By RENEE C. LEE, Associated Press Writer DALLAS -- Hotheaded men who explode with anger seem to be at greater risk of having a stroke or dying, new research shows. Their risk is even greater than men who are simply stressed-out Type A personalities. Angry women, on the other hand, don't run as high a risk of having a stroke or heart problems, according to a study released Monday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. The study showed that men who express their anger have a 10 percent greater risk than non-hostile men of developing an atrial fibrillation, a heart flutter that 2 million Americans have. It is non-threatening for many, but it can also increase the risk of stroke. Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press

Keyword: Emotions; Stroke
Link ID: 5066 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The small, eyeless crustaceans known as Remipedia have been underestimated, scientists say. According to a report published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the creatures actually have highly organized and well differentiated brains. The findings suggest that the animals may belong further up the evolutionary tree, alongside crabs and lobsters. Discovered in 1979, Remipedia inhabit deep, dark ocean caves and use fangs and poisonous glands to kill their prey. But just how the animals should be classified amongst their fellow crustaceans is the subject of ongoing debate. To shed new light on the creatures, Martin Fanenbruck of the University of Bochum in Germany and his colleagues reconstructed the brain anatomy (see image) of the remipede Godzilliognomus frondosus. They found that the brain is surprisingly complex, considering G. frondosus’s generally slow movements and ancient body plan. The olfactory region in particular is very large, the team reports, because the creatures rely predominately on smell to locate food in their cavernous surroundings. © 1996-2004 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 5065 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Both of the leading Democratic candidates say the federal government should support embryonic stem cell research that could lead to cures for millions of patients. As this ScienCentral News video reports, a leading stem cell researcher left the U.S. to pursue that dream. South Korean scientists announced on February 12th that they had cloned human stem cells, which could be used to replace cells damaged by disease or aging. The research was announced in the U.S. but is strictly limited here, which has forced some Americans to do their research abroad. Roger Pedersen, professor of regenerative medicine at the University of Cambridge and director of the Cambridge Centre for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, decided in 2001 to leave the University of California at San Francisco for England when President Bush banned research that creates any type of human embryo. "The United States government had at that moment cancelled its plans, suspended really any consideration of funding this area of research," Pedersen says. "And I had by then dedicated my entire lab to carrying out research on human embryonic stem cells. I had to consider other options," he says. "One way would be to stop working on human embryonic stem cells, but I didn't choose that option. I chose to move to a country that was willing to provide support, broad support for this research." © ScienCentral, 2000-2004.

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 5064 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The advent of the hindbrain is an evolutionarily important event in the organization of the central nervous system. In work published in the journal Development, Shigeru Kuratani and colleagues in the RIKEN CDB Laboratory for Evolutionary Morphology revealed discrete mechanisms for segmentation and neural cell specification in a one of the most primitive species known to possess a segmented hindbrain. In vertebrates, the hindbrain is a segmented structure, subdivided into clearly demarcated units called rhombomeres, which generate specific sets of neurons. The lancelet Amphioxus, a more primitive chordate, however, lacks this hindbrain segmentation. The lamprey, a jawless fish that arose in the interval between non-vertebrate chordates (such as Amphioxus) and gnathostomes (jawed animals), provides a relevant model for studying the emergence of the hindbrain developmental plan. Yasunori Murakami in the Kuratani lab labeled reticulospinal and branchial motor neurons (which derive from rhombomeres) to reveal the neuronal organization of the hindbrain of the Japanese lamprey, Lethenteron japonicum, and studies the expression patterns of rhombomere-specific genes. They found that lamprey reticular neurons develop in conserved rhombomere-specific positions, similar to those observed in the gnathostome zebrafish. Interestingly, in lamprey the positions of other sets of hindbrain neurons —the trigeminal and facial motor nuclei — do not map neatly to rhombomeric borderlines, as they do in gnathostomes.

Keyword: Evolution; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 5063 - Posted: 06.24.2010

fMRI shows certain brain areas "light up" as we learn Memories do indeed light up the corners of our mind, just as the songwriter said. Scientific evidence for this notion comes from studies using magnetic resonance imaging to examine the living human brain. These studies show that certain brain areas "light up" as an individual is learning information. Scientists had previously established that people remember emotionally charged events and facts better than neutral ones. Now researchers at MIT have discovered that memories with an element of arousal or excitement are remembered by a different area of the brain--the amygdala--from memories of a calmer nature, which are remembered by the prefrontal cortex. These findings, published in the journal PNAS Online on Feb. 23, are an important step in understanding how the brain makes memories. Scientists hope this information will one day lead to a treatment for memory loss and learning impairments. For the study, Elizabeth Kensinger, a researcher in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Suzanne Corkin, professor of behavioral neuroscience in the same department, asked 14 men and 14 women to "learn" 150 words related to events, while the participants brains were being scanned in an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) procedure. Some of the words represented arousing events, such as "rape" or "slaughter." Others were nonarousing, such as "sorrow" and "mourning."

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Brain imaging
Link ID: 5062 - Posted: 03.02.2004

A preliminary clinical trial, conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that an investigational treatment for uveitis (pronounced yoo-vee-eye-tis) seems to have many fewer side effects than existing therapies, leading to improved quality of life for patients with this potentially blinding disease. Accounting for an estimated 10-15 percent of blindness in the United States, uveitis is a condition in which tissues in the eye become inflamed. If not properly treated, chronic inflammation causes scarring and leads to irreversible vision loss. Currently, people with severe uveitis must take steroids or other drugs that suppress the immune system to control the inflammation. Unfortunately, these powerful drugs can have many serious side effects, such as kidney dysfunction, glaucoma, osteoporosis, increased blood sugar, elevated blood pressure, and weight gain. Because their immune systems are compromised, patients must also limit contact with other people to avoid contagious illnesses. Obviously, current therapies for uveitis severely diminish a patient's quality of life. The clinical trial results, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Autoimmunity, found that once monthly intravenous infusions with an immune therapy drug called daclizumab controlled uveitis and was well tolerated in seven of 10 patients over a four-year period. The study authors also found initial evidence that a formulation of daclizumab that can be injected under the skin conferred similar results. This might allow patients to administer the drug to themselves at home, making the treatment even more convenient.

Keyword: Vision; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 5061 - Posted: 03.02.2004

By Daniel Dickinson A rat runs up and down a see-through perspex cage sniffing at a series of holes its base, where saliva samples - one positive for tuberculosis - have been randomly placed. The rat sniffs and scratches at the hole with the TB sample, and is rewarded with a small piece of banana. This is Eusebio, an African Giant Pouched rat, one of around 300 well-fed and highly-trained rodents at the Apopo research centre at the University of Sokoine in Morogoro. Scientists at the centre are hoping to radically change the way TB is diagnosed using the exceptional sniffing abilities of these rats. In early clinical tests, it has proved to be a cheap and relatively accurate diagnostic tool, one that could be copied in laboratories across the developing world. The team of scientists have been putting the rats through their paces over the last few months. (C) BBC

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 5060 - Posted: 03.01.2004

Women executives are more likely to develop an alcohol problem than junior staff, a study shows. They are also more inclined to turn to alcohol than men in similar grades, according to researchers at University College London. It is thought the stress of trying to compete with men for executive roles is partly to blame. The findings are published in the journal Occupational Environmental Medicine. About 8,000 government employees took part in the survey of men and women working at different levels in 20 departments in London. The prevalence of problem drinking among the men was roughly the same (between 10 and 12%) from clerical right through to senior executive grades. But the picture was very different for women, who made up a third of the survey sample. Women at lower grades were less likely to be problem drinkers than men in comparable grades, but they caught up with men, overtaking them at senior grades. (C) BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Stress
Link ID: 5059 - Posted: 03.01.2004

by Joy Press Lauren Slater is the closest thing we have to a doyenne of psychiatric disorder. Not only has she outflanked Elizabeth Wurtzel with smart, slippery memoirs chronicling her lifelong adventures in mental pandemonium (Prozac Diary, Lying), but she has also become The New York Times Magazine's resident expert on treatments and theories that overturn some of our most deeply held ideas about ourselves. Slater, a practicing psychologist, wrote one feature proposing that self-esteem may be dangerous; another suggested we should be repressing traumatic memories instead of airing them. "I've had my fair share of traumas," Slater wrote in her piece on repression, "and if I could learn to tamp them down and thereby prune my thorny lived-out-loud life a little, I'd be more than happy to. Go ahead. Give me a lock and key." That's funny coming from the author of multiple memoirs, but never mind—I like Slater's inconsistency. Some people spend thousands of dollars on therapy and self-help books searching for "closure," but she prefers to keep her mind dangerously ajar. Slater's latest book, Opening Skinner's Box, re-evaluates 10 crucial (and in many cases, reviled) American experiments, from António Egas Moniz's lobotomies and Harry Harlow's brutal investigations into the nature of love to Elizabeth Loftus's false memory research. But the authoritative, generic subtitle (Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century) is misleading. It suggests that Slater has swerved off the autobiographical path and embraced a more straightforward narrative, whereas these essays feel nearly as intimate as her memoirs. She dandles each experiment on her lap, delectating over its history and implications. Copyright © 2004 Village Voice Media, Inc.,

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 5058 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists believe they have taken a big step forward in their effort to be able to repair damaged nerves. Researchers at Harvard Medical School say they have had some success trying to regenerate optic nerves in rats. Writing in the Journal of Neuroscience they said while they were unable to restore sight they achieved three times more regeneration compared to others. Finding a way to re-grow nerves could lead to cures for a wide range of conditions from blindness to paralysis. Any injuries that cause damage to nerves tend to be permanent. This is because nerve cells cannot regenerate or repair themselves. Scientists around the world are working on projects aimed at finding a way to get nerves to re-grow. One of the reasons nerves are unable to regenerate is that proteins in the outer layer of nerve fibres are programmed to stop re-growth. (C) BBC

Keyword: Regeneration; Vision
Link ID: 5057 - Posted: 03.01.2004

By GARDINER HARRIS Women, the maker of Viagra has found, are a lot more complicated than men. After eight years of work and tests involving 3,000 women, Pfizer Inc. announced yesterday that it was abandoning its effort to prove that the impotence drug Viagra improves sexual function in women. The problem, Pfizer researchers found, is that men and women have a fundamentally different relationship between arousal and desire. For men, arousal almost always leads to desire. So by improving a man's ability to have erections, Viagra measurably affects his sexual function. But arousal and desire are often disconnected in women, the researchers found, to their consternation. Although Viagra can indeed create the outward signs of arousal in many women, that seems to have little effect on a woman's willingness, or desire, to have sex, the researchers said. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 5056 - Posted: 02.28.2004

Nathan Seppa A drug normally used against epilepsy can prevent migraine headaches, according to two studies. The research trials are the first to test the drug topiramate in hundreds of migraine patients. The combined results are likely to push topiramate closer to Food and Drug Administration approval for use against migraines, says neurologist Jan Lewis Brandes of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville and the research clinic Nashville Neuroscience Group. Marketed as Topamax by Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical in Raritan, N.J., topiramate is already prescribed by many doctors for migraines, even though the FDA has formally approved it only for preventing epileptic seizures, says neurologist Stephen D. Silberstein of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Copyright ©2004 Science Service.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 5055 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations BERKELEY – The debut this month of a new University of California, Berkeley, Web site devoted to evolution provides a much-needed resource for teachers as schools across the nation are being challenged to kick evolution out of the classroom or pair it with instruction in non-scientific alternatives, such as "intelligent design." The "Understanding Evolution" Web site (evolution.berkeley.edu), funded by the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and created jointly by UC Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology and the National Center for Science Education, went online in early February. It debuted just as Georgia's Superintendent of Education advocated eliminating the evolution "buzzword" from the state science curriculum and the Ohio state Board of Education voted to include some aspects of intelligent design in lesson plans about evolution. For teachers caught up in the imbroglio, or those who just want to brush up on their understanding of the theory or find an engaging lesson plan for their students, the Web site is the place to go. Copyright UC Regents

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 5054 - Posted: 06.24.2010

MADISON - When a new mom gazes at her baby, it's not just her mood that lights up - it's also a brain region associated with emotion processing, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The study, published in the current issue of NeuroImage, explored what happens in the brain when mothers are shown pictures of their babies, as well as images of unfamiliar infants. While all the photos increased the amount of activity in a part of the brain associated with emotion, the images of the mothers' own infants generally increased activity even more, suggesting that this brain region may be involved in maternal attachment. Motivations for the study originated from a lack of reliable knowledge about positive emotions, says Jack Nitschke, a neuroscientist and assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology at UW-Madison. "We know that depression and anxiety are not accompanied solely by an increase in negative emotions, but also by a decrease in positive ones," says Nitschke, lead author of the paper. "Yet we know much more about negative emotions than about positive emotions."

Keyword: Emotions; Brain imaging
Link ID: 5053 - Posted: 02.28.2004

Many animal experiments may be of little benefit to treating human disease, according to experts. Much of the research is poorly conducted and not thoroughly evaluated, say scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They are now urging a systematic review of all existing animal research before new experiments are carried out. The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, have boosted animal rights groups. However, on the same day that the BMJ paper is published, the Royal Society has produced a guide which says humanity has benefited immensely from scientific research involving animals. The society, which is the UK's national academy of science, says virtually every medical achievement in the past century has been reliant on the use of animals in some way. In contrast, the London School of Hygiene scientists question the point of some animal experiments, citing examples where research has been badly designed or where it has been carried out alongside human trials, rendering it unnecessary. (C) BBC

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 5052 - Posted: 02.27.2004

By DEAN E. MURPHY SAN FRANCISCO, — The federal appeals court here has refused to reconsider its ruling that allows Californians to grow and use marijuana to treat their illnesses. The Bush administration had asked the court, for the Ninth Circuit, to hold a new hearing on that ruling, issued by a three-judge panel in December on a lawsuit filed by two women with chronic illnesses. But in an order issued Wednesday and made public on Thursday, the court denied the request. Justice Department officials declined to comment on the order or whether it would be appealed to the Supreme Court. Medicinal-marijuana advocates said it would allow tens of thousands of people in California and six other Western states with laws that permit such marijuana use to continue it without fearing federal prosecution. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 5051 - Posted: 06.24.2010

DURHAM, N.C. -- Stress is a well known culprit in disease, but now researchers have shown that stress can intensify the effects of relatively safe chemicals, making them very harmful to the brain and liver in animals and likely in humans, as well. Even short-term exposure to specific chemicals -- just 28 days -- when combined with stress was enough to cause widespread cellular damage in the brain and liver of rats, said Mohamed Abou Donia, Ph.D., a Duke pharmacologist and senior author of the study. Results of the study were published in the Feb. 27, 2004, issue of the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. Abou Donia's study was designed to reproduce the symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome, a disorder marked by chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain, tremors, headaches, difficulties concentrating and learning, loss of memory, irritability and reproductive problems. The Gulf War Syndrome symptoms have been difficult to explain because veterans outwardly appear healthy and normal, said Abou Donia. Likewise, the chemically exposed animals in Abou Donia's studies looked and behaved normally. © 2001-2004 Duke University Medical Center.

Keyword: Stress; Neurotoxins
Link ID: 5050 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Studies point to danger of deafness and mental decline in old age MICHAEL HOPKIN Diabetics may be more prone than others to hearing loss in middle age, according to a US study. The discovery adds to a growing number of mental and neurological complications that can arise from the condition. The finding highlights the need for diabetics to undergo regular hearing checks, says Nancy Vaughan, a researcher at the US Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, who took part in the study. Diabetes is known to cause a raft of medical problems. "Diabetics undergo yearly tests of vision, kidney function and other checks," says Vaughan. "We are suggesting that hearing tests be added to these." © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 5049 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New Haven, Conn. -- Detecting and treating schizophrenia rapidly, following the onset of a first psychotic episode, improves the patients' response to treatment, according to a study by a Yale researcher. Thomas McGlashan, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, said the length of time between the onset of psychosis and detection and treatment can stretch from several weeks to several years. This time span is a concern because the patient is sick and untreated and because there is some indication that the untreated psychotic state itself may increase the risk of a poor outcome. "It looks like the longer the period of time before treatment, the worse off the patients are not only when they come into treatment, but how they respond to treatment," McGlashan said.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 5048 - Posted: 02.27.2004

David Ewing Duncan Doug Melton sighs. For hours, this Harvard molecular embryologist has been toiling in a small personal lab attached to his office in Cambridge, Mass., where he's trying to save the lives of his two children. Twelve-year-old Sam and 16-year-old Emma have been diagnosed with insulin- dependent diabetes. If Melton's research is successful, they could be spared the organ failure, blindness and heart disease that eventually afflict diabetics -- but only if Melton is allowed to continue his work by lawmakers in Washington, D.C. They worry that his methods might be immoral or dangerous and are threatening to shut down his work. Melton, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor in the Natural Sciences at Harvard University, studies the mechanisms of how embryonic stem cells form in mice and humans just after an egg is fertilized. These stem cells have the unique ability to grow into any tissue in the body -- whether of a liver, eyeball or skeleton. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Stem Cells; Obesity
Link ID: 5047 - Posted: 06.24.2010