By ANAHAD O'CONNOR Sudden heart-pounding panic attacks are most likely caused by abnormalities in the brain, new evidence suggests, reinforcing earlier research on animals. People with panic disorder, according to scientists at the National Institutes of Health, have drastic reductions of a type of serotonin receptor, called 5-HT1A, in three areas of the brain. The findings, reported last week in The Journal of Neuroscience, lend credence to the suspicion that serotonin dysfunction plays a role in the disorder. "This provides evidence for what we've been telling patients all along," said Dr. Dennis S. Charney, chief of the mood and anxiety disorders research program at the institutes and an author of the paper. "Panic disorder is due to a specific abnormality in the brain, not a weakness in character." Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions; Stress
Link ID: 4866 - Posted: 01.27.2004

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE — If Americans develop a disease like the human form of mad cow that worries millions of Europeans, Dr. Pierluigi Gambetti may be the man to find it. Dr. Gambetti, an Italian neuropathologist whose mild manner and penchant for cardigan sweaters make him look a bit like Mr. Rogers, is director of the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University here. For the last five years, he and his staff have been collecting brain tissue from people all over the country who die from mysterious, rapidly progressive neurological disease. Now that the first case of a cow infected with mad cow disease has been discovered in the United States, Dr. Gambetti's work has taken on new urgency. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 4865 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Assisted reproduction may affect behaviour. HELEN R. PILCHER Mice that are born from assisted reproductive technologies behave differently when adult, research reveals. Test-tube rodents are more confident than their naturally conceived counterparts, but have a poorer memory. It is extremely difficult to extrapolate from mouse behaviour studies to humans, cautions study leader Richard Schultz from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. But it raises intriguing questions. Studies are needed to see if test-tube humans are similarly affected, he says. In the Western world, around 1% of children are conceived through assisted reproductive technologies. In one common method known as in vitro fertilization, eggs are fertilized in a test tube, cultured for a short while and then returned to the womb. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4864 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have identified two proteins that may help prevent the brain plaques that are linked to Alzheimer's disease. The proteins appear to work in tandem to orchestrate removal of potentially hazardous molecules from the brain. However, unless the two are in the correct balance they actually seem to promote deposition of the amyloid protein which forms the plaques. The research, by Washington University of Medicine, St Louis, is published in the journal Neuron. The key proteins are called apoliprotein E (apoE) and clusterin. Lead researcher Professor David Holtzman said: "This is one of the first demonstrations in living animals that these proteins affect amyloid clearance. (C) BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4863 - Posted: 01.25.2004

Things were not going well for me in the summer of 1999. I was 32 years old, and while I was starting to find my feet in my new career as a photojournalist, I was living in the wake of two bad relationship break-ups and I had recently gone into therapy to help me deal with feelings of low self-esteem and a general lack of confidence. The one thing I thought I had, though, was my physical health. In my twenties I'd been a heavy drinker and smoker, but I'd long since cut back on both of these. I was eating well and exercising. I had just cancelled my private health insurance because it seemed to be a bit of a waste of money. Then, on the morning of 7 July, I got a headache. This was not a normal headache. It was the pounding, throbbing, mother of all headaches, with an intense pain behind my eyes. It was unlike anything I'd had before. Nothing could shift it. And something strange was happening to my vision. I'd look at the floor and it was as if bubbles were rising from it. I'd have the same mini-hallucination over and over again whenever I looked at a flat surface. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 4862 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NICHOLAS WADE IF you hit the weights at the gym with iron regularity, your arms may get to look a little more impressive. The right kind of training, it now appears, can do much the same for the brain, though unfortunately the enlargement can be shown off only to observers with magnetic resonance imaging machines. In a study conducted by Dr. Arne May and colleagues at the University of Regensburg in Germany, people who spent three months learning to juggle showed enlargement of certain areas in the cerebral cortex, the thin sheet of nerve cells on the brain's surface where most higher thought processes seem to be handled. They were then asked to quit juggling completely, and three months later the enlarged areas of the cortex had started to shrink. The finding, which was reported in the current issue of the journal Nature, is similar to one in a study of London cab drivers four years ago. Unlike their colleagues in New York, London cabbies must memorize the entirety of their city's streets. If some Sunday morning in London you should see a group of men on bicycles, maps balanced on the handlebars, those are apprentice cabbies, acquiring "the knowledge," as the two-year memorization of London's many small, winding streets is called. The 2000 study, also done with M.R.I. scanners, found a change in the shape of the cabbies' hippocampus, the brain module where new memories of place are stored. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4861 - Posted: 01.25.2004

A judge has given the go-ahead for a mother-of-two to receive experimental drug treatment for vCJD. The 40-year-old woman is believed to be the only current sufferer of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in Scotland. Her husband was at the Court of Session in Edinburgh to hear Lord Nimmo Smith grant authority for doctors to carry out the treatment. A neurosurgeon will now operate to install a catheter to allow the drug PPS to be released into her brain. The family involved in the case wish to remain anonymous. The judge said: "I am satisfied that the condition involves progressive deterioration and unless arrested is fatal within a relatively short time." (C) BBC

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 4860 - Posted: 01.24.2004

In the midst of a flu epidemic, some good news—researchers think they've solved the age-old medical mystery of why shy, sensitive people are more vulnerable to infectious disease. From the common cold to life-threatening infections, researchers have known for a while that shy people—whom ancient Greek physicians described as having a "melancholic temperament"—are more vulnerable to infectious diseases than their more outgoing counterparts. "We knew that these shy, sensitive introverted people were more vulnerable to infectious diseases," says Steve Cole, assistant professor of hematology-oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine and a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute. "But we didn't know why that was. What physical biology leaves them more vulnerable to these kinds of diseases?" © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 4859 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bruce Bower There's nothing like a good night's sleep to get some serious thinking done. That, at least, is the theme of two new investigations, one conducted with rodents and the other with people. Rats permitted to explore novel objects display distinctive activity throughout much of their brains. That activity reappears—even more strongly than originally—during a stage of slumber called slow-wave sleep, say neuroscientist Sidarta Ribeiro of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and his colleagues. A reprise of waking neural activity during slow-wave sleep—the longest sleep stage in rats and people—promotes recall of novel experiences, the scientists propose. Then, neural changes crucial for memory storage occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, in their view. Copyright ©2004 Science Service

Keyword: Sleep; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4858 - Posted: 06.24.2010

'Liquid' bridge could help severed nerve cells grow. HELEN R. PILCHER It may well be the smallest scaffolding in the world, and the easiest to set up. Researchers have devised a tiny self-assembling structure that they hope will help repair damaged spinal cords. Every year in the United States alone, about 15,000 people damage their spines. Few recover fully as it is difficult for damaged nerves to grow across the gap in a severed spinal cord. Researchers have tried to build bridges across these gaps, so that nerves can grow. Most of these are made out of a solid material such as collagen, but require invasive surgery that can cause extra trauma to the injury. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: Regeneration
Link ID: 4857 - Posted: 06.24.2010

In the debate over whether nature or nurture holds greater sway over sexual orientation, the balance has tipped in recent years toward genes and the uterine milieu. Now that notion is dramatically bolstered by an unusual study of children born with malformed genitals. Changing the gender of a newborn through surgery, hormonal therapy, and upbringing doesn't reliably change the gender with which the person ultimately identifies. A rare birth defect called cloacal exstrophy literally turns its victims inside out, and it leaves them with incomplete genitalia. No one knows what causes the condition, but the babies are born with their bladders and intestines hanging out of their body cavity. It hits boys three times more often than girls, and the boys are born with tiny penises. Surgeons can fit the organs back inside, but penile reconstruction is much more difficult. Instead, many surgeons lop off the miniature penis, prescribe estrogen, and advise the parents to raise their child with all the trappings of girlhood. f> Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 4856 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Brain scan may boost drug development. HELEN R. PILCHER A new test allows researchers to peer into the brains of patients and see the tell-tale protein clumps thought to underlie Alzheimer's disease. The method may help doctors with diagnosis, and should boost disease monitoring and drug development. At present, Alzheimer's disease can be confirmed only after a patient has died. Doctors use cognitive tests and brain scans to assess living patients, and can usually diagnose the disease with about 85% accuracy. But the new technique should help them catch the disease earlier, when potential treatments may work better. "It should allow us to design better clinical trials and show us if new treatments are working," says William Klunk of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who co-devised the test1. The method, which is pending approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, should be available in the clinic within three to five years, he speculates. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: Alzheimers; Brain imaging
Link ID: 4855 - Posted: 06.24.2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- It is well known that unborn babies can recognize their mothers' voices and distinguish music from noise. But exactly what they hear remains unclear. Now, scientists at the University of Florida have added a piece to the puzzle. In a series of unique experiments on a pregnant ewe designed to record exactly what sounds reach the fetal ear, UF research has bolstered previous findings suggesting that human fetuses likely hear mostly low-frequency rather than high-frequency sounds. That means they hear vowels rather than consonants and are more sensitive to the melodic parts of speech than to pitch, said Ken Gerhardt, a UF professor of communication sciences and disorders and an associate dean of the Graduate School. As for music, "they're not going to hear the violins, but they will hear the drums," said Gerhardt, who led the research reported in the November-December issue of the journal Audiology and Neuro Otology.

Keyword: Hearing; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4854 - Posted: 01.23.2004

Are you having trouble keeping that New Year's resolution to get more exercise? As this ScienCentral News video reports, scientists are finding more reasons you should stick to it. We already know that exercise is good for the heart and the body. But now there's more evidence that it's good for the brain too. "Exercise can have effects on your alertness and on your ability to learn and also changes in the brain," says Judy Cameron, a neuroscientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center run by the Oregon Health and Sciences University. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Neurogenesis
Link ID: 4853 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Learning to juggle can cause changes in the brain, scientists have found. Using brain scans, the researchers showed that in 12 people who had learnt to juggle, certain brain areas had grown. But three months later, during which time people stopped juggling, the brain had gone back to its normal size. Writing in Nature, the researchers from the University of Regensburg, Germany, say their findings challenge the view that experiences do not affect the brain. The team studied 24 people who had no juggling ability. They were scanned using voxel-based morphometry, a technique which measures concentrations of brain tissue. (C) BBC

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 4852 - Posted: 01.22.2004

Monkeys can understand the simple rules of grammar but the key element of all human languages is beyond them, a study at Harvard University has shown. The research with cotton-top tamarins shows they are able to instinctively understand finite state grammar, involving the simple pairing of words. However, they are not able to follow phrase structure grammar, the complex rules crucial to every human language. Details of the US research are published in the journal Science. "The technique that we used is one that's been long-used by people working with human infants," Harvard's Dr Marc Hauser told BBC World Service's Science In Action programme. "The basic method is that you play [the monkeys] examples of things that... fit the rule that if you have an example from the category A, you will always have, immediately following it, an example after it from the category B." (C) BBC

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 4851 - Posted: 01.22.2004

NewScientist.com news service People who suffer from panic attacks lack a key neurochemical receptor in their brains, say US researchers. Their findings throw light on the molecular mechanisms that predispose a person to anxiety. The study, led by Alexander Neumeister of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, is the first to identify a deficit in the 5HT1A receptor in living humans with panic disorder. Similar, but much smaller deficits have also been found in people with depression. The new work follows a study by Rene Hen of Columbia University, New York in 2002, which showed that knockout mice engineered to lack this type of serotonin receptor early in development show signs of anxiety in adulthood. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Emotions; Stress
Link ID: 4850 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By GARDINER HARRIS Adding to the debate over using antidepressant drugs for depressed teenagers and children, a group of prominent researchers issued a report yesterday saying that Zoloft and similar medicines did not increase children's suicide risk. The group, drawn from members of the American College of Neuro- psychopharmacology, also found that the drugs were effective in treating children's depression. "Depression in children and adults is the major illness that underlies suicide, and we believe that the S.S.R.I. class represents the medication with the greatest efficacy against this very serious condition," said Dr. J. John Mann, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University who was co-chairman of the reporting panel. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4849 - Posted: 01.22.2004

St. Louis, -- A study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests two proteins work together in mice to prevent formation of brain plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. The proteins, apolipoprotein E (apoE) and clusterin, appear to act as "chaperones" orchestrating the clearance of potentially hazardous molecules out of the brain. Ironically, these proteins also have been implicated in a key stage of plaque formation. The study appears in the Jan. 22 issue of the journal Neuron. "This is one of the first demonstrations in living animals that these proteins affect amyloid clearance," says David H. Holtzman, M.D., the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and head of the Department of Neurology. "Our findings suggest it is worthwhile to explore the use of drugs or therapies to alter or perhaps increase the expression of these proteins as a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease."

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4848 - Posted: 01.22.2004

New Haven, Conn. -- High levels of estrogen may enhance the brain's response to stress, making women more vulnerable to mental illnesses such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a Yale study. This finding may explain why stress-related mental illnesses occur at least twice as often in women as in men. It also may explain why the discrepancy in prevalence begins in women at puberty, continues through the childbearing years, and then declines in postmenopausal years, said Becca Shansky, a graduate student in neurobiology at Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the study to be published in the March issue of Molecular Psychiatry. The researchers exposed male and female rats to different levels of stress and then tested them on a short-term memory task. The authors found that without stress, males and females performed at the same level. After exposure to high levels of stress, both genders made significant memory errors. However, after exposure to a moderate level of stress, the female rats were impaired, but the males were not, suggesting that females were more sensitive to the effects of stress. Male rats performed the same with moderate stress as they did without any stress.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Stress
Link ID: 4847 - Posted: 01.22.2004