By ERICA GOODE British drug regulators yesterday recommended against the use of all but one of a new generation of antidepressants in the treatment of depressed children under 18. In a letter sent to doctors and other health professionals, the government regulators said a review of data on the safety and effectiveness of the drugs, known as S.S.R.I.'s, indicated that their benefits did not outweigh their potential risks. Their effectiveness in treating depression in children, they said, has not been sufficiently demonstrated, and some drugs have been linked with suicidal thoughts and self-harm in children and adolescents. A summary of the findings was published on the Web site of the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (www.mhra.gov.uk). Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4678 - Posted: 12.11.2003

A new computer vision system for automated analysis of animal movement -- honey bee activities, in particular -- is expected to accelerate animal behavior research, which also has implications for biologically inspired design of robots and computers. The animal movement analysis system is part of the BioTracking Project, an effort conducted by Georgia Institute of Technology robotics researchers led by Tucker Balch, an assistant professor of computing. "We believe the language of behavior is common between robots and animals," Balch said. "That means, potentially, that we could videotape ants for a long period of time, learn their 'program' and run it on a robot."

Keyword: Robotics
Link ID: 4677 - Posted: 12.11.2003

The controversial Atkins diet may help reduce seizures in children with epilepsy, scientists have claimed. The high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet has been criticised by doctors who say it may be linked to illnesses including kidney disease. But experts told the American Society of Epilepsy that it could help control the condition. Some child epilepsy patients are currently on an even more restrictive diet which cuts out seizures. Both the Atkins diet and the ketogenic diet used by epilepsy patients are high in fat and low in carbohydrates and alter the body's glucose chemistry. The ketogenic diet mimics some of the effects of starvation, in which the body first uses up glucose and glycogen before burning stored body fat. (C) BBC

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 4676 - Posted: 12.10.2003

There are concerns about side effects The majority of the most commonly prescribed type of anti-depressants should not be given to children under 18, says the Department of Health. The advice follows a review by medical experts set up to look at the safety of SSRIs after concerns that they made some patients suicidal. It found the risks of certain SSRIs outweighed the benefits of treatment. However, patients taking the drugs have been told not to stop taking them without medical supervision. The expert group found there is no, or insufficient, evidence from clinical trials that benefits outweigh the risks of side effects for the following SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). (C) BBC

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4675 - Posted: 12.10.2003

Alzheimer's disease typically is not detected until well after the brain has started to deteriorate. But as this ScienCentral News video reports, scientists are finding that MRIs can detect the start of Alzheimer's long before we see any symptoms. It will happen to all of us—our brains start shrinking at around age 40. But scientists say an abnormal type of brain shrinkage occurs in people who go on to develop Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia. Researchers in the New York University School of Medicine's Center for Brain Health are using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to detect that shrinkage well before a person begins to experience symptoms like memory loss. "The current evidence for prediction is really based in individuals that already have mild impairments," says Mony de Leon, director of the Center for Brain Health. "What's unique about our study is that it's the first time predictions have been made using MRI where normal persons are the target problem. We're trying to distinguish among normal persons, which ones are destined to become abnormal or sick with memory problems." © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4674 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service Psychologists in Canada have finally proved what women have long suspected - men really are irrational enough to risk entire kingdoms to catch sight of a beautiful face. Biologists have long known that animals prefer immediate rewards to greater ones in the future. This process, known as "discounting the future", is found in humans too and is fundamental to many economic models. Resources have a value to individuals that changes through time. For example, immediately available cash is generally worth more than the same amount would be in the future. But greater amounts of money in the future would be worth waiting for under so-called 'rational' discounting. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4673 - Posted: 06.24.2010

If you think a mug of fortified eggnog is going to protect you from strokes, pour it back in the punchbowl. A new study finds that alcohol does not guard against strokes. Moderate alcohol intake--one to two drinks per day--appears to protect people from heart disease. Because strokes are similar to heart attacks in that a blood vessel clogs and starves tissue of oxygen, researchers have speculated that alcohol might protect against strokes as well. But previous studies have turned up mixed results. Hoping to settle the debate, epidemiologist Jingzhong Ding of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues examined data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, a project that performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) in the mid-1990s on 1909 middle-aged adults in the southern United States. The researchers scaled the volunteers on how much alcohol they reported consuming--from teetotalers to moderate drinkers who consumed about 14 drinks per week--and then looked at their MRI scans for signs of dead or dying brain tissue, known risk factors for stroke. The researchers also noted brain volume. Copyright © 2003 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4672 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Stockholm ceremony proceeds despite dispute. HELEN PEARSON A physician's two-month protest about his exclusion from this year's Nobel prizes is set to climax today - with two awards ceremonies on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Physicists Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield will tonight receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. They won the award in October for their contribution to the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The announcement prompted furious protests from New York-based physician Raymond Damadian1. Claiming that he invented MRI, Damadian has taken out a series of advertisements in major newspapers, including the New York Times, Britain's Daily Telegraph and Sweden's Dagens Nyheter. He declined to reveal the campaign's spiralling cost - but a single full-page ad in the New York Times costs more than $116,000, suggesting that the total could reach seven figures. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 4671 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHICAGO – High intake of dietary fats may increase the risk of progression of age-related macular degeneration, according to an article in the December issue of The Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. According to information in the article, age-related macular degeneration (AMD, a common, progressive eye disease in older people that causes blindness) is the leading cause of irreversible visual impairment and blindness in the United States and in other developed countries. Six percent to eight percent of people aged 75 and older have the advanced stages of AMD associated with blindness. It is estimated that more than eight million people have the intermediate stages of AMD, and of these about 1.3 million people will develop advanced AMD within the next five years. Johanna M. Seddon, M.D., Sc.M., of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, and colleagues evaluated the associated between dietary fat intake, including specific types of fat, on rates of progression of AMD in a large population at risk for vision loss.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 4670 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Calcium may play a key role in the detection of tastes by the tongue, according to USC researchers. Their work also offers a molecular model of how taste cells reset, allowing them to sample the bitter with the sweet. By Eva Emerson Put a caramel in your mouth and your taste buds detect the sugary substance, instantly sending a message to the brain, which interprets the signal - sweet! Trying to figure out what happens in the split-second between eating something and recognizing its sweet or bitter flavor - between detecting a taste and a signal reaching the brain - led USC neuroscientist Emily Liman to take a closer look inside the cells in the taste buds. Her findings reveal new details about how the sense of taste works. And calcium, said Liman, plays a key role in the detection of tastes by taste cells in the tongue. The research by Liman, an assistant professor of biological sciences in the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences, and graduate student Dan Liu will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this month. The paper also offers a molecular model of how taste cells reset so they are ready to detect new tastes.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 4669 - Posted: 12.10.2003

It's surprising how important faith in others is to economic relations, writes Ross Gittins. Sorry I missed you last week. I was away in New Zealand finalising my entry for the 2003 Obese Bushwalker of the Year award - the wonder is not that it's done so well, but that it's done at all. We did the 80-kilometre Heaphy track across the top tip of the South Island. Great views, heavy pack, swarms of sandflies. Recommendation: not for the overweight. Apart from the scenery, the thing that keeps me going back across the Tasman is that it's still such an innocent place. The people you deal with are less hurried, more friendly and more trusting. Copyright © 2003. The Sydney Morning Herald.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 4668 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Three new studies conducted in animals, published in the December issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry, provide evidence that misuse of the stimulant methylphenidate (Ritalin) may have long-term effects on the brain and behavior. While methylphenidate and other stimulant medications are the recommended treatments for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), based on the more than 150 controlled studies demonstrating their safety and efficacy when used as prescribed, these three studies showed changes in the brains of young (adolescent or pre-adolescent) animals that persisted into adulthood. In both animals and humans, the brain continues to develop throughout adolescence. If the current studies are applicable to humans, they could have important implications for young people who use stimulants for recreational purposes. In the first study, Dr. Cindy Brandon and her colleagues at the Finch University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School examined how low doses of methylphenidate affect dopamine cells in the brains of adolescent rats. Dopamine is a brain chemical that has been implicated in natural rewards, such as food and sex, as well as in drug abuse and addiction. The study showed that the rats experienced brain cell changes that subsequently made them more sensitive to the rewarding effects of cocaine. In the second study, Dr. William Carlezon, Jr., and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, looked at how pre-adolescent exposure to methylphenidate affected certain behaviors in rats when they reached adulthood. They found that early exposure to twice-daily injections of methylphenidate actually reduced the sensitivity to cocaine reward, but increased other behaviors that could indicate depression. The timing of exposure to methylphenidate may be important — in this study the rats were exposed at an age corresponding to childhood, whereas in the study by Dr. Brandon et al., the rats were slightly older, more akin to adolescence.

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 4667 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Carol Cruzan Morton, Globe Correspondent More than 50 years ago, US Navy doctors stationed on the Pacific island of Guam found a shocking rate of an unknown neurodegenerative disease with the fatal progressive paralysis of Lou Gehrig's disease, the tremors of Parkinson's, and the forgetfulness of dementia. Guam's indigenous Chamorro people were 50 times to 100 times more likely to suffer the symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease and ALS, than populations just about anyplace else on the planet. In one village, more than a quarter of the adults who died between 1944 and 1953 were the victims of this mysterious combination of brain illnesses. Hundreds of research papers since have investigated and dismissed a variety of suspected causes, including microbes, genes, mineral deficiencies and nerve toxins. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 4666 - Posted: 06.24.2010

An important clinical trial, sponsored by the National Eye Institute (NEI), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has provided doctors with improved prognostic indicators and treatment options for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a blinding disease that affects premature, low birthweight infants. ROP spurs the growth of abnormal blood vessels in the back of the eye. These vessels leak fluid and blood and scar the nerve tissue inside the eye, increasing the risk of retinal detachment and severe vision loss in infants. Because it follows an unpredictable course, ROP presents doctors with difficult treatment decisions. In many infants the disease spontaneously regresses and spares vision. However, in some infants ROP progresses, resulting in serious visual impairment. Although current therapy can stem its progression, many infants are still blinded by the disease. Due to a lack of clinical criteria to predict which patients will ultimately develop severe vision loss from ROP, ophthalmologists were forced previously to defer treatment until it was clearly indicated. Unfortunately, as it turns out, delaying therapy can leave infants who might benefit more from early treatment with poor visual outcomes. The Early Treatment for Retinopathy of Prematurity (ETROP) study results, published in the December issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology , demonstrated that premature infants, who are at the highest risk for developing vision loss from ROP, will retain better vision when therapy is administered in the early stage of the disease. This treatment approach was found to be better than waiting until ROP has reached the traditional treatment threshold. Just as importantly, the study also established the value of an improved risk assessment model to more accurately identify those infants who are at the highest risk for developing severe vision loss from ROP.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 4665 - Posted: 12.10.2003

Autistic savants are born with miswired neurons - and extraordinary gifts. The breakthrough science behind our new understanding of the brain. By Steve Silberman Matt Savage launched his jazz career by attempting to improve a Schubert sonata. His piano teacher told him that the G-sharp he just played was supposed to be a G-natural. "It sounds better my way," he protested. She replied that only when he wrote his own music could he take liberties with a score. Keen on taking liberties, he became a jazz composer. He released his fifth album this year, making guest appearances on the Today show, 20/20, and NPR. Recently, his trio booked two shows at the Blue Note in New York City. In May, he will celebrate his 12th birthday. Matt is a musical savant. The term savant dates from the late 19th century, when a small number of people in European asylums classified as feebleminded "idiots" were discovered to have extraordinary, even uncanny skills. One had memorized The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire after reading it a single time. Others were able to multiply long columns of numbers instantly and factor cube roots in seconds, though they could barely speak. When Matt was 3, he was diagnosed with a form of autism called pervasive developmental disorder. Autism and savant syndrome overlap, but they are not the same thing. Nine out of ten autistic people have no savant abilities, and many savants suffer from some form of neurological impairment other than autism. Savant syndrome itself is rare. The rarest of the rare is the prodigious savant, like Rain Man's Raymond Babbitt, who could memorize phone books, count 246 toothpicks at a glance, and trump the house in Vegas. Darold Treffert, the leading researcher in the study of savant syndrome, estimates that Matt is one of fewer than 50 prodigious savants alive today. Copyright © 1993-2003 The Condé Nast Publications Inc

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 4664 - Posted: 06.24.2010

High stress life may take toll on longevity. HELEN PEARSON A new study raises the prospect that shy people might die younger than extroverts. As many as 15% of children are thought to suffer from neophobia — a fear of novel but non-threatening situations such as meeting a stranger or entering a new room. They also have higher levels of stress hormones called glucocorticoids. Now researchers have found that neophobic rats die an average of three months younger than their outgoing brothers — equivalent to ten years shaved off a human life1. The scaredy-rats were chosen because they were reluctant to explore new surroundings. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 4663 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JOHN LANGONE Overcoming Dyslexia," by Dr. Sally Shaywitz. Knopf, $25.95. Early in this book about a disorder that may afflict one child in every five in America, the author dispels two widely held beliefs: that children with dyslexia are prone to seeing letters or words backward, and that the problem is linked to intelligence. "The problem is a linguistic one, not a visual one," writes Dr. Shaywitz, a professor of pediatrics at Yale. Dyslexia represents a difficulty with reading, she says, not with thinking skills, one that "does not reflect an overall defect in language," but rather a weakness in a part of the language system. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 4662 - Posted: 12.09.2003

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE Neuroscientists have given up looking for the seat of the soul, but they are still seeking what may be special about human brains, what it is that provides the basis for a level of self-awareness and complex emotions unlike those of other animals. Most recently they have been investigating circuitry rather than specific locations, looking at pathways and connections that are central in creating social emotions, a moral sense, even the feeling of free will. There are specialized neurons at work, as well — large, cigar-shaped cells called spindle cells. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 4661 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Petersburg teenager Amber Myrick shares the story of her ongoing struggle to overcome a brain tumor BY LINDSAY KASTNER, TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Now 16, she knows she wants to attend Longwood College and, someday, own her own day-care center. But the recent past is a mystery for her. "I know you're getting tired of me asking, but what was I in the hospital for?" Amber asks her mother. "You had a brain tumor removed," Cheryl Myrick says. "They get it all?" asks Amber, dressed in a denim skirt, with a brown bandanna covering her head. © 2003, Media General, Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4660 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have developed a way to measure the severity of a patient's multiple sclerosis and gauge how well drugs are working. The researchers at New York University hope it will improve both diagnosis and treatment of the disease. The technique measures the amount of a key chemical that is found in lower quantity than usual in the brain cells of MS patients. Details were revealed at a Radiological Society of North America meeting. The researchers have dubbed the new technique whole brain N-acetylaspartate (WBNAA). Lead researcher Professor Oded Gonen said: "WBNAA measures the amount of a chemical in the brain called N-acetylaspartate (NAA) that is exclusive to brain cells (C) BBC

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 4659 - Posted: 12.08.2003