Chemicals that block brain receptors for a key neurotransmitter make it harder for people to learn new information WASHINGTON -- New evidence clarifies how the only government-approved treatments for mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's Disease may work to improve symptoms. When scientists chemically blocked receptors for an important neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, even healthy young people found it significantly harder to learn and remember – especially in the face of interference. This finding may shed light on how cholinesterase inhibitors, FDA-approved drugs that slow the breakdown of acetylcholine in Alzheimer's patients, help alleviate dementia symptoms. The study appears in the February issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA). The study demonstrated that acetylcholine helps keep old information from interfering with our ability to learn and remember new information. The findings may help to explain why conditions associated with lower levels of acetylcholine in the brain, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, dementia due to multiple strokes, multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia cause problems with memory function, as well as the hallucinations and delusions that can occur in some of these conditions.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4978 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Individual differences in alcohol response – ranging from sleepy to social, sad to happy – have a tremendous influence on a person's risk for developing alcohol dependence. Researchers already know that many of the psychological, physiological, and behavioral effects of alcohol are determined by the central nervous system and related neurotransmitter activity, although beliefs about the effects of drinking alcohol are also important. Symposium proceedings published in the February issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research present evidence for how genetic variation may influence neurotransmitter activity, thereby having an effect on alcohol sensitivity and subsequent behaviors. "Activities of neurons, which are specialized cells of the nervous system, influence the release of neurochemicals that cause increases or decreases in brain activity," said Kim Fromme, symposium organizer and associate professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Austin. "Virtually everything we think, feel, sense, and do are determined by activity of these neurochemicals and their related neuronal activity in the brain. Approximately 100 different neurochemicals have been identified, and many of them have been found to be affected by alcohol." Four presentations were given during the symposium at the June 2003 Research Society on Alcoholism meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Presenters combined human genotyping with laboratory measures of behavior and subjective reports in order to "match" individuals' genetic makeup with the behavioral effects that people experience and exhibit due to alcohol.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4977 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Pictures of diseased organs and rotting teeth could feature on cigarette packets under new government plans. Similar pictures appear in Canada, Thailand, Brazil and Singapore - now a public consultation will be held on whether to introduce them in the UK. "We need to continue with fresh, hard-hitting ideas, providing more information that will help smokers quit," Health Secretary John Reid said. The announcement comes one year after a total ban on tobacco advertising. Larger, more direct warnings have been used on cigarette packets since last September. But research in Canada has suggested that graphic images of diseased organs grab smokers' attention and make people more likely to quit. (C)BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4976 - Posted: 02.15.2004

By Richard Black, BBC science correspondent, in Seattle US scientists say they have found a link between exposure to lead in the womb and schizophrenia in adulthood. The discovery is based on a study of blood samples taken from pregnant American women in the 1960s when lead was still widely used in vehicle fuel. People whose mothers were exposed to high levels of the metal in exhaust fumes were more than twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as adults. The research was led by Dr Ezra Susser, from Columbia University in New York. He presented the work to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington State. "It's the first time that any environmental toxin has been related to the later risk of schizophrenia," he told the BBC. (C) BBC

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 4975 - Posted: 02.15.2004

SEATTLE -- February 14, 2004 -- The Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) announced today that the presence of neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) has a significant effect on interferon beta therapy and this issue warrants the attention of health care providers and patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The findings, presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and National Association of Science Writers (NASW) annual meeting, state that when an MS patient develops NAbs, his/her body perceives these protein-based therapies to be "foreign," like an allergen or infection causing organism and mounts an immune response against them, basically rendering the therapy less effective. According to Andrew R. Pachner, M.D., Professor, Department of Neurology and Neurosciences at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Medical School, "Patients who develop NAbs show higher relapse rates, an increased number of enlarging brain lesions, and new lesion formation compared with NAb-negative patients."

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 4974 - Posted: 02.15.2004

By GINA KOLATA The Food and Drug Administration told Barr Laboratories, the marketer of a so-called morning-after pill, yesterday that it was delaying its decision on whether to allow the drug to be sold over the counter. The company's president, Dr. Carole Ben-Maimon, said the agency called about 2 p.m. and then faxed a letter saying it was extending its Feb. 20 deadline by 90 days. The agency has asked the company, in Pomona, N.Y., for more information about the emergency contraceptive, also known as Plan B, especially among teenagers, the company said. Plan B, to be taken when when regular contraception fails or is skipped, is available by prescription. Opponents, including some members of Congress, have objected to the application to sell it over the counter, arguing that that would encourage promiscuity and risky sex among younger people. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4973 - Posted: 02.15.2004

Everyone does it, but no one knows why; a sleep-gene survey may offer clues By Jack Lucentini In a study that could offer a glimpse into sleep's still poorly understood functions, researchers have identified genes upregulated specifically during sleep.1 The findings contain surprises, investigators say. One is simply that there are many such genes, at least as many as are turned on while awake, belying the common-sense view that sleep implies inactivity. Another is that the sleep-related changes in gene expression extend to the cerebellum, a structure not previously known to participate in sleep. Perhaps most tantalizing, the team found that "sleep genes" largely fall into categories that could serve to test and refine hypotheses of sleep's functions. Four notable divisions include: genes involved in synaptic plasticity, which may bolster recent findings that sleep aids memory consolidation; genes underlying translation, supporting observations that protein synthesis increases during slumber; genes regulating membrane and vesicle trafficking; and genes for synthesizing cholesterol, which may be crucial for synaptogenesis. © 2004, The Scientist LLC, All rights reserved.

Keyword: Sleep; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4972 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Dr David Whitehouse, BBC News Online science editor The fraction of left-handed people today is about the same as it was during the Ice Age, according to data from prehistoric handprints. They were found in caves painted during the Upper Palaeolithic period, between 30,000 and 10,000 years ago. Left-handedness may have conferred prehistoric man advantages, such as in combat, say the researchers. The research is published in the February issue of the journal Biology Letters. When Stone Age man produced their remarkable cave paintings they often left handprints on the walls produced by blowing pigments from one hand through a tube held by the other hand. Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond at the University of Montpellier, France, deduced the prehistoric cave painters' handedness by spraying paint against cave walls to see which hand they pressed against the wall, and therefore did not use for drawing. (C)BBC

Keyword: Laterality
Link ID: 4971 - Posted: 02.14.2004

By ALICIA AULT SILVER SPRING, Md., — Joining a growing chorus, federal advisers on Friday urged the government to increase testing for mad cow disease greatly to better gauge if the United States has a problem, and if so, how widespread it is. The panelists said that without that data, there was no way to minimize the risk to humans who might be exposed by eating meat, or through drugs, vaccines, cosmetics and dietary supplements that contain raw materials from cattle. "We have to know what the risk is, and whether we could contain it or whether we could stop it," said Dr. Stephen DeArmond, a member of the Food and Drug Administration panel, which met here on Thursday and Friday. Dr. DeArmond is a mad cow disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 4970 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Maybe it takes a bird brain to find the car keys Susan Milius Should humanity get a little too full of itself and its intellectual prowess, there's always Clark's nutcracker to think about. This pale-gray bird with black wings and a long beak flits through woodlands in the West, collecting seeds during times of plenty and tucking them away for a hungry winter's day. During a year, each bird buries 22,000 to 33,000 seeds in up to 2,500 locations, and scientists estimate that the bird recovers two-thirds of them up to 13 months later. Just how seed cachers do this has fascinated biologists for decades. Scientific investigation of the topic has broadened and deepened in recent years. Cognitive scientists pose seed-storage puzzles to birds as a way of sorting out how their brains work and might resemble our own. Ecologists are looking for links between seed-caching powers and the perils of a species' environment. Thirty years ago, biologists took a very different view of seed caching, reminisces one of the pioneers of the field, Russell Balda of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Bird-watchers knew that certain species store food. These include some members of the family encompassing jays and crows, as well as that of chickadees and tits. Russian and Scandinavian scientists in particular had documented the remarkable industry and seed-recovery accuracy of birds surviving in far-northern regions. Yet, says Balda, speculation about how the birds manage these retrieval heroics centered on the simplest of mental powers. Copyright ©2004 Science Service.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4969 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Snakes lead rich social lives and often bond with certain family members, a new study of rattlesnakes suggests. The research dispels the stereotype of snakes, particularly venomous ones, as antisocial loners. Instead, like humans and many other creatures, snakes seem to benefit from quality time spent with members of their own species. For the study, the litters of three timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus), born to females caught in the wild, were observed in a laboratory setting. Copyright © 2004 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 4968 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service Taking a coffee break at work may actually sabotage employees' ability to do their jobs and undermine teamwork instead of boosting it, suggests new research. Dosing up on caffeine is particularly unhelpful to men, disrupting their emotions and hampering their ability to do certain tasks, suggests a report by psychologists Lindsay St Claire and Peter Rogers at Bristol University in the UK. Many people take coffee breaks at work believing this will reduce their feelings of stress. But theories about the effects of caffeine are conflicting. Some studies suggest caffeine can worsen anxiety and trigger stress, while others show it boosts confidence, alertness and sociability, making certain tasks easier. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 4967 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tropical crooners sing when they're winning. HELEN R. PILCHER Football fans aren't the only ones to celebrate a win with a rousing song. Tropical birds called boubous do the same, a study has found. The monogamous birds sing a special 'victory duet' after they have seen potential intruders off their patch, report Ulmar Grafe of the University of Würzburg and Johannes Bitz of the German Primate Centre in Göttingen, Germany, who studied the birds. The researchers played recordings of four bird-song duets, which are often sung by boubous during contests over territory, to 18 different bird couples in Africa's Comoé National Park on the Ivory Coast. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 4966 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A new study of young mothers by researchers at University College London (UCL) has shown that romantic and maternal love activate many of the same specific regions of the brain, and lead to a suppression of neural activity associated with critical social assessment of other people and negative emotions. The findings suggest that once one is closely familiar with a person, the need to assess the character and personality of that person is reduced, and bring us closer to explaining why, in neurological terms, 'love makes blind.' In the experiment, published in February's NeuroImage online preview edition, the brains of 20 young mothers were scanned while they viewed pictures of their own children, children they were acquainted with, and adult friends, to control for feelings of familiarity and friendship (the brain regions involved in romantic love having been identified by the authors in an earlier study). The similarity of the activity recorded in this study compared to those obtained in the earlier study was striking; with activity in several regions of the brain overlapping precisely in the two studies. In summary, the findings showed that both types of love activate specific regions in the reward system, while reducing activity in the systems necessary for making negative judgements.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 4965 - Posted: 02.14.2004

Trying to reduce feelings of stress by taking a coffee break might actually increase them - particularly in men, working alone, who believe it should help them perform faster - according to new research sponsored by the ESRC. However, the study, led by Professor Peter Rogers and Dr Lindsay St. Claire at the University of Bristol, also found that men working in teams could feel less stressed after enjoying a sharp intake of caffeine. Existing theories about stress management suggest that caffeine consumption can trigger stress. However, while studies into the effects of caffeine show that it can sometimes worsen anxiety, there is also evidence that it boosts confidence, alertness and sociability as well as making us better able to perform various tasks.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 4964 - Posted: 02.14.2004

By ANDREW POLLACK In cloning human embryos and extracting universal stem cells, scientists in South Korea have taken a big step toward a tantalizing goal: growing tailor-made replacement tissues for people who are sick or injured. Imagine new cardiac muscles to restore a heart after a heart attack, insulin-producing cells for diabetics or neurons to stave off Parkinson's disease. But significant scientific barriers lie between this accomplishment and any actual therapy, experts said. Moreover, ethical objections have put such research off-limits to some scientists — including the many in the United States who rely on federal money — and lack of investment has felled many companies trying to develop cell-replacement therapies. The South Korean work is a step toward what is called "therapeutic cloning." The work so far is "proof of concept of cloning but it's not therapeutic yet," said Dr. Steven A. Goldman, chief of the division of cell and gene therapy at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 4963 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Even though there is evidence that dyslexia has a genetic basis, researchers will report new findings today (Feb. 12) that show children afflicted with the learning disability are not doomed to a life of reading difficulties. The brains of dyslexic children can be "jump-started" with a three-week-long instructional intervention to help them use the same brain areas as normal readers, leading to better reading ability. This intervention was developed at the University of Washington by Virginia Berninger. She and Elizabeth Aylward, both of the UW's multidisciplinary Learning Disabilities Center, will discuss their findings at a press briefing during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle. Also participating in the briefing will be Dr. Wendy Raskind, UW professor of medicine, who will talk about genetic influences on dyslexia. "Most people think words are just words, but the human brain uses three neural circuits to code words in three forms, not just their meaning," said Berninger, a professor of educational psychology and director of the center.

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 4962 - Posted: 02.13.2004

Scientists trying to understand and treat autism have discovered that the brains of people with autism function differently than those of normal people when they view pictures of unfamiliar people. However, when people with autism look at a picture of a very familiar face, such as their mother's, their brain activity is similar to that of control subjects. The new study indicates that in people with autism the fusiform gyrus, a region in the brain's temporal lobe that is associated with face processing, has the potential to function normally, but may need special training to operate properly, according to University of Washington researchers Geraldine Dawson and Elizabeth Aylward. They will present their findings today (Feb. 12) at a press briefing at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle. "It appears that our brains have evolved to have special processors to recognize that something is a face because faces are important in survival, in understanding emotions and in forming special relationships with others," said Dawson, director of the UW's Autism Center and a professor of psychology. "We have special and distinct regions for perceiving faces and others for perceiving objects. These regions are located in different parts of the temporal lobe. Our brain imaging studies are finding that people with autism often use object processing areas when they are looking at faces."

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 4961 - Posted: 02.13.2004

Why are some people hopelessly addicted to cigarettes, while others seemingly can quit at will? A UC Irvine College of Medicine study reveals for the first time the underlying brain mechanisms that link personality traits to nicotine addiction. It has been long established that hostile personality traits are related to cigarette dependency and smoking cessation difficulties. Now UCI researchers have found that in people who have aggressive personalities nicotine triggers significant brain activity in the areas that help control social response, thinking and planning. In turn, non-hostile people showed no brain activity increases at all to nicotine. These findings suggest that some people are born with a predisposition to cigarette addiction and helps explain why quitting for some is practically impossible. “We call this brain response a ‘born to smoke’ pattern,” said study leader Dr. Steven Potkin, professor of psychiatry and human behavior. “Based on these dramatic brain responses to nicotine, if you have hostile, aggressive personality traits, in all likelihood, you have a predisposition to cigarette addiction without ever having even touched a cigarette.” © Copyright 2002-2004 UC Regents

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4960 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GARDINER HARRIS A 19-year-old college student who had shown no outward signs of depression killed herself over the weekend at an Eli Lilly & Company laboratory in Indianapolis where she had been participating in a company drug trial for an experimental antidepressant. The student, Traci Johnson, was one of 25 healthy patients at an Eli Lilly clinic who were being given larger than therapeutic doses of duloxetine, which will be known as Cymbalta if it is introduced as an antidepressant. Four days before her death, Ms. Johnson was taken off Cymbalta and given a placebo. While Eli Lilly asserted that it had properly screened Ms. Johnson before the study started to ensure that she was healthy and had no mental problems, her death is being used by critics of a popular class of antidepressants to bolster their case that the widely used drugs carry the risk of suicidal tendencies for a small number of people, particularly young people Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4959 - Posted: 02.13.2004