"Wishes suppressed during the day assert themselves in dreams," Sigmund Freud wrote more than a century ago. Now new research provides evidence suggesting that not just wishes but all kinds of thoughts we bar from our minds while awake reappear when we sleep. Harvard University psychologist Daniel M. Wegner and his colleagues tested this notion on 330 college students. Participants were asked to think of a personal acquaintance and then spend five minutes engaging in one of three mental exercises before going to sleep. Members of the first group suppressed their thoughts about the person, those in the second focused their thoughts on the person, and those in the third were instructed to think freely about anything that came to mind. In the morning, the subjects wrote down what they had dreamed. The researchers found that, overall, the students dreamed about their target person more frequently than did people who had not specifically thought of someone before turning in for the night. But the chosen acquaintances most often appeared in the dreams of those subjects who had made a conscious effort to block them from their minds, the team reports in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science. © 1996-2004 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 5178 - Posted: 06.24.2010

System for guiding cell migration, adhesion has biomedical and regenerative medical applications by Nicolle Wahl -- Scientists at the University of Toronto are taking regenerative medicine to a new dimension with a process for guiding nerve cells that could someday help reconnect severed nerve endings. Molly Shoichet, a professor of chemical engineering and applied chemistry at the Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), has devised a new method that helps guide cell migration and adhesion. "We're very interested in using this system for biomedical applications and regenerative medicine, specifically for guiding nerve cells," says Shoichet, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Tissue Engineering. In the study, Shoichet and doctoral student Ying Luo combined a gel-like substance called agarose with compounds having "photolabile" properties that change chemically when exposed to light. When they directed laser light at the gel, its chemical composition changed, creating a "channel" through the gel. Although not a physical channel, the interaction created a "growth-friendly" chemical pathway through the agarose.

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 5177 - Posted: 03.24.2004

Scientists zero in on toxicity of key protein, apoE4 Researchers at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease have identified processes that may explain how a key protein, apolipoprotein E4 (apoE4), contributes to the development of Alzheimer's disease. Their findings, described in the Journal of Neuroscience (March 10, 2004), include identifying where in the brain apoE4 is broken down into toxic fragments that can impair the function and survival of nerve cells. Results of their study may point the way to a new therapeutic strategy for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. ApoE4 is the best known genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, but, until now, the mechanism by which it increases that risk has remained a mystery. The key finding of the current study relates to apoE4's tendency to be broken down into toxic fragments when it is produced in neurons, the brain cells responsible for cognitive functions. Proteins can be broken into small pieces by enzymes known as proteases in a process termed proteolysis. While the degradation of proteins is important for many cell processes, it can be harmful when it occurs inappropriately, not only because it destroys the protein, but also because abnormally high levels of fragments can damage cells.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 5176 - Posted: 03.24.2004

NewScientist.com news service Three-dimensional foaming glasses of beer could soon leap out of TV screens and on to bars, to try to tempt customers into buying drinks. The system, from X3D Technologies in New York City, allows the virtual drinks to jump up to a metre in front of the screen. They can be viewed with the naked eye from anything up to a 120 degree angle. "People stand in their tracks, they are stunned by what they see," claims Myles Owens, chief executive officer of X3D. The first 3D alcoholic drinks advertisements were shown at the International Nightclub, Bar Beverage and Food Convention in Las Vegas earlier in March. Until recently 3D displays that can be viewed without special goggles have been used to enhance high-end laptop computers and television sets, mainly in Japan. But now X3D Technologies is marketing its product to advertisers in Europe and the US as a new way to tantalise customers. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 5175 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Study suggests brain differences between making and using tools. LAURA NELSON Crows use different sides of their beaks to make and use tools, researchers have found. This suggests that different parts of the brain may control making and using tools, and that the biology of handedness - or beakedness - may be more complex than we thought. Just like humans, New Caledonian crows are usually right 'handed' when it comes to tasks such as making tools. But it turns out the birds use their tools with left and right sides equally, although individual crows prefer one side or the other. "This has opened up Pandora's box," says William McGrew, who studies chimpanzees' tool use at Miami University. "People always assumed handedness would be the same for using and making tools." Scientists will now be more wary of making this assumption, he adds. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: Laterality
Link ID: 5174 - Posted: 06.24.2010

When Neuroscience Meets Couples Therapy By Susan Morse, Washington Post Staff Writer The next time you lock horns with your boss, your friend or your spouse and she tells you to leave emotion out of it, tell her that science proves that's a lousy idea. Block that emotion and all you're likely to produce are bad decisions. That heretical insight is at the heart of a revolution today in neuroscience and psychotherapy. More on that below. But the story, as told at the conference by Chicago-area marital therapist Brent Atkinson, starts with a 19th-century medical patient. Phineas Cage was a railway worker who in 1848 had a 31/2 -foot iron rod blown through his skull in an explosion. To the surprise of doctors, he survived. Though he recovered physically with his intellectual faculties and motor skills intact, he was a changed man. He swore constantly, appeared fitful and abandoned plans as fast as he made them. Not until the 1990s -- when scientists produced computerized brain models based on photos of his skull -- was the reason for his character change confirmed: damage to the prefrontal cortex, a brain region that processes emotions governing social behavior. © 2004 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 5173 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Smoking speeds up brain decline in the elderly, a study suggests. The rate of decline is five times higher than in people who have never smoked, according to a group of European researchers. Their study, published in Neurology, also found that smokers who quit greatly slowed their cognitive decline. The findings contradict some earlier research which had suggested that nicotine could actually aid the brain. The latest study ran a series of questions and tests called a mini-mental state examination (MMSE) designed to establish the cognitive function of men and women aged 65 and over. Among those who never smoked, their MMSE declined .03 points a year, while for current smokers it was .16 points per year. For people who had previously quit, the MMSE declined .06 points. (C)BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Alzheimers
Link ID: 5172 - Posted: 03.23.2004

Surgeons say trainees may have to hone their skills by practising operating on pigs and sheep. The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) wants laws, which currently limit such operations to rodents, to be relaxed. It says reductions in the time junior doctors spend practising in operating theatres make the changes essential. The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) attacked the plan, saying it was 'ethically and scientifically' wrong. The RCS said it had changed its view on the use of animals, which would be terminally anaesthetised during the operations, because of concerns that junior doctors no longer spend enough time in theatre operating. Their hours have fallen so no junior doctor is now supposed to work more than 56 hours a week, and by 2009 the limit will be 48 hours, in line with European legislation. Sir Peter Morris, president of the RCS, said the problems this caused were 'enormous'. He wants to see the use of both human simulators and live animals. Using animals would be useful as doctors would find handling and dissecting animal tissue and organs to be similar to doing so with human bodies. A pig's kidney, for example, is a similar size to a human one. (C)BBC

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 5171 - Posted: 03.23.2004

By GARDINER HARRIS Patients taking antidepressants can become suicidal in the first weeks of therapy, and physicians should watch patients closely when first giving the drugs or changing dosages, federal regulators said yesterday. The warnings are part of a public health advisory issued by the Food and Drug Administration and are a reminder that antidepressants, taken by millions around the world, are not without risks. The agency is asking drug manufacturers to place detailed caveats about the drugs' side effects prominently on their labels. The agency's decision to issue such a broad warning was a surprise. Top F.D.A. officials have long insisted that their decisions are driven only by clear-cut evidence from well-run clinical trials. But in a conference call with reporters yesterday, agency officials said that no studies had shown a convincing link between drug therapy and suicide. Suicide is such a rare side effect that studies on the subject have been difficult to interpret, the regulators said. Still, the agency issued the advisory anyway. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 5170 - Posted: 03.23.2004

By CAROL KAESUK YOON From the joys of a fruity Beaujolais to the miseries of hangovers and alcoholism, humanity has, through the ages, felt the effects of that potent and universally consumed substance, ethanol. Countless theories have been proposed for people's love of drink. But recently, a small group of scientists has begun to explore the idea that the ultimate explanation lies deep in the evolutionary past. Primate ancestors of Homo sapiens were highly dependent on fruit, and so, the new theory goes, they developed a strong attraction to the ethanol that naturally spikes lusciously ripe and overripe fruits. This predilection was then passed on to humans. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Evolution
Link ID: 5169 - Posted: 03.23.2004

Tiny animals evolve through the ages without males' help David Perlman, Chronicle Staff Writer Seventy-five years ago, in the title of their classic send-up of how- to books, James Thurber and E.B. White famously asked, "Is Sex Necessary?" At last, an answer is emerging: No, sex isn't necessary at all. So suggests a team of biologists after studying a major class of unisex animals that has managed to evolve into hundreds of different species without ever a male-female liaison. Stripped of their reproductive role, the males ceased to exist millions of years ago. The animals, known as bdelloid rotifers, are among the most common microscopic creatures in the world, but they confound one of the classic assumptions of biology: namely, that if animals do not reproduce sexually, they are doomed to rapid extinction because they lack the possibility of beneficial gene forms arising from the random combination of male and female chromosomes. The bdelloids (pronounced "dell-oids") are far from extinct. Molecular biologists at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and Harvard University are seeking fresh evidence from the animals' genes to reveal how the creatures manage to adapt and evolve. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 5168 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Our author finds Jeffrey Masson's "divertingly amateurish" style likely to broaden the audience for the animal-rights movement in a way that Peter Singer and Matthew Scully never could by B. R. Myers Although linked by a subtitle to his innocuous best sellers about dogs and cats, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson's The Pig Who Sang to the Moon reads suspiciously like a veiled attack on meat-eating—until page three, that is, when the veil comes off. It is a more muddled attack than we have come to expect from the animal-rights movement, but that may be why it works so well. Most of us want to be talked out of enjoying our favorite foods about as much as we want to be talked into studying The Watchtower in our spare time; we're more likely to let people try to convert us if we don't think they've spent years perfecting their harangue. Masson, then, may be just the sort of spokesman the animals have been waiting for. His approach is so divertingly amateurish, his logic so far from airtight, that we see no harm in letting him ramble on for just one more chapter—only to find we've turned the last page, and he has affected us by the simple decency of his example. Unless the author thinks that quoting Gandhi is the way to cast an awed hush over neighborhood barbecues, he did not write The Pig Who Sang to the Moon for the average American meat eater. The publishers, for their part, must have known that the PETA crowd would be put off by the open-doored fantasy barn on the cover and the absence of grisly photographs inside. No, this book is aimed squarely at the James Herriot-reading fellow travelers of the animal-rights movement: those kindhearted people who are always looking for ways to help, even if it means donating a perfectly good exercise machine to the Humane Society thrift shop; the ones who are so appalled by factory farms that they've pretty much given up meat entirely, especially veal, unless, of course, they're at someone's house; these are the people who assume an air of solidarity with the movement that drives it stark raving mad. Copyright © 2004 by The Atlantic Monthly Group

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 5167 - Posted: 06.24.2010

– Adrian Bird and Skirmantas Kriaucionis of the University of Edinburgh have discovered a novel form of the protein MeCP2. This alternate form, coined MeCP2 alpha, differs from the original only in the first 19 amino acids. Interestingly, Adrian Bird, Director of the Welcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology at Edinburgh University, found that MeCP2 alpha, is ten times more prevalent not only in the brain but also in other tissues. These findings are currently reported online in Nucleic Acids Research. Similar findings were reported yesterday in Nature Genetics online by Berge Minassian, a neurologist and scientist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. Adrian Bird originally cloned the MECP2 gene in 1992 while in Vienna, Austria at the Institute for Molecular Pathology. In October of 1999 Huda Zoghbi of Baylor College of Medicine and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced that mutations in the MECP2 gene were the leading cause of Rett Syndrome (RTT). RTT is a severe neurological disorder diagnosed almost exclusively in girls. Children with RTT appear to develop normally until 6 to 18 months of age, when they enter a period of regression, losing speech and motor skills. Most develop repetitive hand movements, irregular breathing patterns, seizures and extreme motor control problems. RTT leaves its victims profoundly disabled, requiring maximum assistance with every aspect of daily living. There is no cure.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5166 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Using advanced imaging technology, a research team based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has identified specific portions of the brain's white matter that are abnormally large in children with autism and developmental language disorder (DLD). The findings confirm that the previously observed overgrowth of white matter occurs after birth and suggest that it may be related to the process of myelination, in which portions of nerve cells called axons are covered with a material called myelin. The report appears in the April issue of Annals of Neurology. The researchers noted that the factor most closely associated with the areas showing the greatest volume increase is when the axons in those areas myelinate, a key step in maturation that allows nerve impulses to be transmitted properly. In both autistic and DLD patients, the most enlarged areas were those that myelinate latest in normal development and where myelination takes a longer period of time. "Knowing that white matter is most enlarged in the area that develops myelin latest will help us narrow the time window in which to look for the cause of these problems and should help focus future research," says Martha Herbert, MD, PhD, of MGH Neurology and the Center for Morphometric Analysis, the paper's lead author.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 5165 - Posted: 03.23.2004

Scientists studying the elusive western gorilla observed that neighboring social groups have surprisingly peaceful interactions, in contrast to the aggressive male behavior well documented in mountain gorillas. By analyzing the DNA from fecal and hair samples of the western gorilla, scientists uncovered evidence that these neighboring social groups are often led by genetically related males. These findings suggest connections between genetic relationships and group interactions, parallels with human social and behavioral structures, and clues to the social world of early humans. In the new work, reported by Brenda Bradley and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Stony Brook University, the researchers collected DNA samples to characterize patterns of paternity within and among western gorilla social groups. The authors found that a strong majority of silverbacks were related to other silverbacks in the area and that in almost all cases, the nest sites of related silverbacks were found near each other. It was already known that both male and female western gorillas leave their natal group once mature, but the new findings suggest that the dispersing males may remain in the vicinity of male kin, forming a so-called "dispersed male network."

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 5164 - Posted: 03.23.2004

By DANIEL DUANE On a recent Manhattan morning, with a cold wind slashing off New York Harbor, Lou Marinoff took the granite steps of the federal courthouse two at a time -- brown eyes fierce, ivory white skin offsetting his dark beard, a Russian fur hat making him the very picture of the engaged intellectual. A tenured philosophy professor at City College of New York and the author of ''The Big Questions: How Philosophy Can Change Your Life'' and of the international best seller ''Plato, Not Prozac! Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Problems,'' Marinoff is the world's most successful marketer of philosophical counseling. A controversial new talk therapy, philosophical counseling takes the premise that many of our problems stem from uncertainties about the meaning of life and from faulty logic. Passing through courthouse security, Marinoff placed his World Economic Forum tote bag in the metal detector -- swag from his annual gig in Davos, Switzerland, and filled that morning with documents for Marinoff's lawsuit against his own employer. Claiming a violation of his freedom of speech, the case stems from a C.C.N.Y. moratorium on Marinoff's campus counseling, instituted while administrators looked into liability questions. What if a philosopher with zero mental health training, they worry, fails to recognize a student's suicidal tendencies and prescribes Heidegger instead of psychiatric intervention? The moratorium is no longer officially in effect, but Marinoff is suing for lost income and professional opportunities, and C.C.N.Y. attorneys have also laid out insurance requirements that Marinoff finds utterly offensive: ''We have never, not ever, had a single case in which philosophical counseling caused psychological harm,'' he said in the courthouse elevator. ''These people just can't tell the difference between psychology and philosophy. That's how badly educated people are these days.'' Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 5163 - Posted: 03.23.2004

By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP Science Writer LOS ANGELES - A controversial theory of smell celebrated in a recent book that engaged the reading public but enraged scientists fails the sniff test, said researchers unable to find any evidence to support it. Human experiments failed to produce results that would suggest the so-called "vibration theory" of smell can explain the last of the five senses to be unraveled by science. Details appeared Sunday on the Web site of the journal Nature Neuroscience. "We didn't disprove the vibration theory. We just didn't find anything to support it," said study co-author Leslie Vosshall. Vibration theory, first proposed in the 1930s, suggests the nose interprets odors by sensing the molecular vibrations of whatever chemical it sniffs. Many scientists discredit the idea and instead believe the shape of a molecule determines its scent. That theory also remains unproven. Copyright © 2004 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 5162 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, — Canadian officials have traced to two mills the feed that probably caused North America's two cases of mad cow disease, one in Canada last May and the other in the United States in December. The feed from the Canadian mills could have contained infectious protein from imported British cattle, said Dr. George Luterbach, an official of a mad cow working group in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Canadian law prohibits disclosing the identity of the mills, Dr. Luterbach said. Canada reported its only case of the disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or B.S.E., in an animal on a farm in Alberta. The United States followed with an announcement that a cow in Mabton, Wash., had the disease. Both animals had been raised on farms in Alberta, and both ate feed containing meat and bone meal while they were calves. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 5161 - Posted: 06.24.2010

If you're having trouble quitting smoking, the culprit may be that constant enemy, stress. "I have a really busy, active schedule right now, so there's a lot of stress," says Troy Carson, recent quitter and member of the Stop Smoking Program at Bellevue Hospital Center. "It's an excuse to smoke, the stress, because I say to myself, 'Oh my God, I'm having such a bad time right now, just gimme a cigarette! I can smoke because I'm having a bad time.' You know, 'I'll smoke a cigarette now and everything will be fine tomorrow and I won't smoke again.'" "Stress is a potent trigger for relapse," agrees Mustafa al'Absi, physiologist at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine. "We hear it a lot. Every smoker will tell you that they smoke when they are stressed out. That is out there. But we don't know why. And since science is about advancement, about coming up with new things that we can then tackle and achieve, we wanted to look at the mechanisms for why stress causes people to smoke and to relapse." (C) ScienCentral, 2000-2004.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Stress
Link ID: 5160 - Posted: 03.20.2004

One of the many mysteries of stem cells is how they morph from a universal cell type, full of possibility, into one that's tailored for a specific job. Now scientists say they've hit on a startling explanation for some of these cells: A minuscule RNA molecule helps guide the early development of neurons and other brain cells. The finding is the latest addition to an ever-lengthening repertoire for small RNA molecules. Small RNA molecules can bind to and blunt expression of DNA stretches with a complementary sequence. The first clues that they have a hand in stem cell development came in plants. Then scientists reported that members of a class of RNA molecules called microRNAs direct the development of blood and bone marrow cells in mice. These studies and others suggested that small RNAs play a leading role in development. The possibility that they might be important in nerve cell development intrigued neuroscientists Fred Gage and Tomoko Kuwabara of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, and colleagues, who were studying how adult neural stem cells differentiate. The group probed human, adult neural stem cells for small RNA molecules and fished out more than 50 types. One double-stranded molecule stood out: It matched a DNA site that a protein key to neural development binds to. That protein, called NRSF, blocks the expression of 64 different genes and prevents them from turning a cell into a neuron. Furthermore, the team found, differentiating neural stem cells expressed the RNA at high levels, and introducing extra doses spurred neural stem cells to become neurons. Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 5159 - Posted: 06.24.2010