Recent experience as the target of anti-gay violence or threats, not identifying as gay, or feeling alienated from the gay community are the major predictors of depression in men who have sex with men (MSM) and public health officials should address these issues by seeking changes in social policies, say UCSF researchers. "Hate-crime laws targeting anti-gay violence, recognition of gay relationships through same-sex marriage or domestic partnership laws, and programs encouraging gay men to 'come out' and to integrate into the gay community should be studied as ways to tackle the public health problem we found of high rates of depression among MSM," says Thomas C. Mills, MD, MPH, a retired associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) who is prinicpal author of a new study. The study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, found that MSM have depression at a rate three times greater than men in general. Rates of drug and alcohol abuse, HIV status, and socioeconomic variables were not significant predictors of depression in MSM.

Keyword: Depression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4898 - Posted: 02.01.2004

Experts fear that a hormone replacement therapy trend has gone far beyond the data By Tabitha M. Powledge Fatigued? Depressed mood? Low sex drive? Could be your testosterone is running on empty." This Web sales pitch1 comes not from one of the myriad disreputable companies peddling 21st-century snake oils such as "Libido Enhancement Cream." Rather, the site belongs to Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Marietta, Ga., which produces Androgel, a prescription testosterone-laced gel that received approval from the Food and Drug Administration three years ago. The drug is at the forefront of a campaign to convince men that they must replace the steroid hormones that ebb as they age. But some expert groups fear that the campaign for male hormone replacement therapy is running way ahead of the data, and they have launched a counter-effort to slow it down. Potential consumers need more research, according to "Testosterone and Aging," a recent report from the Institute of Medicine.2 Dan G. Blazer, a psychiatrist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, who headed the IOM study, estimates that US physicians wrote more than two million prescriptions for testosterone in 2003, excluding Internet sales. That's a dramatic increase (up from 648,000 in 1999). © 2004, The Scientist LLC, All rights reserved.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4897 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Caroline Ryan, BBC News Online health staff Children with the condition will require many operations When a baby is born, parents eagerly wait to hear if they have a boy or a girl. But in very rare cases, doctors have to help parents decide what gender their child will be. If they are affected by cloacal exstrophy, children's genitals - along with the rest of the pelvis including the bladder and the bowel - do not form normally. It is an extremely serious condition and, in the past, babies affected by it died. Developments in medical technology now mean they can be saved. But when children who are genetically male are affected by the condition, doctors have to decide if they can live as a male, or if surgery is needed to give them female genitals. Experts are divided over how this delicate decision should be approached. (C)BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4896 - Posted: 01.31.2004

by Peter Tyson How is it that the dog, alone among Earth's species, comes in so many shapes and sizes? One way to get a feel for just how diverse dogs have become is to jam your fingers down the throat of a Great Dane and then, minutes later, a Chihuahua. This is what I found myself doing at age 16 during my first full-time summer job. A large kennel near my home boarded about 100 dogs, and soon after I started working there I discovered that not only was mine to be the hand that fed and cleaned up after them, but was also to be the one to administer pills to those on medication. Eager to please my first boss, I went at it and soon became a pro at giving the pills, regardless of the patient's breed, demeanor, or jaw size. Before a dog knew what was happening, I would slip into its cage, pry its jaws apart, place the pill deep in its throat, retract my saliva-streaked hand, and rub its neck vigorously to work the pill down. I was only bitten once. Though my thoughts at the time largely ran to girls and sports, I do remember thinking how amazing it was that the Dr. Seussian mélange of creatures in my care all belonged to the same species. If had I stopped to wonder why they and Canis familiaris as a whole came in so many flavors, I probably would have told myself because we've been breeding them for those flavors for thousands of years. ©2004 WGBH Educational Foundation.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 4895 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JANE E. BRODY It is commonly assumed in this therapy-oriented world that nearly every grieving person can benefit from bereavement counseling or therapy. But both the experience of psychologists who provide bereavement services and a thorough review of the literature on the results of grief therapy suggest otherwise. Rather, the findings suggest, a majority of people who suffer the loss of a loved one neither need nor benefit from participation in a bereavement group or from more formal grief therapy. These people experience what might be called a normal grief reaction, and the symptoms of it gradually diminish over 6 to 18 months. "Feeling grief is the burden we face because we're capable of becoming attached and loving people," said Dr. Robert Hansson, a psychologist and student of grief at the University of Tulsa. "It's a natural process. It hurts, but most people can work through it and go on." Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Emotions
Link ID: 4894 - Posted: 01.31.2004

Scans have pinpointed circuits in the monkey brain that could be precursors of those in humans for speech and language. As in humans, an area specialized for processing species-specific vocalizations is on the left side of the brain, report Drs. Amy Poremba, Mortimer Mishkin, and colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center (CC), components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the University of Iowa. An area near the left temple responded significantly more than the same area on the right only to monkey calls, not to other animal calls, human voices or various other sounds. The researchers published their findings in the January 29, 2004 Nature. "Since it's in the left temporal lobe and specialized for vocalizations only, it bears intriguing similarities to human language," noted Mishkin. "Assuming this is an adaptive mechanism, it suggests that vocalizations can be deciphered better if they are processed by only one temporal pole rather than by both." Scientists have known for years that the human brain processes speech on the left side of the brain, but they only had hints that this is also the case for non-human primates. For example, when a monkey hears a call from behind, it characteristically turns its head to the right, suggesting that the primitive vocalizations are being processed in the left hemisphere, which receives greater input from the right ear than from the left. Also, a monkey's ability to perceive such calls is impaired if it lacks the left auditory cortex, but not the right.

Keyword: Language; Laterality
Link ID: 4893 - Posted: 01.31.2004

By DENISE GRADY Responding to criticism from conservatives, the director of the National Institutes of Health has told lawmakers the government should continue to pay for studies of sexual behavior because they could have a powerful impact on public health. Last fall, the Traditional Values Coalition accused the institutes of paying for "smarmy projects" and studies of "bizarre sexual practices with little or no bearing on public health." The group asked Representative Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, to investigate. Among the projects were a study of truckers, prostitutes, drug use and sexually transmitted diseases, and studies of sexual behavior in older men, sexual risk-taking and sexual dysfunction. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4892 - Posted: 01.30.2004

By JANE GROSS RDSLEY, N.Y., — When Phyllis Lombardi lets her 6-year-old son, Joey, play in her yard here, she cannot take her eyes off him because he is autistic, barely speaks and might bolt into traffic. But a fence costs more than the Lombardis can afford since they moved to this Westchester County village last year. Ardsley has state-of-the-art autism programs, but also real estate prices that have forced the family into a rental just a block from the Saw Mill River Parkway. It was desperation that brought the family here from Rockland County, when Mrs. Lombardi joined an army of parents, their frustration growing as their numbers increased, facing a crisis of supply and demand when their autistic children reach school age. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 4891 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Whether it's English, Chinese, or French, language is part of what makes us uniquely human. Yet monkeys have a vocabulary as well--coos, grunts, screeches, barks, and warbles--and new research suggests that they process these sounds in roughly the same part of the brain that people use to make sense of speech. The findings could have implications for understanding the evolution of human language. Monkeys tend to turn their right ear toward calls from other monkeys. This habit suggests that monkeys, like humans, do most "language" processing on the left side of the brain, which receives input from the right ear. To further investigate how monkey calls are handled in the brain, neuroscientist Amy Poremba of the University of Iowa in Iowa City and collaborators at the National Institute of Mental Health used positron emission tomography to monitor the brain activity of rhesus monkeys as they listened to six types of sounds: monkey calls, nonvocal sounds such as dripping water, human speech, ambient background noise, music, and nonprimate sounds such as those of whales, birds, or dogs, as well as scrambled monkey calls. Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 4890 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has launched a new initiative to speed research on nervous system repair and protection in MS, a disease that attacks the brain and spinal cord. The Society has invited proposals from research teams to compete for grants of up to $5.5 million each to pave the way for clinical testing of repair and protection strategies in people with MS. "The pace of research in nervous system repair is accelerating dramatically," comments Stephen C. Reingold, PhD, the Society's Vice President of Research Programs. "With this initiative, we are aiming to have in place non-invasive tools that can determine the clinical success of any of several promising repair techniques that may be tested in the future to protect and restore nerve function in persons with MS." These are the largest grants ever offered by any agency for tissue protection and repair in MS, and potentially the most expensive single grants in the 58-year history of the National MS Society. The Society funds more MS research, offers more services for people with MS, and provides more professional education programs than any other MS organization in the world.

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 4889 - Posted: 01.30.2004

Study reveals antibodies can kill brain cells. HELEN PEARSON Antibody therapies designed to treat the human form of mad cow disease could backfire, warn US scientists. The group investigated the proteins called prions that cause the rare brain disorder variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD) and its farmyard equivalent, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Prions cause disease when they take on a misshapen form, accumulate in the brain and kill off nerve cells. Some research groups are trying to prevent this by using antibodies that grab hold of normal prions and prevent them from transforming into the harmful configuration. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 4888 - Posted: 06.24.2010

MADISON - A pint-sized, tree-dwelling Brazilian monkey has proven to be strikingly similar to humans when it comes to sexual responses, a national research team has discovered. Through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and collaborating institutions for the first time peered into the brains of fully conscious nonhuman primates to learn what's really on their minds when it comes to sex. The research appears in the February 2004 issue of the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Common marmosets, like humans, live in family groups and have to make careful choices when confronted with the scent of an attractive female, a team of marmoset experts led by Charles T. Snowdon, UW-Madison professor of psychology, discovered.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4887 - Posted: 01.30.2004

By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer Makers of popular antidepressants such as Paxil, Zoloft and Effexor have refused to disclose the details of most clinical trials involving depressed children, denying doctors and parents crucial evidence as they weigh fresh fears that such medicines may cause some children to become suicidal. The companies say the studies are trade secrets. Researchers familiar with the unpublished data said the majority of secret trials show that children taking the medicines did not get any better than children taking dummy pills. Although the drug industry's practice of suppressing data unfavorable to its products is legal, doctors and advocates say such secrecy distorts the scientific record. © Copyright 1996-2004 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4886 - Posted: 06.24.2010

UK reclassification prompts dope debate. HELEN R. PILCHER This Thursday sees the downgrading of cannabis from a class B to a class C drug in Britain, putting it on a par with tranquillizers and steroids. Many people welcome the move, but it has also sparked controversy. Some caution that cannabis can trigger mental illness, whereas others maintain that the drug is medically useful. In Britain, drugs are grouped into three categories. Class A drugs include heroin and morphine, class B drugs include amphetamines and barbiturates, and those in class C, now including cannabis, are judged to be the least damaging. Under the reclassification, the possession, production and supply of marijuana are still illegal, but the penalties are different. Adults found carrying the drug are now more likely to receive a warning than a prison sentence. And the maximum prison sentence for possession has dropped from five to two years. Legally, this brings Britain in line with some European countries such as the Netherlands, although in practice these laws are likely to be more strictly enforced in Britain. An estimated three million people in Britain take cannabis each year, some for medicinal reasons, but most for recreational use. This includes one-quarter of those aged between 16 and 24.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4885 - Posted: 01.29.2004

Hundreds of thousands of strokes could be prevented each year by a simple mesh cylinder that diverts blood clots away from the brain, claims the company that developed the device. It was implanted in a patient for the first time late in 2003. Strokes are the second most common cause of death in the western world, and those who survive are often left disabled. The most common cause is a blood clot elsewhere in the body breaking off and travelling to the brain, where it blocks one of the small blood vessels. This deprives cells of oxygen, killing off part of the brain. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 4884 - Posted: 06.24.2010

As the National Institute for Clinical Excellence launches guidelines on the treatment of eating disorders, BBC News Online talks to one woman about her experience. Ann Cox remembers starting to over-eat when she was aged 11, something she believes was triggered by her anxiety about moving to secondary school. "We had a walk-in pantry. I was an only child, so I had to be very deceitful, and I couldn't blame anyone else if food went missing. "I can remember being terrified of being discovered by my parents. But I was compelled to do it. I was addicted." Ann over-ate throughout her teens - but was never discovered because she was naturally thin. "As an only child, I felt everyone knew everything about me. "Over-eating was something I was addicted to. But it was also something that was my secret, something I had control over." (C)BBC

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 4883 - Posted: 01.29.2004

Teenagers suffering from depression may have abnormal brain structure, according to new research. An article published in BMC Medicine this week shows that adolescents diagnosed with major depressive disorder tend to have a small hippocampus - a part of the brain associated with motivation, emotion, and memory formation. Researchers from Dalhousie University and the National Research Council of Canada studied 34 adolescents between the ages of 13 to 18 years old, half of whom were suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD). Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) they scanned each volunteer's brain and measured the volume of their left and right hippocampuses. The hippocampus of patients with MDD was, on average, 17% smaller than that of controls. The size difference was particularly evident in the left hippocampus, where the average volume was 2.53cm3 in patients with depression and 3.05 cm3 in those without.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4882 - Posted: 01.29.2004

By REUTERS Researchers have identified brain lesions in some victims of migraines, a finding that could indicate that those severe headaches can be a symptom of progressive brain-damaging disease, a new study says. The research, which has possible implications for treatment, involved 295 Dutch adults 30 to 60 years old, some of whom had migraines along with vision problems while the others had migraines without any such problems. They were compared with 140 similar people who were migraine-free. Using magnetic resonance images, the researchers found that for patients with both migraines and visual problems, the risk of cerebral infarction — the death of tissue due to lack of oxygen when a blood clot blocks an artery — was 13 times as high as the risk within the group that had no migraines at all. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 4881 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists at Northwestern University have discovered new clues into the chain of events that causes Alzheimer’s. As this ScienCentral News video reports, they wanted to settle the debate about plaques that form in the brain. Researchers have known for a while that plaques of protein in the brain play a role in Alzheimer's disease, the progressive, degenerative brain disease that currently devastates over 4 million Americans. These plaques are called beta-amyloid plaques, or "senile" plaques, and are thought of as the hallmark brain lesions of Alzheimer's. But brain researchers at Northwestern University's Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center wanted to know if the plaque was just a symptom, or the cause of the disease. John Disterhoft, physiology professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern, studied this in mice. Disterhoft and his team genetically altered a strain of mice so that they would be prone to get Alzheimer's. They did this by giving the mice a human gene that causes excess formation of amyloid precursor protein, or APP. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4880 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Alzheimer's disease researchers say they can use brain scans to detect the disease early—before it consumes people's memories, and their lives. As this ScienCentral News video reports, the new approach could help prevent Alzheimer's. Much of the research into Alzheimer's disease, the progressive, degenerative disease of the brain that devastates roughly 4 million people in the U.S. today, goes toward coming up with treatments for patients who already have it. But some scientists are working on detecting this slow-developing disease before a patient gets it. George Bartzokis, professor of neurology at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, director of the UCLA Memory Disorders and Alzheimer's Disease Clinic and Clinical Core director of the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, closely analyzed MRI scans of 250 men and women's brains over three years to study the organ's internal "wiring." In healthy people, the wiring is coated with a fatty tissue called myelin, which has the highest cholesterol count of any brain tissue. The high amount of cholesterol allows the myelin to tightly wrap itself around the neurons, nerve cells that transmit messages to each other electrochemically, acting as a kind of natural "insulation." © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4879 - Posted: 06.24.2010