5238 - Posted: 04.04.2004

By ADAM ZEMAN In the beginning soul was everywhere -- in fire, air, earth and water. There were ''tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones, and good in everything.'' The human impulse to anthropomorphize, to explain the workings of nature in human terms, was irresistible. As scientific culture took shape, the spiritual, anthropomorphic element of nature was beaten back. Anima -- the breath of life, the soul -- was chased from trees and running brooks into the human heart, its home in many classical and medieval writings. Since then, the progress of science has driven it into the brain, where most of us locate it now, though even here it is an endangered species. Unlike their scientific colleagues, artists never repudiated our perennial tendency to experience ourselves at the center of a spiritual universe. Looking out at an Irish mountain stream, W. B. Yeats could ask: ''What's water but the generated soul?'' The ''melancholy, long, withdrawing roar'' of faith in a spiritual reality had troubled the poet and critic Matthew Arnold 50 years earlier, but his pessimism may have been premature: a recent survey of students in my home city of Edinburgh reveals that a majority believe that some spiritual part of us lives on after our death; the popularity of magical fiction testifies to our continuing fascination with the elastic boundaries of mind evidenced by telepathy, telekinesis and prophetic dreams. Reports of the death of the soul are exaggerated. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 5237 - Posted: 04.04.2004

By ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG A 29-year-old paralegal was lying in the middle of Congress Street in downtown Boston after being run over by a bicycle messenger, and her first thought was whether her skirt was hiking up. ''Oh, why did I wear a skirt today?'' she asked herself. ''Are these people all looking at my underpants?'' Her second thought was whether she would be hit by one of the cars speeding down Congress -- she wasn't aware that other pedestrians had gathered around, some of them directing traffic away from her. And her third thought was of a different trauma, eight years earlier, when driving home one night, she was sitting at a red light and found herself confronted by an armed drug addict, who forced his way into her car, made her drive to an abandoned building and tried to rape her. ''I had a feeling that this one trauma, even though it was a smaller thing, would touch off all sorts of memories about that time I was carjacked,'' said the woman, whose name is Kathleen. She worried because getting over that carjacking was something that had taken Kathleen a long time. ''For eight months at least,'' she said, ''every night before I went to bed, I'd think about it. I wouldn't be able to sleep, so I'd get up, make myself a cup of decaf tea, watch something silly on TV to get myself out of that mood. And every morning I'd wake up feeling like I had a gun against my head.'' Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 5236 - Posted: 04.04.2004

By Kristen Philipkoski Drug addicts want one thing: more drugs. And a new way to approach addiction calls for just that. These drugs, however, won't have the effect a user might want. In fact, they'll have the exact opposite result. Anti-addiction medications prevent drugs like cocaine, nicotine and methamphetamine from getting to the brain where they trigger pleasure receptors that create a "high" feeling. The race is on for the first drug to blunt addiction. Researchers around the world are using basic vaccine strategies to block the effects of addiction. They say these treatments will vastly improve the way we treat drug habits. "People can still smoke, but they have no benefit from it," said Dr. Henrik Rasmussen, senior vice president of clinical, medical and regulatory affairs at Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, whose nicotine vaccine is in the second of three FDA human clinical trials. "Our rationale is if you have no benefit from it, why would you do it? Most people who smoke really want to quit it; they just need some incentive to be able to do that." Traditional methods of treating addiction simply aren't working, experts say. The majority of the 55 million people who smoke in the United States want to quit, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But each year, only about 1 million manage to quit for good. Smoking is the leading cause of death among Americans, and incurs $155 billion in medical costs and productivity losses each year, according to the CDC. Worldwide, smoking kills 5 million people every year, according to the World Health Organization. © Copyright 2004, Lycos, Inc.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5235 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Do the quirks of capuchins make them creatures with culture? Sorcha McDonagh It's not easy keeping up with pint-size monkeys in the jungle. The teams of researchers who've been doing it for the past 14 years have had to put up with a lot: barreling face-first into spider webs before sunrise, hacking through dense, bug-infested undergrowth, getting droppings in their hair, and being heckled by cantankerous little monkeys called capuchins. Still, there's no place Susan Perry would rather be than the forests of the Lomas Barbudal Biological Reserve in Costa Rica. Perry is a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and she's been studying white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus) at Lomas Barbudal since 1990. Each day in the field, she and her colleagues get to observe these monkeys' curious interactions, some of the quirkiest behavior in the animal kingdom. For example, one game begins when one monkey bites a clump of hair from another monkey's face. The two monkeys use their teeth to pass the clump back and forth, dropping a little hair each time. When the hair runs out, the game begins again. In another unusual duet, two monkeys sit together for long periods, swaying gently—with their fingers up each other's nose. Copyright ©2004 Science Service.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 5234 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New findings at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute demonstrate the potential of a substance found in yohimbe tree bark to accelerate recovery from anxiety disorders suffered by millions of Americans. In the latest in a series of studies of how mice acquire, express and extinguish conditioned fear, the UCLA team finds yohimbine helps mice learn to overcome the fear faster by enhancing the effects of the natural release of adrenaline. Adrenaline prompts physiological changes such as increased heart and metabolism rates in response to physical and mental stress. Writing in the March/April edition of the peer-reviewed journal Learning and Memory, the team reported that mice treated with yohimbine overcame their fear four times as fast as those treated with vehicle or propanolol, a medication commonly used to treat symptoms of anxiety disorders by blunting the physiological effects of adrenaline. Yohimbine is most commonly used to treat erectile dysfunction. It can cause anxiety in susceptible persons, and should never be used without a doctor's recommendation and supervision.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Emotions
Link ID: 5233 - Posted: 04.03.2004

Doctors in the US have carried out brain surgery on a 31-year-old man in a bid to cure him of Tourette syndrome. Jeff Matovic from Ohio has had the disorder, which is characterised by uncontrollable vocalisations and movement, since he was six. Doctors used a technique called deep brain stimulation, which involves placing tiny electrodes inside the brain to regulate electrical activity. They say his symptoms have all but disappeared since the operation. "We were genuinely amazed at the patient's response," said Dr Robert Maciunas, who carried out the surgery. Deep brain stimulation has been used on patients with Parkinson's disease, to help reduce the shaking associated with the condition. The electrodes are placed deep inside the brain beside the thalamus, which controls movement. (C)BBC

Keyword: Tourettes
Link ID: 5232 - Posted: 04.02.2004

It made room for larger brain, researchers theorize David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor A tiny genetic change in the muscles of prehumans millions of years ago may have played a major role in endowing modern Homo sapiens with the larger brains and the capacity for thought, language and tool-making that distinguishes us from apes, researchers are reporting today. The novel theory, advanced by a team of biologists and surgeons, suggests that a mutation in a single gene some 2.4 million years ago was largely responsible for a crucial change in the shape of our ancestors' jaws and allowed for skulls with room for brains far larger than earlier members of the hominid line. The discovery of the gene by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is being reported today in the journal Nature. It has already evoked surprise, excitement and also some controversy among anthropologists who study the fossil history of humanity. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle |

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 5231 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GINA KOLATA New studies in mice suggest that the hormone leptin can fundamentally change the brain's circuitry in areas that control appetite. Leptin acts during a critical period early in life, possibly influencing how much animals eat as adults. And later in life, responding to how much fat is on an animal's body, it can again alter brain circuitry that controls how much is eaten. Researchers say the findings, published today in the journal Science, are a surprise and add new clues to why weight control is so difficult in some humans. Scientists knew that leptin is released by fat cells and tells the brain how much fat is on the body. They knew that animals lacking leptin become incredibly obese, as do a few humans who because of genetic mutations did not make the hormone. Leptin injections immediately made animals, and the patients with leptin deficiencies, lose their appetites. Their weight returned to normal. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 5230 - Posted: 04.02.2004

The Accidental Addict Clearing away the myths surrounding the OxyContin "epidemic." By Maia Szalavitz Posted Thursday, March 25, 2004, at 11:01 AM PT In a recent five-part series (Oct. 19-23), the Orlando Sentinel painted a stark picture of the opiate drug OxyContin: Prescribed for mild pain by a clueless doctor, the drug had destroyed a former policeman's life. Apparently, this story was typical: Thousands had been derailed by the deadly drug. Within weeks, however, the drug's manufacturer, Purdue Pharmaceutical, and the ex-cop's mother-in-law revealed that the man—called an "accidental addict" by the writer, Doris Bloodsworth—was a former cocaine abuser with a federal trafficking conviction. This was not the only error the Sentinel had to account for in a 2,000-word correction: The paper had also omitted that an overdose victim profiled in the series had actually taken multiple drugs, along with OxyContin, and had previously overdosed on different medications. Even now, the Sentinel still hasn't clarified that most of the overdose deaths cited in the "investigations"— about 90 percent according to other research—were not, in fact, caused by OxyContin alone but by deadly combinations of drugs (OxyContin along with alcohol and/or other depressants like benzodiazepines). If the Orlando Sentinel were the only news organization to run massively misleading stories on OxyContin, the misinformation could be chalked up to error. But the first substantive column by the New York Times' ombudsman Daniel Okrent also dealt with OxyContin bias, albeit of a different sort—Okrent wrote that the paper shouldn't have allowed Times writer Barry Meier, author of the anti-OxyContin book Pain Killer, to cover the drug in an article in its "Science" section. Meier's article claimed that researchers now believe that "accidental" addiction is more common than previously thought—never mind the fact that there has been no new research suggesting this since OxyContin was introduced in 1995, only increased pressure from law-enforcement agents.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5229 - Posted: 06.24.2010

(Philadelphia, PA) - Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that the neurotransmitter norepinephrine is essential in retrieving certain types of memories. This represents the first description of a molecule implicated in recalling memories as opposed to laying down new memories. Teasing apart different components of this pathway may help physicians better understand post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression -- both of which involve alterations in memory retrieval, says lead author Steven A. Thomas, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology. The findings of this research appear in the April 2 issue of Cell. Using mutant mice lacking norepinephrine and rats treated with drugs that block some norepinephrine receptors (beta blockers), the research team found that this neurotransmitter is critical for retrieving intermediate-term contextual and spatial memories, but not for the formation or long-term consolidation of emotional memories, as previously hypothesized by others. Mice and rats went through learning tasks that employ different brain regions: the hippocampus, which governs spatial and contextual memories; and the amygdala, which is important for emotional learning and memory in general.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 5228 - Posted: 04.02.2004

ST. LOUIS, – The use of paroxetine and other antidepressant medications continues to grow by about 10% annually among children and adolescents, according to a study published in the April issue of Psychiatric Services. The study profiles trends of prescription antidepressant use in children and adolescents using prescription claim information from a random, nationwide sample. The study by Express Scripts examined antidepressant use among approximately two million commercially-insured, pediatric beneficiaries 18 years and younger from 1998 to 2002. The fastest growing segment of users were found to be preschoolers aged 0-5 years, with use among girls doubling and use among boys growing by 64%. For the entire sample, antidepressant use increased from 1.6% in 1998 to 2.4% in 2002, a 49% increase. Over the course of the study, the growth in use was greater among girls (68%) than boys (34%) and, for each gender respectively, growth was higher among younger boys and older girls.

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5227 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— New studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers at The Rockefeller University show that the appetite-regulating hormone leptin causes rewiring of neurons in areas of the brain that regulate feeding behavior. The discovery is another important clue about how leptin exerts its effects on the brain to cause decreased food intake and increased energy expenditure, said the researchers. The research also suggests that natural variability in the “wiring diagrams” of the neural feeding circuits of individuals may influence whether a person will be obese or lean. The research team, which was led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Jeffrey M. Friedman at Rockefeller and Tamas L. Horvath at Yale University School of Medicine, published its findings in the April 2, 2004, issue of the journal Science. Friedman and his colleagues discovered leptin in 1994. They also showed that it is produced by fat tissue and secreted into the bloodstream, where it travels to the brain and other tissues, causing fat loss and decreased appetite. In the brain, leptin affects food intake by acting on distinct classes of neurons in the hypothalamus that express the leptin receptor. ©2004 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 5226 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By RON TODT, Associated Press Writer PHILADELPHIA -- Cambridge University professor Simon Baron-Cohen thinks he knows why autism strikes four times as many boys as girls, but his theory of general differences between male and female brains has generated quite a bit of debate. Baron-Cohen theorizes that the female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy, and that the male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems -- although he is quick to note that the rule doesn't always hold true. According to his "empathizing-systemizing" theory, autism -- a neurological disorder that affects social interaction and communication -- and the possibly related Asperger syndrome are extreme male versions of the brain. "What seems to be core (to autism) is an empathy problem alongside a very strong drive to systemize," he told an audience of about 150 people Wednesday at an autism conference by the Bancroft Neuroscience Institute. Copyright © Newsday, Inc.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 5225 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Men who smoke cannabis could be damaging their fertility, research carried out by Queen's University Belfast has suggested. The study by the university's Reproductive Medicine Research Group examined the direct effects on sperm function of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. The group found that THC made sperm less likely to reach the egg to fertilise it. They also discovered that the presence of cannabis impaired another crucial function of sperm - the ability to digest the egg's protective coat with enzymes to aid its penetration. The government reclassified cannabis to a class C drug in January, putting it on a par with tranquilisers. Dr Sheena Lewis, from the university's Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said on Wednesday that the recent reclassification of cannabis made research on its effects more important. "The need to determine its effects on male fertility is even greater, so that men can make an informed choice about smoking the drug based on its risks to their health," she said. (C)BBC

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 5224 - Posted: 04.01.2004

Analysis Yields New Insights into Medical Model, Evolutionary Process Bethesda, Maryland — An international research team, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced it has completed a high-quality, draft sequence of the genome of the laboratory rat, and has used that data to explore how the rat's genetic blueprint stacks up against those of mice and humans. In a paper published in the April 1 issue of the journal Nature, the Rat Genome Sequencing Project Consortium describes its efforts to produce and analyze a draft sequence of the Brown Norway strain of the laboratory rat (Rattus norvegicus). The project, led by the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, was primarily funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), $58.5 million, and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), $60 million. "This is an investment that is destined to yield major payoffs in the fight against human disease," said NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. "For nearly 200 years, the laboratory rat has played a valuable role in efforts to understand human biology and to develop new and better drugs. Now, armed with this sequencing data, a new generation of researchers will be able to greatly improve the utility of rat models and thereby improve human health."

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5223 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The use of photographs by psychotherapists as memory cues for the "recovery" of patients' possible childhood sexual abuse has been called into question by a Canadian study. It found that a "staggering" two-out-of-three participants accepted a concocted false grade-school event as having really happened to them when suggestions regarding the event were supplemented with a class photo. "I was flabbergasted to have attained such an exceptionally high rate of quite elaborate false memory reports," says University of Victoria psychology professor Dr. Stephen Lindsay. His NSERC-sponsored research is published in the March 2004 issue of Psychological Science. Forty-five first year psychology students were told three stories about their grade-school experiences and asked about their memories of them. Two of the accounts were of real grade three to six events recounted to the researchers by the participant's parents. The third event was fictitious, but also attributed to the parents. It related how, in grade one, the subject and a friend got into trouble for putting Slime (a colourful gelatinous goo-like toy made by Mattel that came in a garbage can) in their teacher's desk. The participants were encouraged to recall the events through a mix of guided imagery and "mental context re-instatement"--the mental equivalent of putting themselves back in their grade-school shoes. Half of the participants were also given their real grade one class photo, supplied by their parents.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 5222 - Posted: 04.01.2004

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine are first to strongly link a specific gene with autism. While earlier studies have found rare genetic mutations in single families, a study published in the April issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry is the first to identify a gene that increases susceptibility to autism in a broad population. Approximately 1 in 1,000 people have autism or autistic disorder. It appears to be the most highly genetic of all psychiatric disorders. If a family with one autistic child has another child the chance that this child would be autistic is 50 to 100 times more likely to than would be expected by chance. However, it's clear that no single gene produces the disorder. Rather, the commonly accepted model states that it is a result of the accumulation of between five to ten genetic mutations. "Identifying all or most of the genes involved will lead to new diagnostic tools and new approaches to treatment," said Joseph Buxbaum, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and lead author of the study.

Keyword: Autism; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5221 - Posted: 04.01.2004

By ROWAN HOOPER Things are never what they seem. Men certainly aren't, according to the American writer Marilyn French: "Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists, and that's all they are." French said that in 1977. It wasn't good PR for the feminist movement. Maybe some feminists did, as detractors claimed, have something against men -- but it was nothing compared to what a group called Wolbachia have against them. Wolbachia are male-killers, though sometimes they only castrate males. Yet they are not radical feminist guerrillas: They are bacteria. Wolbachia quietly infect at least a million species of insects, spiders and crustaceans, and for males with a dose, the outcome is bleak. Wolbachia are obligate symbionts, which means they can only live in the cells of a host animal. But they don't like males. In some species the bacteria kill the male outright (no males mean more resources for females), while in others Wolbachia hijack the male's reproductive apparatus and makes it female. In some insects Wolbachia cause parthenogenesis (egg development without sperm fertilization) and thus do away with the need for males altogether. The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 5220 - Posted: 03.31.2004

By TRACEY HARDEN WHY did Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo design its jaguar habitat so the big cats can creep into tree branches and lurk over the heads of visitors? For one thing, it is the kind of activity that jaguars enjoy. For another, getting that kind of thrill — at a safe distance — is something zoo visitors like. Call the exhibit an exemplar of "ecological psychology," a term used by zoo directors and planners to explain the increased focus not only on animal comfort but also on the needs of humans and the ways they interact with animals. "We're providing behavioral enrichment for our visitors as well as animals," said John Bierlein, the zoo's manager of planning and interpretive exhibits. "We recognize that most people have grown up in urban areas and we want to reconnect them with the natural world." Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 5219 - Posted: 06.24.2010